As a girl, Portia Oakeshott dreamed of caring for the reconstructed dinosaurs roaming the preserve near the south pole of her balmy home planet, New New South Wales.
As a graduate from the planet’s top veterinary school and a recent hire by the dinosaur preserve, caring for dinosaurs brings Portia into conflict with land-coveting ranchers, spoiled teenagers, villainous millionaires, religious fanatics, and scheming politicians.
Her adventures take her from the “big smoke” to the “back of Bourke”—from the bustling city of Port Bounty, across a continent of vast fields where farmers raise pigs containing cloned human organs, to the lush Cretaceous forests where dinosaurs roam at the bottom of a world.
These five short fictions include Riddlepigs and the Cryla and Minnie and the Trekker, previously published in Analog magazine.
Portia Oakeshott, Dinosaur Veterinarian
Portia’s heart quickened. A chance to treat an injured dinosaur! Creatures reconstructed from fossilized bone, genetic extrapolation from modern birds, imagination, and Aussie pride....
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Riddlepigs and the Cryla
First published in Analog!
As a girl, Portia Oakeshott dreamed of caring for the reconstructed dinosaurs roaming the preserve near the south pole of her home planet, New New South Wales.
As a new hire at the dino company, Portia’s first call sends her to an isolated farmhouse and across the perimeter into the preserve itself, in pursuit of a rogue carnivore, a female Cryolophosaurus. A cryla.
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Winner and the Poacher
As a girl, Portia Oakeshott dreamed of caring for the reconstructed dinosaurs roaming the preserve near the south pole of her home planet, New New South Wales.
As a consultant to law enforcement, Portia confronts stark evidence of a rich young man’s crime: the mounted head of a massive herbivorous Wintonotitan. A winner.
A dinosaur the company never granted a permit for hunting.
Journeying to the bottom of the world in the sunless week of latewinter, Portia and a policeman must unravel a web of sins and lies to build an airtight case.
And survive the desperate acts of the guilty.
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Minnie and the Trekker
As a young girl, Portia Oakeshott dreamed of caring for the reconstructed dinosaurs roaming the preserve near the south pole of her home planet, New New South Wales.
Today, caring for dinosaurs means tending to a female Minmi—a minnie—mindlessly tending a clutch of eggs smashed and devoured by an unknown predator.
Back at base, caring for dinosaurs means identifying the predator. Before it wreaks more havoc on the fragile ecosystem of the preserve.
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Kunbarra and the Whiteants
The company’s mission to deploy a new breed of Kunbarrasaur runs into religious fanatics protesting the restoration of extinct species.
Fanatics capable of sabotage.
Or worse.
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Loovy and the Lava
As a volcanic eruption devastates the dinosaur preserve, company headquarters orders Portia to rescue two politicians playing tourist in the path of a lava flow.
She must decide on her own what to do for a Diluvicursor—a loovy—caught on the track of destruction.
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