The Sea Witch by Frank Frazetta note .
Our Lady of the Sauropods is a Science Fiction short story by Robert Silverberg first published in Omni magazine September 1980.
When a scientist becomes stranded on a prehistoric habitat populated with dinosaurs referred to as "Dino Island" after her module malfunctions, she has to survive for thirty days alone while avoiding predators, starvation and madness.
The short story can be found in several Science Fiction anthologies including “The Palace at Midnight” and “The Mammoth Book of Monsters”. Silverberg’s short story is the earliest example of genetically-engineered dinosaurs in fiction, predating more well known works such as John Brosnan’s Carnosaur and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park.
Tropes
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The story takes place in the near future where cloning of extinct species and routine space-travel are possible.
- Ambiguous Situation: Anne speculates that her Module either malfunctioned or Sarber may have sabotaged it in order to kill her off, it is not confirmed which is true.
- Apocalyptic Log: The story is told through the narrators diary entries.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Anne comes to believe that Bertha the Brachiosaurus is a loving leader of all the dinosaurs.
- Irony: The Narrator mentions an incident with a Tyrannosaurus in San Diego, this idea would actually get realized over 15 years later on the silver screen in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
- Jurassic Farce: Unbuilt, Silverberg’s short story actually predates the Michael Crichton novel by a decade, however they both have similarities. After humans have been able to successfully clone dinosaurs through DNA and housed them together on a biological preserve, there is now an in-universe debate about wether the public should be allowed to pay for dinosaur tours.
- Living Dinosaurs: Humans have managed to clone about a dozen dinosaur species through DNA and have created “Dino Island” an off-world artificial ecosystem to house them.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The dinosaurs might all be sentient and capable of telepathically communicating with one another, or the narrator is simply losing her mind.
- Minimalist Cast: Only two human characters that appear in the story are the narrator Anne and Sarber.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Lampshaded, about a dozen different dinosaur species on “Dino Island” from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. However they were all cloned from DNA and placed onto the habitat together.
- The Nameless: The narrator is this for most the story until the very end when Sarber arrives on the habitat and says the characters name — Anne.
- Space Station: The habitat is a man-made space station in orbit near Earth.
- Superior Species: Anne comes to believe the dinosaurs are this to humans.
- Unreliable Narrator: The story leaves it ambiguous wether Anne is simply descending into madness or the dinosaurs are actually sentient.
