“A Gun for Dinosaur” was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1956. You can read it on Archive.org. It is story #9 of 22 for The Best SF Stories of 1956 group read. “A Gun for Dinosaur” was a finalist for the 1956 Hugo Award for best novelette, and has been reprinted often. Read the Wikipedia entry for more details about the history of this story.

The first time I read “A Gun for Dinosaur” I thought it just another ho-hum story of big game hunters time traveling to the past to kill big dinosaurs. It lacked the surprise punch of “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, nor did it have the fun sneering satire of “Poor Little Warrior” by Brian Aldiss. This time around I liked “A Gun for Dinosaur” a lot more, mainly because I paid closer attention to the details L. Sprague de Camp used to paint his story.

It’s interesting that the three stories about time travel and dinosaurs involve big game hunting. Even in de Camp’s 1956 story, he thinks big game hunting has become less popular and must justify the sport in the story. Also, I’m sure de Camp wrote “A Gun for Dinosaur” in a kind of reply to Bradbury’s 1952 “A Sound of Thunder.” By the time Aldiss got around to writing about hunting dinosaurs in 1958, his “Poor Little Warrior” demolishes the theme with biting words. But if you read below, I found eight anthologies devoted to science fiction and dinosaurs. I can’t imagine how the theme could be covered uniquely every time.

“A Gun for Dinosaur” is told within a frame. Time-travel safari guide, Reginald Rivers starts the story by telling a Mr. Seligman why he can’t take him hunting for late-Mesozoic dinosaur. He explains to Seligman that he doesn’t weigh enough to handle a gun powerful enough to kill a dinosaur. First, Rivers goes into describing the kinds of guns needed and why Mr. Seligman is too small and light to use them. To further justify rejecting Mr. Seligman, Rivers tells the story about taking two men, Courtney James, and August Holtzinger, back to the past, and how Holtzinger’s failure to handle a large bore rifle cost him his life, and nearly ruined Rivers’ safari business.

Most of “A Gun for Dinosaur” is Rivers’ account of hunting with James and Holtzinger. It reminds me a bit of Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The story is about human personalities, rather than dinosaurs. De Camp could have written the same essential story set in Africa hunting elephants. I think that’s why I was somewhat bored with the story the first time I read it. Then I glazed over all the dinosaur information to follow the plot. This time I marveled more about the setting and was impressed with the details de Camp had to know to write the story. De Camp later revised the story for his collection Rivers of Time to update the science.

While reading “A Gun for Dinosaur” I kept thinking that I’ve read many science fiction stories about time travel back to the age of dinosaurs, but except for Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer and the Bradbury and Aldiss short stories, I couldn’t recall the names of any of the others. With the help of ISFDB.org I found eight anthologies devoted to dinosaurs in science fiction. Although, I don’t know if all of them involve time travel.

Click the links to see the table of contents:

• Dinosaurs! edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Dinosaurs II edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Dawn of Time: Prehistory Through Science Fiction edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Joseph Olander, and Robert Silverberg
• Dinosaurs edited by Martin H. Greenberg
• Behold the Mighty Dinosaur edited by David Jablonski
• Return of the Dinosaurs edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Mike Resnick
• Dinosaur Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Mike Resnick
• The Science Fictional Dinosaur edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverber

Also, while poking around ISFDB.org I saw that “A Gun for Dinosaur” was first anthologized in The World That Couldn’t Be and 8 Other Novelets from Galaxy edited by H. L. Gold. It reprints nine stories from 1954-1959, three of which I’ve read, and two of which I especially love, “Brightside Crossing” by Alan E. Nourse and “The Music Master of Babylon” by Edgar Pangborn. Since I’ve been reviewing stories from this period, I decided I needed to track down a copy. Checking my Goodreads revealed I already own the paperback — cool!

My buddy Mike, who is reading these stories with me, didn’t really like “A Gun for Dinosaur.”

"A Gun for Dinosaur" is an insubstantial time travel story that reminds me of the Winston book Danger: Dinosaurs! by Richard Marsten (Evan Hunter), which was published a few years before.
Lots of action and dinosaurs and stock characters. It aims low and hits the target. 

That could have been my reaction the first time I read “A Gun for Dinosaur.” And Mike is right, the story is full of action with stock characters. However, this time I thought more about how de Camp wrote the story. I believe the story is well told but its quality is not literary, but quality pulp fiction. I like how de Camp mixed African and Indian safari terms into the story. I know L. Sprague de Camp was a world traveler and was quite a scholar. I believe he wrote as much nonfiction as science fiction, and “A Gun for Dinosaur” reflects that. De Camp includes lots of facts without sounding like he’s info-dumping.

I figure I’ll reread “A Gun for Dinosaur” in the future. In the last third of my life, I’ve discovered that fiction, either printed or on screen, gets better on rereading and rewatching. I wonder what Mike would think if he reread “A Gun for Dinosaur” in ten years. I might like it even more in ten years — if I’m around. Come back in a decade and I’ll let you know.

James Wallace Harris, 12/15/23