⭐️
I really wanted to love this book. The concept of soldiers dropped into a jungle swarming with dinosaurs? That’s the kind of wild, pulpy setup I’m absolutely here for. On paper, Primitive War sounds like it should be a blast—tense, brutal, chaotic, full of suspense and prehistoric carnage. And to be fair, the idea is fantastic. But sadly, the execution just didn’t work for me.
By the time I was about a quarter of the way through, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the writing style. It’s incredibly repetitive, to the point where it actually pulled me out of the story. So many sentences read like, “Leon did this. Leon felt this. Then Leon moved over here.” I get that there are several characters in a scene and the writer’s trying to keep things clear, but when you’re sticking closely to one character’s POV, there’s no need to keep hammering their name into every line. It started to feel robotic, like reading a checklist rather than an immersive narrative.
And then there’s the dialogue. Much of it felt unnatural, and in some scenes, it was completely unnecessary. Characters would say things that didn’t feel like how people actually talk, especially in high-stress situations. It often seemed like the dialogue was there to fill space or explain things the reader could already figure out, which just made the pacing drag even more.
There’s clearly a cool, cinematic vision behind this book, and I can see why it’s gained a following. But the writing—flat, repetitive, and poorly structured—really killed the momentum for me. It’s hard to get swept up in a dangerous, dinosaur-infested jungle when you keep getting tripped up by clunky sentences and stilted conversations.
The one star is purely for the concept. With stronger writing and tighter editing, this could have been something truly memorable. As it stands, though, it just didn’t live up to its potential.
Gareth Ellis - Author 