Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the story:


Petting Zoo by Gene Wolfe

This story is part of the The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction group collection discussion.

★★★

Synopsis
A man stands in line at a zoo to get a ride on a talking purple dinosaur which he genentically engineered as a boy. Both man and beast have been reeducated.

Review
One of Wolfe’s rare humorous stories. It reminds of Calvin and Hobbes with its absurdity. But the nearly children friendly tone is deceptive and there is a sting in the ending: Loss of individuality and conformism.

A purple dinosaur is almost surely inspired by Barney the Dinosaur, beloved of small children and mocked by adults. (I think Spongebob Squarepants now has Barney's niche in the preschool ecosystem.)

This story may be light, but it has a bite at the end. I liked it quite a bit.

Now exactly Jurassic Park, is it?