Reginald Rivers is the teller of this tale; he spins the yarn for a prospective customer who wishes to hunt dinosaurs in the Cretaceous epoch.

But Rivers cautions the man that he is too light to hunt dinosaurs safely; the gun a small man can safely handle is too small in caliber to knock down the predators of the Cretaceous and Jurassic—and being able to knock one down is very important. Rivers, an engaging and clever character, matches perfectly with the time-honored sterotype of the unflappable big game hunter who had once tracked and brought down lions and tigers and other now almost extinct exotic animals. Throughout "A Gun for Dinosaur," he maintains a relaxed, humorous, and mellow tone even when people are being mauled; he conveys with his understated diction the sense that he is a thorough professional—he wants...