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"A Gun for Dinosaur" is a classic time travel science fiction story〔Miller, P. Schuyler. "The Reference Library," in ''Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction'', v. 71, no. 5, July 1963, p. 87.〕〔D'Ammassa, Don. "de CAMP, L. Sprague," in ''Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers'' (3rd ed.), Chicago : St. James Press, c1991, p. 192.〕〔Turtledove, Harry. "Introduction," in ''Years in the Making: The Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp'', Framingham, MA : NESFA Press, 2005, p. 12-13.〕 written by L. Sprague de Camp as part of his Rivers of Time series.〔 It tells the story of four men who travel into the past to hunt and kill dinosaurs. It was first published in the magazine ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' for March, 1956, and first appeared in book form in the anthology ''The World That Couldn't Be and 8 Other SF Novelets'' (Doubleday, 1959).〔〔 It has since been reprinted in numerous other anthologies, including ''The Time Curve'' (1968), ''3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' (1972), ''Dawn of Time'' (1979),〔〔 ''Science Fiction A to Z'' (1982), ''Grand Masters' Choice'' (1989), ''Dinosaurs!'' (1990), ''Dinosaurs'' (1996), ''Timescapes: Stories of Time Travel'' (1997), ''The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 1'' (1999), ''The World Turned Upside Down'' (2005), and ''The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century'' (2005),〔 as well as such collections of de Camp's work as ''A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales'' (1963), ''The Best of L. Sprague de Camp'' (1978),〔〔 ''Rivers of Time'' (1993), and ''Years in the Making: the Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp'' (2005).〔 It has been translated into French,〔 German, Italian,〔〔 Czech, Dutch,〔 and Spanish, and adapted into radio and comic book form.〔〔(Willis, Jesse. "X Minus One: A Gun For Dinosaur based on the short story by L. Sprague de Camp," August 30, 2011. )〕 ==Plot summary== The story takes the form of a first-person narrative by the protagonist, time-traveling hunter Reginald Rivers told to Mr. Seligman, a prospective client of his time safari business; Seligman's contributions to the conversation are omitted, and must be inferred from those of Rivers. Rivers informs the client he is not big enough to hunt the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period, illustrating his point with an extended anecdote from a previous expedition, which forms the main portion of the tale. On the occasion in question, Rivers and his partner Chandra Aiyar conduct two other clients to the past. One of them, Courtney James (based on Jack Parsons), is a vain, arrogant and spoiled playboy; the other, August Holtzinger, is a small, timid man recently come into wealth (time safaris are not cheap). Before the journey, they test-fire some guns on the firing range to settle on weapons for each of them. Holtzinger's small size makes him incapable of effectively handling a heavy-caliber weapon (the recoil knocks him over) and, against his better judgment, Rivers lets Holtzinger travel on the safari with a lighter caliber weapon. James proves unmanageable, shooting at every creature in sight and spoiling Holtzinger's shots. Ultimately James' foolishness gets him in real trouble, when he inadvertently empties his rifle over a slumbering ''Tyrannosaurus'', which consequently wakes and makes for him. Holtzinger defends James by shooting the dinosaur, but his gun is not powerful enough to kill it, and his act only attracts it toward the shooter. Despite the best efforts of Rivers and Aiyar to save Holtzinger, the ''Tyrannosaurus'' snaps him up and makes off with him. A furious quarrel with James ensues, he and the guides each blaming the other for their companion's death. James tries to kill Rivers, but is knocked out by Aiyar. Afterwards he swears revenge. Later, after the expedition has returned to the present, James bribes Professor Prochaska, the scientist operating the time chamber, to send him back to the Cretaceous again—but at a point just prior to the emergence of the safari's earlier visit. His plan is to shoot Rivers the moment the latter originally came out of the time machine. Since that obviously had not happened, however, the space-time continuum avoids the paradox by spontaneously snapping James back to the present, the forces involved instantly killing him. Concluding his tale, Rivers makes his point with Seligman by emphasizing Holtzinger's fate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「A Gun for Dinosaur」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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