Jurassic Park brought dinosaurs into our world. The Dinosaur Four takes you into theirs.

A small chunk of building containing a cafe vanishes from downtown Denver and appears on a riverbank in the late Cretaceous. Ten people are inside the cafe. Not all of them want to return home.

Not all of them want to return home? Nice setup. Tell us more; what genre is this?
The Dinosaur Four is a sci-fi thriller with strong action-adventure elements. It also plays out a bit like a classic disaster movie. You aren’t really sure who will emerge as the hero… or the villain.

Oh OK. Introduce us to some of these ten people.
Tim MacGregor is a young man who just fell in love for the first time. He’s at the cafe to meet his new girlfriend for their fourth date.

William Crockett is a delivery truck driver and single father. While some of the others argue about who should be in charge, William is focused on getting back to his sons.

Lisa Danser is the cafe’s owner and a bit of a worrier and over-thinker.

Al Stevens visits the cafe almost every day because he has a crush on Lisa. When things go bad, Al seizes an opportunity to get noticed.

The novel is titled The Dinosaur Four, and you’ve only introduced us to four characters. Is there a bit of a clue in that – or are we overthinking everything?
Mild Spoilers!

The title works a bit like Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians.

Ten people go back in time. After two are killed, the others discover that they might be able to get back home. One of them gets excited and speculates that they could become famous. “What will the press call us? The Prehistoric Eight!”

At this point, you realize how many more deaths are coming (or at least you think you do), but you don’t know which ones will survive…

It must be quite a task to create ten distinct characters.
There is a little of me in each of my characters. I take traits I see in myself, including traits I’m not proud of, and twist them and expand them in my characters.

Who is the book aimed at?
I wrote The Dinosaur Four for the “geek” crowd: guys who line up for the latest blockbuster movie. Guys who love dinosaurs. I’ve been surprised by how well it has been received (and reviewed) by women.

The Dinosaur Four is not for kids. It isn’t hardcore, but there is plenty of violence, profanity, and adult themes.

Is that your crowd? The geeks?
I always loved escapism and wanted to be an entertainer. For sixteen years, I worked as a video game designer, playing with licenses such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Spiderwick Chronicles, Conan the Barbarian, and LEGO. The games industry is too turbulent though. Every studio I worked for has shut down.

Now I work in a “real job,” but I turned to writing so that I could continue to be an entertainer.

Do you have a website?
Visit www.GeoffJonesWriter.com. You’ll find blog posts with book reviews and dinosaur news. You can also watch a video interview about the writing of The Dinosaur Four.

What about social media?
Follow me on Twitter @Jonesy_Geoff and visit me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dinosaur-Four/646686792052060.

What’s next for you?
I’m working on another story about ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, but on a much larger scale. Stay tuned!