Denis R. O'neill
Author, Screenwriter & Producer
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The Author’s Second Book
Canis Dirus
Author’s Note
Wolves have always intrigued me. It probably started with Little Red Riding Hood. In 1995, Ted Turner advanced my wolf knowledge considerably when he hired me to write an animated screenplay about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. They had been wiped out in the 1920’s, and their absence in the park led to a massively unbalanced ecosystem. Removal of an apex predator can do that. Scientists call it a “trophic cascade” when the elimination (or addition) of a critical element leads to cascading (or rippling) effects up and down the plant and animal world. I went into the park in the middle of the winter with the US Fish & Wildlife biologists overseeing the project and saw the very first two wolves (canis lupus) they had captured in Alberta and brought south to the park… to be held in “soft enclosures” for three weeks before their release into the wild.
Not long after, a trip to La Brea Tar Pits museum in Los Angeles, exposed me to their prehistoric cousins, canis dirus, or dire wolf. Haunchier and a little heavier than modern day wolves, dire wolves had the run of California until their mass extinction at the end of the Pleistocene Era, ten thousand years ago, when the last glaciers melted away. Their disappearance – along with a “dire wolf” postcard I bought at the museum depicting a rather nasty creature – was food for dramatic thought.
What if a pack of dire wolves had somehow survived in a high Sierra cavern, and for ten thousand years had mutated into bigger, stronger, almost supernatural versions of their all-too-real-prehistoric selves. And what if, somehow, they returned to their old stomping grounds, the Sierra Mountains? On a crowded 4th of July holiday weekend. At the same time a group of loosely wired militiamen calling themselves the “Yosemite Reclamation Crew” decided Independence Day was a good time to liberate the park “for the people.”
Like The River Wild, an original screenplay that turned into a movie with Meryl Streep, and many years later I expanded into a novel of the same title, Canis Dirus also started out as a screenplay. A movie version was never made, so I decided to reimagine it as a novel. This novel. Maybe, it will do a backwards River Wild and leap to the silver screen from the pages of a printed thriller. Michael Crichton had to invent a park to hold his Jurassic Era dinosaurs. I already had a park – Yosemite. All I had to do was concoct a semi-plausible scientific explanation to prepare the creatures for their closeups. It wasn’t dino DNA captured in a mosquito trapped in amber, but it was something else preserved in a trapped glacier that made it possible. Canis Dirus; they’re back, and they’re really hungry.
The Kirkus Review:
Set in Yosemite National Park, this fusion of horror, SF, and mainstream thriller involves the discovery of a pack of prehistoric predators believed to be extinct for more than 10,000 years.
After a hiker disappears in Yosemite’s high country, chief park ranger Axten Raymond and his fiancee, Petra Stahl, a world-class rock climber and manager of a nearby camp, set out to find the man. Forced to deal with a significant earthquake—whose epicenter is just 40 miles away—and its aftershocks as well as a looming threat from a group of anti-government militiamen bent on “reclaiming” the park, Raymond and Stahl soon discover the missing hiker is just a precursor to a much larger problem.
A pack of dire wolves, existing in a massive subterranean cave system for millennia, has been freed after the earthquake created a new opening. The formidable alpha wolf—“the size of a healthy tiger”—has a grotesque head, “with a blunt, unwolf-like muzzle, and oversize bat-like ears that sit on a lowbrowed, flat head.
The animal’s eyes are a sickening pale yellow, bordering on albino, huge, the size of quahogs.” Powered by dark imagery (a mountain peak resembles a “gothic castle in a child’s fable,” and wind whips around a cabin like a “legion of angry harpies”) that complements the narrative’s brutal and bloody tone perfectly, O’Neill’s tale savvily alters the point of view throughout. The story subtly switches from third person to first and second person in places, making the reading experience more emotionally connective and immersive.
Examples include: “All we see, at first, are canine-like legs, but larger, thick set, chunked with muscles,” and “You can almost hear the snow melting.” But arguably the tale’s biggest strength lies in the sheer amount of breathtaking, heart-stopping action and adventure, which creates a relentlessly paced, adrenaline-inducing thrill ride that will have readers on the edges of their seats until the very end.
A riveting page-turner starring prehistoric beasts; Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in California.
An interview with Denis O’Neill | Kirkus Reviews
Writing Thrillers Is in Denis O’Neill’s Nature
by Donald Liebenson • Dec. 25, 2022
Based on my conversation with author Denis O’Neill, I might think twice about going for a nature hike with him. The temptation to veer from the main path to explore intriguing side trails would be too great.
Metaphorically speaking, the main path in this case is talking to him about his new wilderness thriller, Canis Dirus, which Kirkus Reviews pitches as “Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in California.” But as our conversation proceeds, it reveals “Wait, what?” digressions that demand exploring. For example, his father wrote for the iconic golden age of radio series Fibber McGee and Molly and was friends with Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss; O’Neill himself was once part of a folk-singing duo that opened for Steve Goodman and earned the praise of Gordon Lightfoot’s bass player; and his Dartmouth hockey jersey made a cameo appearance in the film Love Story.
But back to Canis Dirus, which combines O’Neill’s keen eye for nature with a screenwriter’s cinematic savvy for propulsively paced scenes of adventure, action, and terror. Think: Jaws meets Jurassic Park.
The story is set in Yosemite National Park, where an earthquake frees a pack of aptly named dire wolves from their subterranean confinement after a thousand years. Park ranger Axten Raymond and his fiancee, Petra Stahl, who knows her way around a rock face, have no clue as to the ancient horror they are up against when a backpacker disappears.
Kirkus praises the book’s “sheer amount of breathtaking, heart-stopping action and adventure, which creates a relentlessly paced, adrenaline-inducing thrill ride that will have readers on the edges of their seats until the very end.”
O’Neill is no stranger to writing about nature’s wilder side. He wrote the screenplay for The River Wild, which cast Meryl Streep as an action hero. “I have a book of fishing stories, Jim & I,” he says. “They are more idyllic and describe the beauty, joy, and peace of nature. But if you’re trying to capture a reader’s interest, it’s good to throw in a little jeopardy.”
Where to Get the Book
Get it On Amazon
On Leveller’s Press
Reviews & Quick Takes
Great story line!
“Great story line! It hooked me from the get-go and reeled me in. It may be fantastical, but definitely real enough for this science idiot, and with the pace of the action and the continuing suspense I didn’t have the time or will to question it…. and like everyone I talked with about the book, we all thought the writing was excellent.”
Your book… was awesome!
“I just finished your book… It was awesome!
Great characters, insane idea!
Shades of Michael Crichton and Stephen King.
Are you thinking movie in the future? Sequel?”
Great story line! Beautifully written.
“We’ve both finished your book. Great story line! I particularly enjoyed your descriptions of Yosemite and the High Sierra. Beautifully written.”
This wonderful book has everything
This wonderful book has everything to recommend it– terrific outdoor scenes from Yosemite National Park, vicious prehistoric animals, heroic park rangers, romance, militiamen, and most of all, gripping action. I could not put it down. No wonder Kirkus Reviews gives it a gold star. Another tour de force by Denis.
Your fluent and engaging narrative carries the story forward
“I had no idea of your command of geology and natural history. As usual, your fluent and engaging narrative voice carries your story forward. You have a special literary talent for threading the line between fiction and nonfiction.”
