What do you think?
Rate this book
Primitive War Dispatches Volume II: The Psalms of Xipetotec
During the most turbulent years of the Cold War, the elite dinosaur-hunters of Stalker Force are tasked with finding and killing a horrific plague-carrying utahraptor known as Xipetotec. Their search for Xipetotec takes them across the earth, from the battlefields of Vietnam to the dark heart of Africa. This odyssey is intertwined with the spiritual decay of a young Vietnamese mercenary known as 'the Panther'. As dinosaurs spread across the world, people from all walks of life must learn to survive...the Primitive War.
The Psalms of Xipetotec is the second volume of Primitive War Dispatches - a series of episodic short-story anthologies meant to link the flagship novels of the Primitive War series. The Psalms of Xipetotec takes place between The Hunting of Stalker Force and Primitive War II - Animus Infernal.
Author's this book is not suitable for people under the age of 18. Any similarities in this book to real people, places, or events is purely coincidental or done solely for the purposes of fiction. Dinosaur names are used regardless of when actual species were discovered, for the sake of clarity.
The Psalms of Xipetotec is the second volume of Primitive War Dispatches - a series of episodic short-story anthologies meant to link the flagship novels of the Primitive War series. The Psalms of Xipetotec takes place between The Hunting of Stalker Force and Primitive War II - Animus Infernal.
Author's this book is not suitable for people under the age of 18. Any similarities in this book to real people, places, or events is purely coincidental or done solely for the purposes of fiction. Dinosaur names are used regardless of when actual species were discovered, for the sake of clarity.
413 pages, Paperback
Published December 28, 2024
30 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Ethan Pettus
14 books73 followersEthan Pettus is a didgeridoo-playing degenerate from the green hills of Kentucky. He spends most of his free time day-dreaming.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 11, 2025
So yeah... this book is a real mess.
It's way too long, some of the character decisions make no sense at all. Not a fan of the Nguyen story line at all. The political/Ouraboros story is also not interesting and takes away from the dinosaurs
It's way too long, some of the character decisions make no sense at all. Not a fan of the Nguyen story line at all. The political/Ouraboros story is also not interesting and takes away from the dinosaurs
September 12, 2025
If you're a PW fan then read this book, it has a number of good chapters to get your fix on all things Dinos and War. I would say that this one is a bit too long with some chapters that could have simply been omitted. My least favorite of the PW entries so far but still fun and recommended. Enjoy!
March 26, 2025
Dispatches of Nihilism
*This review covers Primitive Wars: Dispatches vol 1 & 2 due to their shortness, their similar structure, and them being direct sequels to the first Primitive Wars book
If the first Primitive War novel was a Michael Bay movie then the Dispatches are a cross between Predator and The Fugitive with more despair than a mediocre arthouse film and more over the top violence than Mortal Kombat. There is no joy to be found here and anything mildly positive ends in brutal carnage every single time. The onslaught of sadness and hate makes sense given the situation but it left me numb when the novel NEEDED me to care.
To Pettus’s credit, he is genuinely becoming a better writer. While the first novel suffered from poor metaphors and awkward sentences, these dispatch stories, are an improvement. Giving the point of view (POV) to the raptors at times opened up a lot more narrative potentials that enhanced the story and tying the themes of the 3 main POV characters together in vol 2 was a pleasant surprise I was not expecting.
Both these dispatch novels feature Stalker Force, an elite dinosaur hunting squad. Their goal is to hunt down the dangerous species that have been let loose into the world, in particular the two titular Utahraptors. Not only are the raptors killing humans and breeding rapidly, they are also carrying a deadly disease infecting the planet. Vol 1 takes place primarily in Vietnam while Vol 2 travels the world in a globe-trotting tour of awfulness. There are also other POV shifts to characters around the world and to Nyguen, who is forced into fighting for a clandestine military group after surviving the events of first novel.
Everywhere Stalker Force goes, there’s already horrifying violence or about to be. Every transition to a different, random person is just a vignette of new horror. Every dinosaur interaction is just a few sentences away from a graphic description of someone’s spine being crushed, their intestines ripped out, or attempting to scream with their windpipes severed.l as they’re eaten alive.
If I sound melodramatic in my description, I promise you I am not exaggerating. While I understand that many parts of the world were going through brutal war and genocides at this time and that realistically most experiences with dinosaurs would not end well, this book just mires itself in nothing but that horror. Even the best dark movies and novels have spot of humor or joy and Pettus seems to have forgotten that in an attempt to make this feel as real and “true” as possible.
Despite the attempts to be serious these are still a pulpy action novels. That’s not to say Pettus shouldn’t attempt to elevate them to being quality works, it’s possible to be both. However in trying to be more mature and “real” they give us characters that are ultra depressed, horrifying to even imagine, and leaving nothing to grasp onto. I found myself skimming over dinosaur parts because it was just more scenes of gore. Every new person introduced elicited a sigh as I knew they’d end up dying horribly. I let myself have mild hope once or twice but wasn’t crushed when ended poorly, just bored. There’s a fine line between feeling the weight and horrors of the world and becoming numb to the point of not caring because then I don’t care about the story at all.
I’m hoping that Primitive War 2 (which is already out) is an improvement or, at the very least, better balanced. This is a series about dinosaurs in the real world and while that is a horrifying idea at times, these dispatches forget that maybe it’s ok for that concept to be fun too. Both novels continually makes references to Going After Cacciato as if it were an inspiration but Pettus seems to forget that in that classic the real tragedy of Vietnam was blended with triumphs, both real and imaginary. These dispatches want to be more like Tim O’Brian than Jurassic Park but in doing so they lose the good qualities of both those better works. Pettus is writing better but I’m still waiting for them to be “good”.
* Nit-picky fact check, these novels claim that Utahraptors are from the Hells Creek area 66 million years ago (mya). They may have lived in that approximate area of North America but they had been extinct at least 70 mya. The T-rexes in these novel were closer to us in time than Utahraptors were to them. C’mon, this is an easy one to get right!
*This review covers Primitive Wars: Dispatches vol 1 & 2 due to their shortness, their similar structure, and them being direct sequels to the first Primitive Wars book
If the first Primitive War novel was a Michael Bay movie then the Dispatches are a cross between Predator and The Fugitive with more despair than a mediocre arthouse film and more over the top violence than Mortal Kombat. There is no joy to be found here and anything mildly positive ends in brutal carnage every single time. The onslaught of sadness and hate makes sense given the situation but it left me numb when the novel NEEDED me to care.
To Pettus’s credit, he is genuinely becoming a better writer. While the first novel suffered from poor metaphors and awkward sentences, these dispatch stories, are an improvement. Giving the point of view (POV) to the raptors at times opened up a lot more narrative potentials that enhanced the story and tying the themes of the 3 main POV characters together in vol 2 was a pleasant surprise I was not expecting.
Both these dispatch novels feature Stalker Force, an elite dinosaur hunting squad. Their goal is to hunt down the dangerous species that have been let loose into the world, in particular the two titular Utahraptors. Not only are the raptors killing humans and breeding rapidly, they are also carrying a deadly disease infecting the planet. Vol 1 takes place primarily in Vietnam while Vol 2 travels the world in a globe-trotting tour of awfulness. There are also other POV shifts to characters around the world and to Nyguen, who is forced into fighting for a clandestine military group after surviving the events of first novel.
Everywhere Stalker Force goes, there’s already horrifying violence or about to be. Every transition to a different, random person is just a vignette of new horror. Every dinosaur interaction is just a few sentences away from a graphic description of someone’s spine being crushed, their intestines ripped out, or attempting to scream with their windpipes severed.l as they’re eaten alive.
If I sound melodramatic in my description, I promise you I am not exaggerating. While I understand that many parts of the world were going through brutal war and genocides at this time and that realistically most experiences with dinosaurs would not end well, this book just mires itself in nothing but that horror. Even the best dark movies and novels have spot of humor or joy and Pettus seems to have forgotten that in an attempt to make this feel as real and “true” as possible.
Despite the attempts to be serious these are still a pulpy action novels. That’s not to say Pettus shouldn’t attempt to elevate them to being quality works, it’s possible to be both. However in trying to be more mature and “real” they give us characters that are ultra depressed, horrifying to even imagine, and leaving nothing to grasp onto. I found myself skimming over dinosaur parts because it was just more scenes of gore. Every new person introduced elicited a sigh as I knew they’d end up dying horribly. I let myself have mild hope once or twice but wasn’t crushed when ended poorly, just bored. There’s a fine line between feeling the weight and horrors of the world and becoming numb to the point of not caring because then I don’t care about the story at all.
I’m hoping that Primitive War 2 (which is already out) is an improvement or, at the very least, better balanced. This is a series about dinosaurs in the real world and while that is a horrifying idea at times, these dispatches forget that maybe it’s ok for that concept to be fun too. Both novels continually makes references to Going After Cacciato as if it were an inspiration but Pettus seems to forget that in that classic the real tragedy of Vietnam was blended with triumphs, both real and imaginary. These dispatches want to be more like Tim O’Brian than Jurassic Park but in doing so they lose the good qualities of both those better works. Pettus is writing better but I’m still waiting for them to be “good”.
* Nit-picky fact check, these novels claim that Utahraptors are from the Hells Creek area 66 million years ago (mya). They may have lived in that approximate area of North America but they had been extinct at least 70 mya. The T-rexes in these novel were closer to us in time than Utahraptors were to them. C’mon, this is an easy one to get right!
September 14, 2025
I’ve been reading this book for an unusually long time. Almost a month and a half to finish this thing. I loved the first book so much, and may even consider it my favorite book of all time. I loved the movie to death, and with all of this praise would probably mean that I’d love this one as well… so why a 3?
I loved a lot of elements of this book. The stuff with Xavier and Stalker force, and the subplot with Nguyen are really captivating, and the latter has a lot of twists and turns that I didn’t expect. But a lot of this book is miserable. Super nihilistic and bleak. Every other chapter is a random vignette where a likable character is introduced, then goes through the most traumatic, psychologically disturbing thing that could be imagined. Even to a certain point, Nguyen’s storyline hits some really bleak, miserable low points. I know it states in the afterward that Pettus was going through a lot during this book, but it needs some levity, man. This is 400 pages of bleak, miserable shit that was hard to get through. The chapter with the child sex trafficking was a twist that felt unnecessary and just compounded how unnecessarily bleak this book was.
I enjoy media that’s difficult and bleak. Martyrs is one of my favorite films, I love it to death. This is just misery porn for the most part, and I was praying it would go back to focusing on the returning characters and plot threads.
I loved a lot of elements of this book. The stuff with Xavier and Stalker force, and the subplot with Nguyen are really captivating, and the latter has a lot of twists and turns that I didn’t expect. But a lot of this book is miserable. Super nihilistic and bleak. Every other chapter is a random vignette where a likable character is introduced, then goes through the most traumatic, psychologically disturbing thing that could be imagined. Even to a certain point, Nguyen’s storyline hits some really bleak, miserable low points. I know it states in the afterward that Pettus was going through a lot during this book, but it needs some levity, man. This is 400 pages of bleak, miserable shit that was hard to get through. The chapter with the child sex trafficking was a twist that felt unnecessary and just compounded how unnecessarily bleak this book was.
I enjoy media that’s difficult and bleak. Martyrs is one of my favorite films, I love it to death. This is just misery porn for the most part, and I was praying it would go back to focusing on the returning characters and plot threads.
September 19, 2025
3.5
Only because (my fault honestly) I read this one after primitive war 2… so that’s my mistake
Only because (my fault honestly) I read this one after primitive war 2… so that’s my mistake
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews