When Sheldon Gleisser was working on a story about a dinosaur coming out of a time machine, he was stuck on how to make it different from Jurassic Park II. Gleisser, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, and now writes full time after retiring from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, eventually let go of the idea. Then, a couple months later, as he watched David Cronenberg’s The Fly on TV, inspiration struck. All he needed was a little splash of Taylor Swift to make it perfect, and Dianasaurus Rex was born.

Kirkus Reviews calls Gleisser’s debut novel “an engaging and unconventional thriller with a vibrant heroine,” but readers will be surprised to see just how vibrant Diana Dunphy is. She’s a regular teenage girl, but her parents are scientists working on a top-secret project. Their idea is to send trash back in time, where it will have millions and millions of years to turn into oil for use in the present. It’s a pretty brilliant plan, but when a couple of terrorists try to steal the software that runs the time machine, Diana is knocked into the chamber and briefly sent back in time. When she comes back, not only is her father killed in the kerfuffle with the terrorists, but she also notices she feels a little different:

So here’s what’s going on, Diary: my DNA, which is just a little bit different from most people’s DNA, the way most people’s DNA is different from chimp DNA? Mom says it makes my bones, muscles, and tendons all way different. ‘Heavy-duty,’ is what she calls them. See, my Mom is this big-time scientist, professor, Ph.D., whatever, so I’m used to seeing her look at things and frown, but when my DNA test came back from the lab she sent it to? Well, I’ve never seen her frown like she did when she looked at those…results. ‘It’s impossible to manipulate the DNA of a mature organism,’ Mom said, and then she hugged me. I was going to say, ‘Mom, you know me, I watch Cartoon Network and still have a teddy bear, I’m not a mature organism,’ but she started to cry, so for once I kept my mouth shut, and she whispered, right into my ear, ‘I’m so glad you’re all right.’ Well, I felt fine, I looked good, and I could do stuff I couldn’t do before (okay, stuff no one could do before) but there are things about the way I am now that aren’t so pleasant, so her saying I was ‘all right’ might have been pushing it.

Diana’s mom tests her blood and confirms that the accident with the time machine caused Diana’s DNA to be merged with that of a dinosaur. Now she’s impossibly strong, with rock-hard skin, and she can even smell with her tongue, like a lizard. While Diana doesn’t exactly mind becoming a “buff chick” overnight, she’s not happy about any of her new superpowers.

And really, why would she feel any differently? Being a teenage girl is hard enough. Puberty isn’t fun for anyone, but there’s a specific discomfort girls are made to feel as their bodies change. If a boy has outsize strength and dinosaur powers, it makes him a superhero, but Diana feels more like a monster. All she wants to do is blend in, but it’s hard to act normal when you’re constantly craving meat and you’re strong enough to lift cars.

“It seemed to me that a guy would love for this to happen to him,” says Gleisser, who felt that his character should feel insecure and afraid of what was happening to them. The protagonist’s voice was so vivid in his mind, he knew the story needed to center on a young girl.

And body changes aren’t the only aspect of teenage angst made more difficult for poor Diana. Many young girls struggle with social hierarchies within their friend groups, but Diana? Turns out her friends are actually adult terrorists posing as kids to get close to Diana’s parents and their secret time-machine project. And like many kids whose parents have demanding jobs, Diana often feels like hers care more about their work than they do about her. But unlike any other kid, her parents’ work ruined her life in a pretty literal way. 

Gleisser also spends time with Diana’s parents, Aaron and Rita, and explores their struggling marriage before Aaron’s death. Gleisser himself isn’t a parent, but he started to notice a certain dynamic among some couples he knew and saw out in the world, where the father would be absent and the mother would resent having all the child care pushed on to her. This issue is especially pressing for Diana’s parents, who are supposed to be partners in their scientific work.

“I could really identify with the idea of getting so into something, especially something like [the time machine] that would change the world, that it would be a real problem for Aaron,” says Gleisser. “But Rita is able to deal with it and get absorbed in the project, [just] not at the expense of her child.” Naturally, this causes a lot of tension for Aaron and Rita, both as parents and as co-workers. But after the terrorist attack kills Aaron, Diana and her mom have to work together to avenge his death and protect his scientific work.

Diana and her well-developed supporting cast of characters anchor Gleisser’s fast-paced SF thriller, which is packed with scenes where the teenager puts those dino-powers to good use against the bad guys. Readers who appreciate well-written action scenes will not be surprised to know that Gleisser considers monster movies, especially Jaws, as the foundation of his taste as an author and screenwriter. And, of course, comic books about superheroes.

“Part of what was going on [with this book] was that I was always reading Spiderman and stuff like that, and my sister was reading Archie,” says Gleisser. “I was always trying to get her interested in what I was reading, and I thought, what if I could write something that she might have liked?” 

Gleisser’s sister did like Dianasaurus Rex, as it turns out. Other readers who appreciate Gleisser’s complex characters, as well as his talent for SF action and adventure, should keep an eye out for the screenplay he’s working on now. Until it’s produced, they can check out several of his acclaimed short stories, published in Rosebud magazine. 

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn.