First written in 1953 by John Russell Fearn, A Thing of the Past: Herbert the Dinosaur, Book One dates from that magical time when an author could have his square-jawed hero casually rappel down into an ice cave where the center of the Earth should be, offhandedly retrieve a rime-encased egg* from a glacier, and bring it back home to hatch it. Which admittedly I could do now: but one of my beta readers would likely ask me, Did he have a permit for that? …No. No, I guess my own hypothetical hero would not.
There’s envy in my heart over Fearn’s freedom, is what I guess I’m saying. I’m not proud of it, but there is.
*Guess what kind of egg it is! Go ahead. Guess.