Astrosaurs is a long-running series of children's science fiction novels written by British author Stephen Cole and published by Random House. The series ran from 2005 to 2013, with a total of 24 books in all. A graphic novel adaptation of the first three books was released in 2025.
Far from being the Dumb Dinos we see in popular culture, dinosaurs were supremely intelligent - enough to have figured out space travel as early as the Triassic period. As a result, the vast majority of them had left Earth long before the meteorite hit, and now occupy a far-flung area of space known as the Jurassic Quadrant, divided between herbivores and carnivores with a 'no-man's land' of space in between. While the two sides maintain an uneasy peace, enforced by the Dinosaur Space Service (DSS), tensions still flare from time to time.
The series focuses on Captain Teggs Horatio Stegosaur (Teggs for short), Captain of the DSS Sauropod, and his various adventures alongside his crew - Arx Longhorn Orano, Iggadoo "Iggy" Tooth and Gipsy Saurine. Under the command of the old Barosaurus Admiral Rosso, the crew travels the Jurassic Quadrant on various missions to help maintain peace through the galaxy, getting into all manner of adventures and foiling many evil schemes. Think Star Trek, but with dinosaurs.
A spinoff series, Astrosaurs Academy, ran from 2008 to 2011, and served as a prequel detailing Teggs’ time as a younger stegosaur in the DSS Academy. The final book in the series, The Dinosaur Moo-tants, was a crossover between Astrosaurs and Cows In Action and served as a Series Finale.
Astrosaurs contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the books, Mira and the other Liopleurodon have dark blue skin with white splotches and yellow eyes. In the graphic novel, the Liopleurodon are dark and pale blue, with blue eyes. The pattern on their skin makes them resemble the Liopleurodon from Walking with Dinosaurs.
- Adaptational Heroism: Mira doesn’t attack the Astrosaurs after regaining her memory in the Graphic Novel, unlike her book counterpart.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Prince Shelly was a bit of a ditz even with his good intentions, Princess Shelly, on the other hand, is the Only Sane Man who actively tries to make her family see reason.
- Adaptation Name Change: Gipsy is renamed Ginni in the 2025 Graphic Novel.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The raptors and T. rex are warlike predators with no exceptions.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The American covers make the books look far more serious and have the characters drawn in a much more realistic style.
- Big Eater: Teggs' love of adventure is matched only by his love of food.
- Carnivore Confusion: Apparently, all predatory dinosaurs still enjoy eating their herbivorous counterparts.
- Crossover: The Series Finale, The Dinosaur Moo-tants, crosses Astrosaurs over with another of Cole's book series, Cows In Action.
- Cruel Elephant: In a series where carnivores are usually the main villains, The Skies of Fear and The Planet of Peril feature woolly mammoths as the main villains.
- The Day the Dinosaurs Died: Earth Attack has the Astrosaurs time-travelling to Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period to stop General Loki's plan to having the herbivores wiped out by the asteroid while the carnivores escape and become rulers of Earth in the aftermath.
- Genius Bruiser: Arx is both the genius of the Astrosaurs and a powerful Triceratops.
- Gender Flip: Prince Shelly becomes Princess Shelly in the 2025 Graphic Novel. Mira is also female in the graphic novel.
- Ironic Allergy: The second book, "The Hatching Horror", features an evil noble family of Oviraptors as the main antagonists, portrayed (inaccurately) as obsessed with eating eggs. The one exception is Prince Shelly, who confesses in the denouement that eggs cause him to break out in a rash. His disdain for his family's egg-obsession is what saves his life, since the planet the Oviraptors are trying to conquer turns out to be a gigantic egg, and Shelly is the only one left after the rest of them are themselves eaten by the baby Star Dragon therein.
- Let's You and Him Fight: In The Dinosaur Moo-tants, The FBI manages to pull this off masterfully. Detecting the Astrosaurs arriving in pursuit of him, the Ter-moo-nator T5 and his mutant allies kneel before McMoo, Pat and Bo. The arriving Astrosaurs leap to the conclusion that the three Cows are the ringleaders and attack, forcing the Cows to defend themselves.
- No Honor Among Thieves: The Mind-Swap Menace has Dasta and Ardul (in the stolen bodies of Teggs and Iggy) try to betray each other to obtain a matter replicator, leading to a brawl between them.
- Predators Are Mean: With only a few exceptions, almost all the villains faced by the Astrosaurs are carnivorous dinosaurs. Even aside from that, the series depicts all carnivores to be warlike brutes who see nothing wrong with eating other sapient dinosaurs.
- Raptor Attack: The Velociraptor are not only scaly and oversized as usual, but have forked tongues. Ironically, they avert the usual stereotype of being Evil Geniuses and are quite stupid, with the exception of General Loki.
- Shown Their Work: Pterosaurs and marine reptiles are acknowledged to be separate from dinosaurs.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: The Tyrannosaurus rex are portrayed as violent, ill-mannered brutes that think with their stomachs rather than their brains and cannot be reasoned with because they always eat whoever they converse with. Their smaller cousins like Daspletosaurus are more intelligent, but just as warlike. However, The Saber-Tooth Secret averts this with a family of friendly vegetarian Dryptosaurus.
- You No Take Candle:
- All the T. rex speak in poor grammar.
- Ardul the Coelophysis from The Mind-Swap Menace always fumbles with his grammar.