As a girl, Portia Oakeshott dreamed of caring for the reconstructed dinosaurs roaming the preserve near the south pole of her balmy home planet, New New South Wales.

As a graduate from the planet's top veterinary school and a recent hire by the dinosaur preserve, caring for dinosaurs brings Portia into conflict with land-coveting ranchers, spoiled teenagers, villainous millionaires, religious fanatics, and scheming politicians.

Her adventures take her from the "big smoke" to the "back of Bourke"-from the bustling city of Port Bounty, across a continent of vast fields where farmers raise pigs containing cloned human organs, to the lush Cretaceous forests where dinosaurs roam at the bottom of a world.