“Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs,” a new speculative fiction story by Leonard Richardson

Strange Horizons, a web-based weekly magazine of and about speculative fiction, recently published
“Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” (2009), a new speculative fiction story written by Leonard Richardson. On the surface, the story is about two talking dinosaurs from Mars. I'm a big fan of dinosaurs, but all I could think about was the PBS children's television series Dragon Tales. In any case, here are the opening lines of “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs”:

"I want to buy a gun," said the Thymomenoraptor. He moved his foreclaw along the glass case of pistols, counting them off: one, two, three, four. "That one." He tapped the case; the glass squeaked.

"Why would a dinosaur need a gun?" asked the shop owner.

"Self-defense." ...

According to a biographical piece at the end of the story, “Leonard Richardson became a programmer because paleontology involved too much outdoor work. He writes prose and open source software from his home in New York.”