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Dinosaur: 65 Million
Dinosaur: 65 Million is the newest reality television program. If you can survive it, you can win it. How much? Sixty-five million dollars! All you have to do is carry sixty-five pounds of gear, work with seven team mates and travel sixty-five miles in the land of hungry tyrannosaurs, pteradons, triceratops, and carnotaurs. The audience will cheer you and watch your every move as you entertain them with your struggle to survive. Run, fight, and hide. You’re the star…
182 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 15, 2013
14 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Catt Dahman
91 books52 followerscatt dahman is now under contract with Severed Press publishing house for the 9 Z is for Zombie books.
catt dahman has been writing for more than 30 years, has taught in public schools, private schools, home school, and college. Her B.S. and M.S. degrees are from Texas A & M. She is a native of North East Texas, has lived all over the US, (and tries to claim Jamaica as a second home) but is currently back in the Fort Worth, Texas area where she lives with her husband, David (a retired Marine), son Nic, cats, a ferret, and dog. She has also been a public speaker, artist, director for a charity, dabbled as a PI, and more. When not working, she enjoys SCUBA diving (PADI), reading, ruining movies for her family by pointing out mistakes, collecting Tarot card sets , playing Legos with her son, and growing herbs. She now writes full time, working on a zombie series of nine books, short stories, horror, splatter punk, thrillers, vampire books, and westerns.
catt dahman has been writing for more than 30 years, has taught in public schools, private schools, home school, and college. Her B.S. and M.S. degrees are from Texas A & M. She is a native of North East Texas, has lived all over the US, (and tries to claim Jamaica as a second home) but is currently back in the Fort Worth, Texas area where she lives with her husband, David (a retired Marine), son Nic, cats, a ferret, and dog. She has also been a public speaker, artist, director for a charity, dabbled as a PI, and more. When not working, she enjoys SCUBA diving (PADI), reading, ruining movies for her family by pointing out mistakes, collecting Tarot card sets , playing Legos with her son, and growing herbs. She now writes full time, working on a zombie series of nine books, short stories, horror, splatter punk, thrillers, vampire books, and westerns.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 27, 2015
2.5 stars.
Slightly better than her other book I just read; Extinction Island. Like the other book, this book has too many fucking characterz. I counted over 32 characters to keep track of! How the fuck do you remember who's fucking who? There's no character glossary or anything. How can you connect with characters or give a shit about them if you get them all confused with eachother?! @___@
I don't know who her editor is, but they need to be fired ASAP. There's atleast three spelling/grammar errors on every other page. Hey, I'm no grammar expert, but this is a fucking book people. There's no reason to have errors in a published book.
I did like the Hunger Games feel to this. At times it did seem like the author copied a bit from HG, especially at the beginning. It mostly worked in the end though.
The whole idea of this book is pretty neat though. I just wish she would cut down on her characters. :( Won't even bother with the next book.
Slightly better than her other book I just read; Extinction Island. Like the other book, this book has too many fucking characterz. I counted over 32 characters to keep track of! How the fuck do you remember who's fucking who? There's no character glossary or anything. How can you connect with characters or give a shit about them if you get them all confused with eachother?! @___@
I don't know who her editor is, but they need to be fired ASAP. There's atleast three spelling/grammar errors on every other page. Hey, I'm no grammar expert, but this is a fucking book people. There's no reason to have errors in a published book.
I did like the Hunger Games feel to this. At times it did seem like the author copied a bit from HG, especially at the beginning. It mostly worked in the end though.
The whole idea of this book is pretty neat though. I just wish she would cut down on her characters. :( Won't even bother with the next book.
May 14, 2015
I'm really going to try to be as nice as possible.
But this book was terrible. It's like someone saw Hunger Games and Jurassic Park 3 and decided they'd be great together. They're not.
My first piece of advice would be to fire the editor. There are mistakes that never should have made to his desk LET ALONE past it. Things like using the same word too close together (messes with the cadence), misspellings, wrong words entirely, or incorrect facts.
For instance: Arterial blood is BRIGHT red while venous blood is DARK red. Not the other way around. (Before anyone says “we didn't all go to medical school” I should tell you I learned that in 4th grade and I have access to Google)
I knew I was in trouble when the clickable link was a weebly address. You're telling me that in the future WEEBLY is still going strong? No. Please shell out the $10/year for a basic domain if you're going to put links in your books.
I think the biggest problem was making the cast of characters too big. 32+ people and I'm supposed to keep track of them all without a chart? Can't do it. I lost track of who was who with the name similarities and sheer number of players thrown at me all at once.
Then the deaths began. It was a bit easier once people started dying off but I couldn't develop any sort of attachment to these people so when they died I shrugged and kept reading. Even at the end. (Poor yellow team and their mass killing....who were those people again?)
The other problem with having so many people was having to rewind the action to go find out what had happened to each team. I skimmed over a lot because it was straight out of Jurassic Park 3 in “oh, dinosaurs are eating people...again...look at 'em run.” Yeah, I knew that would be a huge part of the book but I wasn't prepared for it to be the only points of action.
There are hints that the scientists are evil and exactly no one should have been surprised. Dystopian wasteland with evil scientists? Yep. But they've been experimenting a long time!!!!!!! Duh. Of course they have. I just didn't get involved enough to care.
I couldn't decide if this was supposed to be against reality TV, against the gov't, against science, or what. I think I'm supposed to hate everything.
Everyone decides to stay in Dino Land because they live better there than they ever did at home. Um, okay. That's weird but okay.
So to recap:
1) Fire your editor.
2) Too many characters to keep track
3) Too much action. There wasn't enough story
4) Pick a bad guy. I felt like I was supposed to hate everything and that can't work.
I'm curious to see where the “govt testing” idea is going but not enough to pick up any more books.
But this book was terrible. It's like someone saw Hunger Games and Jurassic Park 3 and decided they'd be great together. They're not.
My first piece of advice would be to fire the editor. There are mistakes that never should have made to his desk LET ALONE past it. Things like using the same word too close together (messes with the cadence), misspellings, wrong words entirely, or incorrect facts.
For instance: Arterial blood is BRIGHT red while venous blood is DARK red. Not the other way around. (Before anyone says “we didn't all go to medical school” I should tell you I learned that in 4th grade and I have access to Google)
I knew I was in trouble when the clickable link was a weebly address. You're telling me that in the future WEEBLY is still going strong? No. Please shell out the $10/year for a basic domain if you're going to put links in your books.
I think the biggest problem was making the cast of characters too big. 32+ people and I'm supposed to keep track of them all without a chart? Can't do it. I lost track of who was who with the name similarities and sheer number of players thrown at me all at once.
Then the deaths began. It was a bit easier once people started dying off but I couldn't develop any sort of attachment to these people so when they died I shrugged and kept reading. Even at the end. (Poor yellow team and their mass killing....who were those people again?)
The other problem with having so many people was having to rewind the action to go find out what had happened to each team. I skimmed over a lot because it was straight out of Jurassic Park 3 in “oh, dinosaurs are eating people...again...look at 'em run.” Yeah, I knew that would be a huge part of the book but I wasn't prepared for it to be the only points of action.
There are hints that the scientists are evil and exactly no one should have been surprised. Dystopian wasteland with evil scientists? Yep. But they've been experimenting a long time!!!!!!! Duh. Of course they have. I just didn't get involved enough to care.
I couldn't decide if this was supposed to be against reality TV, against the gov't, against science, or what. I think I'm supposed to hate everything.
Everyone decides to stay in Dino Land because they live better there than they ever did at home. Um, okay. That's weird but okay.
So to recap:
1) Fire your editor.
2) Too many characters to keep track
3) Too much action. There wasn't enough story
4) Pick a bad guy. I felt like I was supposed to hate everything and that can't work.
I'm curious to see where the “govt testing” idea is going but not enough to pick up any more books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 12, 2017
32 contestants, 4 teams, 2 weeks, limited supplies. The first team to reach the finish get $5 million each and other survivors home get $1 million. The bad news is that you have to avoid being eaten by the dinosaurs and there are a lot of them! It is the ultimate new gameshow where volunteers apply to win big prizes in a newly created park which the public are about to see on screen for the first time. Welcome to Dinosaur 65 million!
We start with a bit of an info dump as we are introduced to the players and the team, with the hosts Bert and Analisa. It actually makes a change to have a host who is not a slimy nasty guy, and Bert feels uncomfortable with his job, the steriotype players and making jokes about people who are probably about to die. I actually liked him and he does feature throughout and seems to be a good person overall. Analisa is the steriotype beautiful hostess but again she is reasonably likeable and finds it easier to just get on with her job when Bert struggles with his conscience.
Our main focus in the beginning is the green team and I liked most of them. Susan is an expert on herbs and is quickly making herself useful by spotting those that are edible or can be used for bug repellant and healing. Ruby makes friends with a group of compys and one becomes her new pet who she decides to carry with her. Jack is the capable Alpha leader and I liked the three of them a lot. I also liked Jeremy from the red team who was relied upon to do the worst of the tasks and was unflinching in his duty. There weren't many characters you didn't like though of course you didn't get time to get to know some of them before they died, which is kind of the point in having so many characters to start with! The in fighting is very minor and I'm glad it wasn't taken too far as that can sometimes spoil these books. In this case, the odd bit of bitching recedes as they enter each dinosaur area.
I loved the dinosaurs! The T Rex attack sequence was a complete and satisfying gorefest which pits the greens and reds against the dinosaurs. It was a very tense action scene and the first big disaster that the teams had to face, and now they all realise exactly what they signed up for. I liked that when a team got into trouble, rival teams were trying to help them instead of take advantage of it for their own means. We see a lot of characters step up during the difficult times and show what they are made of, even those you thought were a waste of space when you first met them. The team work was a bit of a surprise but I think it added a bit more depth to the book and made it more enjoyable. It wasn't just T Rex who was to be feared in this book as there are plenty of scary pack dinosaurs to run away from!
The plot is interesting. It starts with everyone volunteering for different reasons. A few are the adventure types who are looking for the most extreme experiences. Some really need the money as they are living a poverty stricken life and can barely feed themselves or their families. Others want the fame of being on the show and compete to be the most liked by the viewers. However they quickly realise that they are in over their heads, with teams deciding that the only way any of them are going to survive is if they all become one big team, especially with the increasing death toll. Anger towards the TV audience for enjoying their torment also starts to take hold and they start to question the game itself. I'm not going to discuss the twists but they were pretty interesting!
The main focus of this book is the game and how to survive, and I found it interesting that the survivors were adapting quickly to the skills they needed and learning to make what they did not have. A few of them said that their living conditions, dinosaurs aside, were better than their old life on the outside. There are hints of romances between the characters but they are very much background and don't really affect the story in a bad way. I'm not a fan of romance but in this book it didn't bother me. There is also a mystery to solve which I think might become more significant later in the series.
Again, this is not a literary masterpiece but I never expected that from it. I was expecting a dinosaur packed adventure with just enough description to get you interested in the characters and the game, and that is what I got, so I was happy. It keeps you entertained, you do like some of the people and the dinosaur action is exciting with a few twists. Now that is good enough for me! If you like that SyFy channel B movie dinofest, you might well enjoy this.
We start with a bit of an info dump as we are introduced to the players and the team, with the hosts Bert and Analisa. It actually makes a change to have a host who is not a slimy nasty guy, and Bert feels uncomfortable with his job, the steriotype players and making jokes about people who are probably about to die. I actually liked him and he does feature throughout and seems to be a good person overall. Analisa is the steriotype beautiful hostess but again she is reasonably likeable and finds it easier to just get on with her job when Bert struggles with his conscience.
Our main focus in the beginning is the green team and I liked most of them. Susan is an expert on herbs and is quickly making herself useful by spotting those that are edible or can be used for bug repellant and healing. Ruby makes friends with a group of compys and one becomes her new pet who she decides to carry with her. Jack is the capable Alpha leader and I liked the three of them a lot. I also liked Jeremy from the red team who was relied upon to do the worst of the tasks and was unflinching in his duty. There weren't many characters you didn't like though of course you didn't get time to get to know some of them before they died, which is kind of the point in having so many characters to start with! The in fighting is very minor and I'm glad it wasn't taken too far as that can sometimes spoil these books. In this case, the odd bit of bitching recedes as they enter each dinosaur area.
I loved the dinosaurs! The T Rex attack sequence was a complete and satisfying gorefest which pits the greens and reds against the dinosaurs. It was a very tense action scene and the first big disaster that the teams had to face, and now they all realise exactly what they signed up for. I liked that when a team got into trouble, rival teams were trying to help them instead of take advantage of it for their own means. We see a lot of characters step up during the difficult times and show what they are made of, even those you thought were a waste of space when you first met them. The team work was a bit of a surprise but I think it added a bit more depth to the book and made it more enjoyable. It wasn't just T Rex who was to be feared in this book as there are plenty of scary pack dinosaurs to run away from!
The plot is interesting. It starts with everyone volunteering for different reasons. A few are the adventure types who are looking for the most extreme experiences. Some really need the money as they are living a poverty stricken life and can barely feed themselves or their families. Others want the fame of being on the show and compete to be the most liked by the viewers. However they quickly realise that they are in over their heads, with teams deciding that the only way any of them are going to survive is if they all become one big team, especially with the increasing death toll. Anger towards the TV audience for enjoying their torment also starts to take hold and they start to question the game itself. I'm not going to discuss the twists but they were pretty interesting!
The main focus of this book is the game and how to survive, and I found it interesting that the survivors were adapting quickly to the skills they needed and learning to make what they did not have. A few of them said that their living conditions, dinosaurs aside, were better than their old life on the outside. There are hints of romances between the characters but they are very much background and don't really affect the story in a bad way. I'm not a fan of romance but in this book it didn't bother me. There is also a mystery to solve which I think might become more significant later in the series.
Again, this is not a literary masterpiece but I never expected that from it. I was expecting a dinosaur packed adventure with just enough description to get you interested in the characters and the game, and that is what I got, so I was happy. It keeps you entertained, you do like some of the people and the dinosaur action is exciting with a few twists. Now that is good enough for me! If you like that SyFy channel B movie dinofest, you might well enjoy this.
October 26, 2016
Not For Younger Readers
I actually read this book a while back...I love dinosaur fiction. I got this book again because it was a free offer. I was not disappointed with the reread. I read it slower this time and truly enjoyed it. This book is filled with action and excitement. I have decided to repurchase the next two books that make up the series. I do not recommend this book for young readers as the violence and situations the characters get into can be very graphic. The overall theme of the book, however, is well worth the read for older readers. Even though I remember how the series ended, I am going to repurchase the books again. Yep...that good. I would also like to give the author an "attagirl" for keeping the cursing down to a minimum. So, folks, read the book and get ready to buy the other two. Read slowly and you may not be like me and feel compelled to get them again...in hindsight, I should not have deleted them from the start. Won't make that mistake again. Oh well, enjoy!
I actually read this book a while back...I love dinosaur fiction. I got this book again because it was a free offer. I was not disappointed with the reread. I read it slower this time and truly enjoyed it. This book is filled with action and excitement. I have decided to repurchase the next two books that make up the series. I do not recommend this book for young readers as the violence and situations the characters get into can be very graphic. The overall theme of the book, however, is well worth the read for older readers. Even though I remember how the series ended, I am going to repurchase the books again. Yep...that good. I would also like to give the author an "attagirl" for keeping the cursing down to a minimum. So, folks, read the book and get ready to buy the other two. Read slowly and you may not be like me and feel compelled to get them again...in hindsight, I should not have deleted them from the start. Won't make that mistake again. Oh well, enjoy!
October 7, 2022
Dinosaur: 65 million by catt dahman (Lack of capitalization in name and title from the author.)
This book was easily the worst written book I have ever finished. I don't think the author even proofread it herself.
Set in the near future, America and all of humanity was predicted to die out within ten years. So what did the American government do about this? It decided to conscript people to go on reality shows so they'd get killed and the reduced population might survive a bit longer. (Oh you've just started to boggle, believe me.)
Somehow the American government also brought back dinosaurs. And what did they do with them, in these last years of humanity? Set up a reality show using them to kill off people even faster.
32 people were dropped into an area of the country full of dinosaurs. They had next to no supplies. They had three weeks to race to the other end. Whoever lived would get a couple million dollars.
I love dinosaurs and I like reality shows, so this seemed like a really interesting idea. Unfortunately the author's writing was atrocious:
- She misspelled her main characters' names repeatedly (Bert/Burt and others).
- She had tons of basic misspelling and wrong word use (their/there/they're).
- Endless punctuation issues.
- Sentences cut off, as if she had meant to delete it but hadn't gotten it all. For example: " They ran away. It was "
- The most LAZY writing tricks ever. In a scene where no cameras were even mentioned:
Susan said, "I know that."
***Camera pans to left***
Unsurprising, as bad as the writing was, the plot issues were so so so SO much worse.
- The people had nearly no supplies. Yet on day 6 they somehow made spears with no mention of how, they just suddenly had spears.
- On the same day, somehow they had dish soap and dried gas, and made napalm...
- The dinosaurs were normal sized, and so the T-rexes were huge. Yet one person crushed one with a boulder by kicking the boulder. He kicked a rock big enough to kill a dino...
The plot for this book was a good idea, but the author was just such a god awful writer, she couldn't do anything with it.
This author has 70+ books for sale on Amazon. This is the kind of thing that makes me dislike self-publishing so much. There are good self-published books out there, but self-publishing allows for this utter dreck to be published, too.
Usually I feel bad about leaving a harsh review, because the author might see it and feel bad, but in this case... ugh. With 70+ books out there, the author has to be just chugging out dreck hoping for any sales. Please, author, please find yourself an editor. The idea for this book could have been a great story if you had cared about your work at all.
This book was easily the worst written book I have ever finished. I don't think the author even proofread it herself.
Set in the near future, America and all of humanity was predicted to die out within ten years. So what did the American government do about this? It decided to conscript people to go on reality shows so they'd get killed and the reduced population might survive a bit longer. (Oh you've just started to boggle, believe me.)
Somehow the American government also brought back dinosaurs. And what did they do with them, in these last years of humanity? Set up a reality show using them to kill off people even faster.
32 people were dropped into an area of the country full of dinosaurs. They had next to no supplies. They had three weeks to race to the other end. Whoever lived would get a couple million dollars.
I love dinosaurs and I like reality shows, so this seemed like a really interesting idea. Unfortunately the author's writing was atrocious:
- She misspelled her main characters' names repeatedly (Bert/Burt and others).
- She had tons of basic misspelling and wrong word use (their/there/they're).
- Endless punctuation issues.
- Sentences cut off, as if she had meant to delete it but hadn't gotten it all. For example: " They ran away. It was "
- The most LAZY writing tricks ever. In a scene where no cameras were even mentioned:
Susan said, "I know that."
***Camera pans to left***
Unsurprising, as bad as the writing was, the plot issues were so so so SO much worse.
- The people had nearly no supplies. Yet on day 6 they somehow made spears with no mention of how, they just suddenly had spears.
- On the same day, somehow they had dish soap and dried gas, and made napalm...
- The dinosaurs were normal sized, and so the T-rexes were huge. Yet one person crushed one with a boulder by kicking the boulder. He kicked a rock big enough to kill a dino...
The plot for this book was a good idea, but the author was just such a god awful writer, she couldn't do anything with it.
This author has 70+ books for sale on Amazon. This is the kind of thing that makes me dislike self-publishing so much. There are good self-published books out there, but self-publishing allows for this utter dreck to be published, too.
Usually I feel bad about leaving a harsh review, because the author might see it and feel bad, but in this case... ugh. With 70+ books out there, the author has to be just chugging out dreck hoping for any sales. Please, author, please find yourself an editor. The idea for this book could have been a great story if you had cared about your work at all.
November 20, 2017
The kind of gore-filled read that really makes me smile. If that makes sense to you - you're going to love this!
April 9, 2014
The Jurassic Hunger Games
In a future where death and suffering are all televised, scientists created cloned dinosaurs for the latest version. The concept for this dystopian world is overcrowded poverty and man ruining the world along with wealthy elites making game shows to entertain the masses. Where this book works is the action scenes. It may be silly to think about someone taking on a T Rex with a knife but it works. But the characters and world feel shallow and we are told to care about it more than we are shown why.
In a future where death and suffering are all televised, scientists created cloned dinosaurs for the latest version. The concept for this dystopian world is overcrowded poverty and man ruining the world along with wealthy elites making game shows to entertain the masses. Where this book works is the action scenes. It may be silly to think about someone taking on a T Rex with a knife but it works. But the characters and world feel shallow and we are told to care about it more than we are shown why.
April 10, 2014
This was not what I thought it would be! It was much better. It was set as a TV reality show. Contestants on a game show to win 65 million dollars. What happens when they got to the dinosaur area that covers several thousand square miles? Who wins the money? How bad can the dinosaurs be? A refreshing take on apocalyptic books. 5 stars for this author- Thank You! Now, I go on to book #2 in this trilogy! This can be read as a stand-alone.
March 24, 2015
Good book
This was a good fast read. At first there are too many people to keep track of. But the dinosaurs take care of that. Took off one star for repetitive issues here and there. Overall , I do recommend this book for dinosaur and non serious survival fans. Will check out the others in this series..
This was a good fast read. At first there are too many people to keep track of. But the dinosaurs take care of that. Took off one star for repetitive issues here and there. Overall , I do recommend this book for dinosaur and non serious survival fans. Will check out the others in this series..
January 10, 2017
It was OK.
Basically Jurassic Park meets The Hunger Games, it's kind of difficult to care about the characters - they die off just as quickly as they're introduced. Plus a lot of the deaths are incredibly easy to predict and happen pretty much like the Jurassic Park movies.
Basically Jurassic Park meets The Hunger Games, it's kind of difficult to care about the characters - they die off just as quickly as they're introduced. Plus a lot of the deaths are incredibly easy to predict and happen pretty much like the Jurassic Park movies.
December 29, 2014
Good
Really enjoyable. Loved the adventure. A thrill ride. Will be reading the second books on the series. Lots of fun..
Really enjoyable. Loved the adventure. A thrill ride. Will be reading the second books on the series. Lots of fun..
March 6, 2016
It was an enjoyable, easy read, let down a little by sloppy editing. I'll be going straight on to the next in the series, so the editing can't have bothered me that much!
October 14, 2016
Hard to follow at times with so many characters.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews