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Carnivore
In an Antarctic research outpost, a group of scientists made a discovery. For the first time, modern man would come face-to-face with the ruler of the prehistoric world, the king of the dinosaurs--the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Blinded by scientific zeal, the researchers thought only of the importance of their find, the contribution to science. But soon they are forced to open their eyes to an inescapable fact--once revived, the specimen would need to feed.
311 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 14, 2018
Pretty much every mistake you could ever make if you found an unhatched, perfectly preserved T. rex egg in the Antarctic, all committed in quick succession. Read and learn, people.
May 6, 2021
Remember those stories you and your friends would make up when you were ten? The ones that involved giant dinosaurs coming to life and eating everybody you hated, especially your teachers at school, your parents, the annoying kid down the street, etc...? Remember how you grew up and forgot all about those stories now that you had discovered sex, driving, and alcohol (hopefully not all in the same night)? Well, Leigh Clark didn't forget and the result is Carnivore.
Carnivore is one part Corman's "Carnosaur", one part Carpenter's "The Thing", and one (very small) part Crichton's "Jurassic Park". You know going into it that it's going to be bloody awful -- and don't pretend you have no idea, just read the blurb here on Goodreads -- and yet something compels you to pick it up anyway because there's no way in hell somebody got paid to write a story like this, and yet...and yet...well, there you have it.
You cannot take Carnivore seriously.
At all.
Ever.
The moment you try, the moment you even think about treating it the way you would any other story, you're going to hate yourself. So trust me, don't even let the words, "But that couldn't happen because..." meander through your brain, or else you're finished before the third chapter. Approach it like you would a made-for-cable SyFy Channel horror film. You know it's bad. You just have to see how bad it can be for yourself.
Yes, there's a pseudo-plot in there somewhere about frozen dinosaur eggs, a T-Rex mutating after being exposed to radioactive waste, and a cast of characters who are all so inept and foolish they may as well have "MONSTER CHOW" scrawled on their heads in large block letters. Ignore the whiny environmentalist whack-job who doesn't want to die but doesn't want anybody to kill the poor "little" dino. Ignore the testosterone-laden male lead who exists only to impress the ladies (and can't even do that very well). Ignore the inept commander of this "small" research station who isn't fit to direct traffic much less run his outpost. Ignore the fact said outpost has such limited supplies but somehow manages to hold something like two hundred people for the dinosaur to eat. Ignore the fact that in arctic temperatures, lacking shelter or protection of any kind, a T-Rex would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Ignore it all. Leigh Clark does. Just read and snicker.
Enjoy the myriad ways that people become bipedal beef jerky. Enjoy all the bone-crushing, blood-spurting, fire-starting, wall-smashing, limb-amputating, fetid-breath-smelling sequences. Enjoy the campy dialog, written with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. That's what this book is all about.
The story is awful. I cannot impress this enough. Despite that, I've read this book four times, and will probably continue reading it every few years because I get a perverse pleasure watching the disaster unfold. Content-wise it's not worth even one out of the three stars I gave it. But for sheer gas factor, it earns every one of 'em. Check your brain at the door, there's a monster on the rampage.
T-Rex in the arctic. What's the world coming to, and can we please get more of it?
Carnivore is one part Corman's "Carnosaur", one part Carpenter's "The Thing", and one (very small) part Crichton's "Jurassic Park". You know going into it that it's going to be bloody awful -- and don't pretend you have no idea, just read the blurb here on Goodreads -- and yet something compels you to pick it up anyway because there's no way in hell somebody got paid to write a story like this, and yet...and yet...well, there you have it.
You cannot take Carnivore seriously.
At all.
Ever.
The moment you try, the moment you even think about treating it the way you would any other story, you're going to hate yourself. So trust me, don't even let the words, "But that couldn't happen because..." meander through your brain, or else you're finished before the third chapter. Approach it like you would a made-for-cable SyFy Channel horror film. You know it's bad. You just have to see how bad it can be for yourself.
Yes, there's a pseudo-plot in there somewhere about frozen dinosaur eggs, a T-Rex mutating after being exposed to radioactive waste, and a cast of characters who are all so inept and foolish they may as well have "MONSTER CHOW" scrawled on their heads in large block letters. Ignore the whiny environmentalist whack-job who doesn't want to die but doesn't want anybody to kill the poor "little" dino. Ignore the testosterone-laden male lead who exists only to impress the ladies (and can't even do that very well). Ignore the inept commander of this "small" research station who isn't fit to direct traffic much less run his outpost. Ignore the fact said outpost has such limited supplies but somehow manages to hold something like two hundred people for the dinosaur to eat. Ignore the fact that in arctic temperatures, lacking shelter or protection of any kind, a T-Rex would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Ignore it all. Leigh Clark does. Just read and snicker.
Enjoy the myriad ways that people become bipedal beef jerky. Enjoy all the bone-crushing, blood-spurting, fire-starting, wall-smashing, limb-amputating, fetid-breath-smelling sequences. Enjoy the campy dialog, written with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. That's what this book is all about.
The story is awful. I cannot impress this enough. Despite that, I've read this book four times, and will probably continue reading it every few years because I get a perverse pleasure watching the disaster unfold. Content-wise it's not worth even one out of the three stars I gave it. But for sheer gas factor, it earns every one of 'em. Check your brain at the door, there's a monster on the rampage.
T-Rex in the arctic. What's the world coming to, and can we please get more of it?
October 13, 2025
This is a kind of silly creature feature that reads like the plot of a low-budget SyFy made-for-television film. Scientists find a tyrannosaurus rex egg in in the Antarctic, so they dose it with radiation which makes it hatch and grow, so it eats a bunch of people, but that's okay because most of them are not much of a loss. Sometimes such fare is a lot of fun in a Sharknado kind of way, even though I'm afraid that this one lacks much humor and goes on for a bit too long. But dinosaurs are cool, and so a Jurassic Park/The Thing mashup is okay sometimes.
September 12, 2017
I'm afraid this was not my cup of tea. The writing itself was OK but I could never suspend disbelief. Scientists at a remote research station find a T-Rex dinosaur egg frozen in ice and thaw it out. They use radiation to make it hatch quickly and grow to full size within a few days. Naturally it escapes and wreaks havoc. The plot holes are huge and the science pretty much non-existent. If you like SYFY channel movies like Sharknado then you might enjoy this. I couldn't buy it and ended up speed-reading the last 150 pages or so.
February 28, 2022
Three stars for this quick, no-frills story about a T-Rex hatched and grown in Antarctica using nuclear waste. The characters make a lot of stupid decisions and they’re all at the mercy of one man with a gun that no one wants to stand up to. It’s cheesy, silly, and surprisingly fun and effective. Find it and read it if you’re in the mood for lots of people being chomped in half by a sixteen thousand pound Dino.
November 11, 2022
A book which cares not a lick about believability and just says 'fuck it here's an irradiated T-rex killing people in Antarctica". A true literary b-movie with outstanding action and cardboard cutout characters.
Better than Carnosaur!
Better than Carnosaur!
August 22, 2025
2.5 stars
Let me start by saying this: Carnivore is dumb. Like, “did they write this on a cocktail napkin after binge-watching SyFy Originals?” dumb. We’re talking asinine plot, asinine characters, and an eventual asinine conclusion that makes you wonder if Leigh Clark lost a bet and had to turn in the first draft without proofreading.
The premise? A T-Rex somehow ends up chomping its way through an Antarctic ice station because… science, I guess? Or maybe magic? Or maybe Clark just thought, “Jurassic Park, but make it snow.” From the opening chapter to the last, this book is a parade of dumb-ass decisions made by characters so outrageously stupid you’ll find yourself screaming, “Why are you doing this?!” more times than you can count.
We’ve got scientists who apparently skipped every class on basic survival, because the first time things go sideways, they decide splitting up in a labyrinth of frozen tunnels is a great idea. Genius move, guys—because nothing says “safety” like wandering off alone when there’s a 40-foot apex predator on the loose. Then there’s the military dude who thinks firing a handgun at a T-Rex will somehow work. I’m no ballistics expert, but I’m guessing that’s about as effective as throwing snowballs at it. Oh and there’s Dr. Emotional Support Dino. This woman spends half the book weeping over the T-rex like it’s a misunderstood puppy. Never mind that she literally watched it swallow a dozen men like popcorn—she still gushes about its “majesty” and has a full-on breakdown when she thinks it’s dead. Yes, in a book filled with questionable life choices, crying over the serial-killer lizard might be the dumbest (and therefore most entertaining) thing of all.
The dialogue? Peak stupidity. Characters constantly argue over things like “Should we warn the mainland?” while a giant dinosaur is literally devouring someone in the next room. Priorities, people. Or what about the groveling underling who constantly refers to his boss as “my colonel” despite the fact that there isn’t any real military to speak of at the base. Hunky Troy who doesn’t seem to understand how to flirt with a woman constantly says dumb things to the ONE woman on base (who he could probably bone since he’s the only one rescuing her countless times), and there’s the typical “If it bleeds we can kill it” jargon peppered throughout this entire book.
And the science… oh, the science. I’m still not sure if Clark did any research beyond watching Jurassic Park on VHS in 1997. This T-Rex apparently survived being frozen for millions of years and just wakes up hungry, because that’s how biology works now. No explanation, no plausible backstory—just boom, here’s a dinosaur, deal with it. By the time someone suggests “maybe we can lure it into the snowstorm,” I was crying tears of laughter.
Honestly, it’s a legitimate question: did Clark actually mean this to be serious? Or is Carnivore a love letter to Roger Corman-style B-grade creature features? Because if this was satire, it’s genius. If it wasn’t… well, that’s even funnier.
Here’s the kicker: for all its idiocy, this book is weirdly entertaining. It’s so spectacularly, unapologetically bad that it crosses the threshold into so bad, it’s good territory. What’s not to love about a prehistoric murder lizard wreaking havoc in subzero isolation? It has the same chaotic charm as Tommy Wiseau’s The Room—utterly awful, and yet you can’t look away. There’s some seriously over the top action scenes that are so insanely wild, they manage to be some of the most fun I’ve ever read. For example: At one point, someone actually manages to call in a rescue chopper. For about five glorious pages, you think help has arrived. Then, like a scene from the world’s dumbest Jurassic Park fanfic, the T-Rex launches out of nowhere and literally snaps the tail rotor off with its jaws. The helicopter spirals into an ice trench and explodes like a Michael Bay fever dream. Characters just stand there watching, slack-jawed, as if this wasn’t the most predictable outcome in history.
Oh and planes get involved too. And yes, it goes exactly how you think. In the first incident, the dino charges one of aircrafts on the runway during takeoff, biting into the landing gear and sending the whole plane cartwheeling into a fiery wreck. People inside? Gone. Pilot? Toast. The book doesn’t even try to make sense of it—it’s pure chaos porn.
But the sequel to that carnage? Chef’s kiss. A SECOND transport plane actually gets airborne, and for a moment, you almost think the survivors will make it. Then Clark decides to crank the nonsense up to 11: the T-Rex somehow crawls into the wing structure mid-taxi, smashes through the fuselage, and literally bursts into the cockpit and eats the pilots mid-flight. No, I’m not kidding. The scene reads like someone said, “You know what would be cool? If Godzilla and Snakes on a Plane had a baby.” The result: plane down, pilots gone, and me cackling like a maniac.
Make no mistake: in no universe is Carnivore “good.” It is not clever, it is not well-written, and it is absolutely ridiculous. And yet… I kind of loved every brainless, blood-soaked minute of it.
If you’ve ever wanted to read something that feels like a SyFy movie marathon fever dream, grab a copy. Just don’t expect to get smarter.
Let me start by saying this: Carnivore is dumb. Like, “did they write this on a cocktail napkin after binge-watching SyFy Originals?” dumb. We’re talking asinine plot, asinine characters, and an eventual asinine conclusion that makes you wonder if Leigh Clark lost a bet and had to turn in the first draft without proofreading.
The premise? A T-Rex somehow ends up chomping its way through an Antarctic ice station because… science, I guess? Or maybe magic? Or maybe Clark just thought, “Jurassic Park, but make it snow.” From the opening chapter to the last, this book is a parade of dumb-ass decisions made by characters so outrageously stupid you’ll find yourself screaming, “Why are you doing this?!” more times than you can count.
We’ve got scientists who apparently skipped every class on basic survival, because the first time things go sideways, they decide splitting up in a labyrinth of frozen tunnels is a great idea. Genius move, guys—because nothing says “safety” like wandering off alone when there’s a 40-foot apex predator on the loose. Then there’s the military dude who thinks firing a handgun at a T-Rex will somehow work. I’m no ballistics expert, but I’m guessing that’s about as effective as throwing snowballs at it. Oh and there’s Dr. Emotional Support Dino. This woman spends half the book weeping over the T-rex like it’s a misunderstood puppy. Never mind that she literally watched it swallow a dozen men like popcorn—she still gushes about its “majesty” and has a full-on breakdown when she thinks it’s dead. Yes, in a book filled with questionable life choices, crying over the serial-killer lizard might be the dumbest (and therefore most entertaining) thing of all.
The dialogue? Peak stupidity. Characters constantly argue over things like “Should we warn the mainland?” while a giant dinosaur is literally devouring someone in the next room. Priorities, people. Or what about the groveling underling who constantly refers to his boss as “my colonel” despite the fact that there isn’t any real military to speak of at the base. Hunky Troy who doesn’t seem to understand how to flirt with a woman constantly says dumb things to the ONE woman on base (who he could probably bone since he’s the only one rescuing her countless times), and there’s the typical “If it bleeds we can kill it” jargon peppered throughout this entire book.
And the science… oh, the science. I’m still not sure if Clark did any research beyond watching Jurassic Park on VHS in 1997. This T-Rex apparently survived being frozen for millions of years and just wakes up hungry, because that’s how biology works now. No explanation, no plausible backstory—just boom, here’s a dinosaur, deal with it. By the time someone suggests “maybe we can lure it into the snowstorm,” I was crying tears of laughter.
Honestly, it’s a legitimate question: did Clark actually mean this to be serious? Or is Carnivore a love letter to Roger Corman-style B-grade creature features? Because if this was satire, it’s genius. If it wasn’t… well, that’s even funnier.
Here’s the kicker: for all its idiocy, this book is weirdly entertaining. It’s so spectacularly, unapologetically bad that it crosses the threshold into so bad, it’s good territory. What’s not to love about a prehistoric murder lizard wreaking havoc in subzero isolation? It has the same chaotic charm as Tommy Wiseau’s The Room—utterly awful, and yet you can’t look away. There’s some seriously over the top action scenes that are so insanely wild, they manage to be some of the most fun I’ve ever read. For example: At one point, someone actually manages to call in a rescue chopper. For about five glorious pages, you think help has arrived. Then, like a scene from the world’s dumbest Jurassic Park fanfic, the T-Rex launches out of nowhere and literally snaps the tail rotor off with its jaws. The helicopter spirals into an ice trench and explodes like a Michael Bay fever dream. Characters just stand there watching, slack-jawed, as if this wasn’t the most predictable outcome in history.
Oh and planes get involved too. And yes, it goes exactly how you think. In the first incident, the dino charges one of aircrafts on the runway during takeoff, biting into the landing gear and sending the whole plane cartwheeling into a fiery wreck. People inside? Gone. Pilot? Toast. The book doesn’t even try to make sense of it—it’s pure chaos porn.
But the sequel to that carnage? Chef’s kiss. A SECOND transport plane actually gets airborne, and for a moment, you almost think the survivors will make it. Then Clark decides to crank the nonsense up to 11: the T-Rex somehow crawls into the wing structure mid-taxi, smashes through the fuselage, and literally bursts into the cockpit and eats the pilots mid-flight. No, I’m not kidding. The scene reads like someone said, “You know what would be cool? If Godzilla and Snakes on a Plane had a baby.” The result: plane down, pilots gone, and me cackling like a maniac.
Make no mistake: in no universe is Carnivore “good.” It is not clever, it is not well-written, and it is absolutely ridiculous. And yet… I kind of loved every brainless, blood-soaked minute of it.
If you’ve ever wanted to read something that feels like a SyFy movie marathon fever dream, grab a copy. Just don’t expect to get smarter.
March 15, 2019
This could've ended a little earlier, but it's hard not to love a story about a viable dinosaur egg found in the Antarctic that's growth was expedited by toxic waste.
April 17, 2017
As the death count rises, with body parts, and blood and guts flying, this creature feature shows no mercy to anyone for their arrogance and overstepping their bounds with this TRex.
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To see more visit fundinmental
January 25, 2016
People are hiding a large batch of nuclear waste in the arctic
People discover preserved dinosaur egg in the ice and leave it in an incubator in the nuclear waste storage room
T-REX happens in arctic base
People die
:D
I LOVE creature features in isolated places, you get something like Shakma where the movie could be intense but the characters are morons who don't know how to open a window or call the cops. In the isolated type story such as this they have a plane, OF COURSE they want to capture the dino and bring it back with them. This is all delightful cheesy fun for me and it's a slightly above average pulp fiction fare but since it hits my favorite tropes we're going with 4/5 If I go back and reread this, I have recently found a new copy at a Half Priced Books much to my delight, I will redo my review in accordance.
People discover preserved dinosaur egg in the ice and leave it in an incubator in the nuclear waste storage room
T-REX happens in arctic base
People die
:D
I LOVE creature features in isolated places, you get something like Shakma where the movie could be intense but the characters are morons who don't know how to open a window or call the cops. In the isolated type story such as this they have a plane, OF COURSE they want to capture the dino and bring it back with them. This is all delightful cheesy fun for me and it's a slightly above average pulp fiction fare but since it hits my favorite tropes we're going with 4/5 If I go back and reread this, I have recently found a new copy at a Half Priced Books much to my delight, I will redo my review in accordance.
February 7, 2017
Wow -- this is one of those books that makes me wonder how it got published in its current form. The book reads like an unedited (or maybe roughly edited) Nanowrimo novel. The plot is rough, full of holes and completely implausable. If you are fan of the 1950s monster movie, then this is the book for you.
There are so many plot holes, you can easily imagine other characters coming in: Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park) warning everyone about T Rex behavior and/or ranting about chaos theory; Dirk Pitt and the rest of NUMA sailing in to investigate the strange happenings; Count Saknussem (Journey to the Center of the Earth) trying to tame the dinosaur. I also found myself wondering strange things like: can a T-rex be hooded like a raptor?
There are so many plot holes, you can easily imagine other characters coming in: Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park) warning everyone about T Rex behavior and/or ranting about chaos theory; Dirk Pitt and the rest of NUMA sailing in to investigate the strange happenings; Count Saknussem (Journey to the Center of the Earth) trying to tame the dinosaur. I also found myself wondering strange things like: can a T-rex be hooded like a raptor?
February 6, 2013
I didn't expect this book to be great but I was unprepared for how awful it was. The 'science' makes Jurassic Park look like a documentary. For example: radiation apparently makes dinosaurs not only hatch but grow to adulthood in about three days! I could have forgiven that if there was the slightest evidence of wit of style but the writing is crude to say the least. The characters are mere stick men, the token woman expert is whiny and over-sentimental and the plot just goes into a loop of endless Tyranosaurus Rex attacks. I lost count of the number of times its "great head" is mentioned or it "pounces like a bird". In short, no fun at all.
May 31, 2016
There are not sufficient words for how bad this book is. I don't really have high standards for my creature fiction, but, it would be nice if I felt like the author had made an effort. The villains are cartoonish at best, the hero (ish) is largely a misogynistic ass, and the book's sole female character seems determined to embody every possible stereotype about useless emotional women. The plot, even for a story about a unthawed and hatched dinosaur egg, has more holes than story, and the only potentially likable character is in fact the dinosaur.
I will say it would make a great SyFy movie in the right hands. The concept had potential; the execution was, however, horrid.
I will say it would make a great SyFy movie in the right hands. The concept had potential; the execution was, however, horrid.
April 11, 2024
The Short Version
A quick and silly horror book about a defrosted t-rex attacking an Antarctic research station. Filled with standard one dimensional characters and a pile of gore, it manages to be a lot of fun while also overstaying it's welcome. A tiny bit more variety in the story would have gone a long way.
A fun little read if you enjoy dinosaurs and pulpy horror, but there's not quite enough to sink your teeth into.
The Long Version
I'm on a bit of a mission to read all the dinosaur fiction books I can find. Half the fun is finding books that few other people have read. Unfortunately there is often a reason these books are unknown, and this book is no exception.
The book starts off well enough. It knows exactly what it is and dives into the action as fast as possible. No slow buildup for this book, we start after the discovery of a frozen t-rex egg, and immediately someone with nefarious purposes is splashing it with radiation to make it grow faster. Wait, radiation makes things grow faster? Ok, so the book is letting us know it doesn't give a damn about science and just wants to let an adult t-rex chow down on some people. I'm fine with that.
As you can imagine, things go wrong almost immediately. The t-rex is fully grown in about three chapters, and immediately breaks out and starts killing people. And boy do I mean killing. We get a lot of detail about every kill, how it rips people in half, body parts flying, screams of horror, and all that fun stuff. It's all so cheesy that it's actually a blast to read. The problem is, that's kind of all there is for most of the book.
This research station must have a crew of almost 200 people, because the rex kills people at an insane rate, barely taking any breaks to digest, or even breathe. Had the author spent a bit more time letting the human characters plot their own survival this book could have had some wonderful tension too it. Instead every pause turns out to be a very brief interlude before we do it all again. And it starts getting repetitive. During his first escape the t-rex takes down a plane that is taking off. And because the author only has about three ideas, he repeats the scene later on!
Thankfully the final section of the book transitions to a chase through snowy mountains. This is a welcome change of pace that almost saves the book. Unfortunately, the story is so predictable that any real tension is killed, and it's not enough fun to make up for that. Everyone dies exactly as you'd expect, when you'd expect. The heroes are saved multiple times by random events at the last second more times than I can count. It would be nice if they used their brains once and a while, but the sheer amount of good luck that keeps them alive is a bit much even for a book of this genre.
All in all, I enjoyed the book enough for what it was. But it's a shame there wasn't a bit more going on, because it's so close to being a campy classic. Instead it kind of runs out of steam halfway through and never really recovers.
A quick and silly horror book about a defrosted t-rex attacking an Antarctic research station. Filled with standard one dimensional characters and a pile of gore, it manages to be a lot of fun while also overstaying it's welcome. A tiny bit more variety in the story would have gone a long way.
A fun little read if you enjoy dinosaurs and pulpy horror, but there's not quite enough to sink your teeth into.
The Long Version
I'm on a bit of a mission to read all the dinosaur fiction books I can find. Half the fun is finding books that few other people have read. Unfortunately there is often a reason these books are unknown, and this book is no exception.
The book starts off well enough. It knows exactly what it is and dives into the action as fast as possible. No slow buildup for this book, we start after the discovery of a frozen t-rex egg, and immediately someone with nefarious purposes is splashing it with radiation to make it grow faster. Wait, radiation makes things grow faster? Ok, so the book is letting us know it doesn't give a damn about science and just wants to let an adult t-rex chow down on some people. I'm fine with that.
As you can imagine, things go wrong almost immediately. The t-rex is fully grown in about three chapters, and immediately breaks out and starts killing people. And boy do I mean killing. We get a lot of detail about every kill, how it rips people in half, body parts flying, screams of horror, and all that fun stuff. It's all so cheesy that it's actually a blast to read. The problem is, that's kind of all there is for most of the book.
This research station must have a crew of almost 200 people, because the rex kills people at an insane rate, barely taking any breaks to digest, or even breathe. Had the author spent a bit more time letting the human characters plot their own survival this book could have had some wonderful tension too it. Instead every pause turns out to be a very brief interlude before we do it all again. And it starts getting repetitive. During his first escape the t-rex takes down a plane that is taking off. And because the author only has about three ideas, he repeats the scene later on!
Thankfully the final section of the book transitions to a chase through snowy mountains. This is a welcome change of pace that almost saves the book. Unfortunately, the story is so predictable that any real tension is killed, and it's not enough fun to make up for that. Everyone dies exactly as you'd expect, when you'd expect. The heroes are saved multiple times by random events at the last second more times than I can count. It would be nice if they used their brains once and a while, but the sheer amount of good luck that keeps them alive is a bit much even for a book of this genre.
All in all, I enjoyed the book enough for what it was. But it's a shame there wasn't a bit more going on, because it's so close to being a campy classic. Instead it kind of runs out of steam halfway through and never really recovers.
December 17, 2023
An egg suspended in time, an endless milliennia, awaiting its final transformation. Radioactive waste container the egg cracked, big eyes, formidable jaw looking out into the bright new world. 7 inches high, a T-Rex, the largest and most ferocious land based predator. Rapid growth, in only seconds flesh is ripped from the face, leaving the skull, arm torn off, ripped chest to ball sack, intestines glistening beside the body. The T-Rex is now a 16000 pound carnivore, genetically programmed to hunt and kill. The fetid stench on the face, saliva dripping before jaws ripping off heads, arms like a lizard ripping of butterfly wings. A man taking a piss gets his groin chewed off. The feeling of isolation in the snow, nobody to rescue them. Way too long for an animal attack book.
July 18, 2009
Something simple I read to report on in high school. As I recall, I don't remember it being bad. Just a nice read and easy to follow.
July 6, 2013
Awesome! Jurassic park meets the thing! A lot of fun! This could easily be a summer blockbuster! Pulpy popcorn fun!
May 4, 2023
The basic plot is this: A frozen T-Rex egg is found in Antarctica and brought to a remote research station. It's exposed to radioactivity, which causes it to hatch and the tyrannosaurus to grow to full size in a few weeks. Then it escapes and starts eating people.
Carnivore is a prose-version of a cheesy monster movie. Think of the movies made for the Sci-Fi channel that deliberately go for the "so bad it's good" vibe. If you read it with that expectation, you might be able to enjoy it despite the often clunky prose.
Because the story doesn't really make sense. The research station is really a cover to find a spot to dispose of radioactive waste. The security staff consists of brutal former KGB agents, with one of them exposing the egg to the waste with a never-properly-explained plan to eventually make money off it. He literally just cracks open a barrel of waste next to the egg to make it hatch more quickly. Everyone in the novel simply accepts the idea that if you mix a frozen, prehistoric egg with radioactivity, you end up with a full-grown dinosaur within a few weeks.
The radioactive waste, by the way, is then forgotten about, even when the station is eventually destroyed by the dinosaur.
The size and layout of the station is never detailed. There's an awful lot of guys there--whenever the T-Rex crashes into a new room, that room is always full of men who inevitably panic and get clogged in the doorway so the T-Rex can pick them off one by one. The station even has a room large enough for a jury-rigged cage to contatin the full grown dinosaur before it breaks out and begins rampaging.
The T-Rex, by the way, is not bothered by the sub-zero temperatures and is essentially bulletproof. It also moves a nigh-superspeed, destroys two planes and a helicopter, & survives several explosions and a fall off a cliff. It's presented as more of a Lovecraftian horror than a believable living creature.
It is possible to enjoy the novel on a silly, B-movie level, but only barely.
Carnivore is a prose-version of a cheesy monster movie. Think of the movies made for the Sci-Fi channel that deliberately go for the "so bad it's good" vibe. If you read it with that expectation, you might be able to enjoy it despite the often clunky prose.
Because the story doesn't really make sense. The research station is really a cover to find a spot to dispose of radioactive waste. The security staff consists of brutal former KGB agents, with one of them exposing the egg to the waste with a never-properly-explained plan to eventually make money off it. He literally just cracks open a barrel of waste next to the egg to make it hatch more quickly. Everyone in the novel simply accepts the idea that if you mix a frozen, prehistoric egg with radioactivity, you end up with a full-grown dinosaur within a few weeks.
The radioactive waste, by the way, is then forgotten about, even when the station is eventually destroyed by the dinosaur.
The size and layout of the station is never detailed. There's an awful lot of guys there--whenever the T-Rex crashes into a new room, that room is always full of men who inevitably panic and get clogged in the doorway so the T-Rex can pick them off one by one. The station even has a room large enough for a jury-rigged cage to contatin the full grown dinosaur before it breaks out and begins rampaging.
The T-Rex, by the way, is not bothered by the sub-zero temperatures and is essentially bulletproof. It also moves a nigh-superspeed, destroys two planes and a helicopter, & survives several explosions and a fall off a cliff. It's presented as more of a Lovecraftian horror than a believable living creature.
It is possible to enjoy the novel on a silly, B-movie level, but only barely.
December 18, 2025
This reads like a horror B-film in the best way possible and it doesn’t waste any time getting to the action (in my opinion). It starts out with an expedition team finding a perfectly preserved dinosaur egg deep in the ice of Antarctica and eventually taking the egg back to their base where they blast it with radiation causing the egg to hatch and grow into a t-Rex.
After the egg hatches and the t-Rex gets a taste for blood, it will stop at nothing to get its fill! I am an avid lover of B movies so I absolutely loved this book! The action was almost nonstop and the gore was absolutely top notch! This was definitely one of the most entertaining reads of my new journey into vintage horror and I would probably say, a diamond in the rough! I read this pretty quick and could not put it down!
If you don’t like gorey b-movie creature features then you could probably skip this. Of you enjoy Gorey B-movies or creature features, this is the book for you! People getting torn to shreds by a towering t-Rex. What’s not to love?
After the egg hatches and the t-Rex gets a taste for blood, it will stop at nothing to get its fill! I am an avid lover of B movies so I absolutely loved this book! The action was almost nonstop and the gore was absolutely top notch! This was definitely one of the most entertaining reads of my new journey into vintage horror and I would probably say, a diamond in the rough! I read this pretty quick and could not put it down!
If you don’t like gorey b-movie creature features then you could probably skip this. Of you enjoy Gorey B-movies or creature features, this is the book for you! People getting torn to shreds by a towering t-Rex. What’s not to love?
July 29, 2024
Hot blonde babe representative for the Environmental Protection Agency Kelly Sawyer is sent to Deepcore Station in the antarctic, which, despite ostensibly being an American installation, is run by a crazy Russian named Colonel Valentine Tarosh who has a whole squad of Makarov-toting douchebags with scary European-sounding names at his disposal. Hunky man's man Troy Darrow and his best buddy Jack Raines have discovered a dinosaur egg frozen in the ice. Nobody likes Kelly, who has arrived because the egg was technically found in a section of Antarctica that's international, and therefore she's there to ensure it is preserved for the scientific interests of all nations, not just the US' (I was unaware the EPA did this sort of thing, but whatever).
Despite her insisting that they study the egg where it is, Tarosh and chief scientist Dr. Lyle Burke dig it out and bring it back to Deepcore where it promptly hatches into a baby Tyrannosaurus rex. Kelly is surprised it hatched so quickly, and then discovers the reason for it; the US government is using Deepcore as a cover to dispose of nuclear waste, which they're burying thousands of feet under the ice. Now Tarosh and Dr. Burke want to infuse the baby T-rex with more radiation to make it grow bigger and bigger so they can study it or something. Even though she's not a biologist or a paleontologist, they insist Kelly handle its care and feeding.
She's so enamored with this discovery she has seals killed so that their meat can be fed to the rapidly-growing beast. So much for protecting the environment. But when it bites the finger off of cook Mendoza, Burke suddenly begins wondering if making it continue to grow bigger is such a good idea and wants to call the whole thing off. So Tarosh does the only sensible thing and blows him away consequence-free, because of course a former Soviet agent running a US base that's illegally dumping radioactive waste in the antarctic can murder his staff without any blowback. Nobody really considers this too out of the ordinary except Kelly; apparently blatant murder is the norm for US antarctic research stations.
Tarosh has decided to make the dinosaur grow to full size, then transport it back to the US so he can profit off of it somehow. He radios the mainland and says Burke committed suicide and Kelly died in a tragic accident, forcing the captive EPA agent to take care of the rapidly-growing T-rex more or less at gunpoint and ignoring everything she and Troy Darrow say. A big cargo plane is flown in along with a security expert friend of Tarosh's who brings a tranquilizer gun. The plan is tranq the dino and put him on the plane. It goes wrong, the security guy gets killed, the dinosaur escapes, and becomes an unstoppable killing machine who can do everything, always succeeds at pursuing and killing everything it targets, is bulletproof, can leap through the air and take down airplanes and helicopters, and survive living in subzero temperatures for extended periods of time.
Tarosh goes full Captain Rhodes, terrorizing the base's staff and forcing them to assist him in his plan to recapture the thing. Despite him having only a handful of loyal fellow Russians, the some forty or fifty odd Deepcore personnel are spineless wimps who obey his every tyrannical whim. Each plan to recapture the thing fails, and multiple attacks against the buildings eventually whittle the personnel down to just Kelly, Troy, Troy's friend Jack, Tarosh, his goons Zalman, Belin and Provkov, Mendoza the cook and a few other nobodies. A plane is sent to find out why Deepcore hasn't been sending progress reports, and Tarosh plans to get the T-rex out on it, but his plan goes awry; despite successfully recapturing the Tyrannosaurus using Kelly as bait (during which Zalman is killed), the dumbshits left to guard it let it get away.
Belin and another guy get the plane destroyed by trying to hide behind it; the plane runs over the one guy, and then takes off with Belin hanging onto the landing gear. He loses his grip and falls. The T-rex leaps into the sky and brings the plane down because it's indestructible and can do anything and everything. Obtaining Zalman's Makarov, Kelly, Troy and Jack decide to escape along with Troy's faithful half-wolf sled dog who is of course named Wolf. Belin, who survived his fall somehow, shoots at them with a Weatherby rifle and kills Jack, then gets eaten by the Tyrannosaurus.
Tarosh and Provkov get Mendoza and the last remaining Deepcore personnel and reveals he has one particular roid-rage Russian sled dog he calls Grushka. He declares that Kelly and Troy are deserters and must be pursued into the arctic wilderness. Troy is to be killed, while he has "other plans" for Kelly, who he hates for "trying to act like a man," implying he intends to rape her. Mendoza and the others are surprisingly on board with this because everyone in this book is either an idiot or a sadist. Chase, chase, chase, blah, blah, blah, Mendoza gets hurt when shooting at Kelly and Troy causes an avalanche, so Tarosh mercy kills him. Nobody cares much. Grushka turns against his ostensible masters and mauls a guy. Troy tries to do something stupid and gets caught. Provkov moves to shoot him but Clark swipes the "there's a gunshot and the hero thinks he's been hit but then the shooter falls dead revealing the love interest behind him with gun raised" thing from every movie ever.
The T-rex attacks, kills the guy Grushka mauled, then finally does us all a favor and bites Tarosh in half. Finally. Good riddance. Kelly, Troy and the final surviving guy, Benson, try to make for a Russian outpost, but Benson dies in another Tyrannosaur attack. Only our two leads and, I think, Wolf the dog make it and are evacuated in a helicopter. As for the T-rex, the ice its standing on breaks free and it drifts away into the arctic ocean like the monster at the end of Frankenstein.
Despite her insisting that they study the egg where it is, Tarosh and chief scientist Dr. Lyle Burke dig it out and bring it back to Deepcore where it promptly hatches into a baby Tyrannosaurus rex. Kelly is surprised it hatched so quickly, and then discovers the reason for it; the US government is using Deepcore as a cover to dispose of nuclear waste, which they're burying thousands of feet under the ice. Now Tarosh and Dr. Burke want to infuse the baby T-rex with more radiation to make it grow bigger and bigger so they can study it or something. Even though she's not a biologist or a paleontologist, they insist Kelly handle its care and feeding.
She's so enamored with this discovery she has seals killed so that their meat can be fed to the rapidly-growing beast. So much for protecting the environment. But when it bites the finger off of cook Mendoza, Burke suddenly begins wondering if making it continue to grow bigger is such a good idea and wants to call the whole thing off. So Tarosh does the only sensible thing and blows him away consequence-free, because of course a former Soviet agent running a US base that's illegally dumping radioactive waste in the antarctic can murder his staff without any blowback. Nobody really considers this too out of the ordinary except Kelly; apparently blatant murder is the norm for US antarctic research stations.
Tarosh has decided to make the dinosaur grow to full size, then transport it back to the US so he can profit off of it somehow. He radios the mainland and says Burke committed suicide and Kelly died in a tragic accident, forcing the captive EPA agent to take care of the rapidly-growing T-rex more or less at gunpoint and ignoring everything she and Troy Darrow say. A big cargo plane is flown in along with a security expert friend of Tarosh's who brings a tranquilizer gun. The plan is tranq the dino and put him on the plane. It goes wrong, the security guy gets killed, the dinosaur escapes, and becomes an unstoppable killing machine who can do everything, always succeeds at pursuing and killing everything it targets, is bulletproof, can leap through the air and take down airplanes and helicopters, and survive living in subzero temperatures for extended periods of time.
Tarosh goes full Captain Rhodes, terrorizing the base's staff and forcing them to assist him in his plan to recapture the thing. Despite him having only a handful of loyal fellow Russians, the some forty or fifty odd Deepcore personnel are spineless wimps who obey his every tyrannical whim. Each plan to recapture the thing fails, and multiple attacks against the buildings eventually whittle the personnel down to just Kelly, Troy, Troy's friend Jack, Tarosh, his goons Zalman, Belin and Provkov, Mendoza the cook and a few other nobodies. A plane is sent to find out why Deepcore hasn't been sending progress reports, and Tarosh plans to get the T-rex out on it, but his plan goes awry; despite successfully recapturing the Tyrannosaurus using Kelly as bait (during which Zalman is killed), the dumbshits left to guard it let it get away.
Belin and another guy get the plane destroyed by trying to hide behind it; the plane runs over the one guy, and then takes off with Belin hanging onto the landing gear. He loses his grip and falls. The T-rex leaps into the sky and brings the plane down because it's indestructible and can do anything and everything. Obtaining Zalman's Makarov, Kelly, Troy and Jack decide to escape along with Troy's faithful half-wolf sled dog who is of course named Wolf. Belin, who survived his fall somehow, shoots at them with a Weatherby rifle and kills Jack, then gets eaten by the Tyrannosaurus.
Tarosh and Provkov get Mendoza and the last remaining Deepcore personnel and reveals he has one particular roid-rage Russian sled dog he calls Grushka. He declares that Kelly and Troy are deserters and must be pursued into the arctic wilderness. Troy is to be killed, while he has "other plans" for Kelly, who he hates for "trying to act like a man," implying he intends to rape her. Mendoza and the others are surprisingly on board with this because everyone in this book is either an idiot or a sadist. Chase, chase, chase, blah, blah, blah, Mendoza gets hurt when shooting at Kelly and Troy causes an avalanche, so Tarosh mercy kills him. Nobody cares much. Grushka turns against his ostensible masters and mauls a guy. Troy tries to do something stupid and gets caught. Provkov moves to shoot him but Clark swipes the "there's a gunshot and the hero thinks he's been hit but then the shooter falls dead revealing the love interest behind him with gun raised" thing from every movie ever.
The T-rex attacks, kills the guy Grushka mauled, then finally does us all a favor and bites Tarosh in half. Finally. Good riddance. Kelly, Troy and the final surviving guy, Benson, try to make for a Russian outpost, but Benson dies in another Tyrannosaur attack. Only our two leads and, I think, Wolf the dog make it and are evacuated in a helicopter. As for the T-rex, the ice its standing on breaks free and it drifts away into the arctic ocean like the monster at the end of Frankenstein.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 7, 2025
It's horribly awesome. I give this five stars for its impact on me all these years.
When I discovered this book in the dollar bin in 1997 I didn't realize what a cult classic it would become in my own mind. I have since turned it into an audiobook on my YouTube channel (since the publisher is out of business and the author cannot be found. although I would love if I could because this is an homage to him).
It's wacky, it's tacky, and absolutely scientifically incorrect on many fronts. But my GOD is it entertaining-a page turner! Every page says something ridiculous and it makes you want to see what could possibly come next.
His work is out of print but if you are a fan of those bad B sci-fi movies then hop over to my YouTube channel The Wrathful Proser and or grab a copy of this book!
When I discovered this book in the dollar bin in 1997 I didn't realize what a cult classic it would become in my own mind. I have since turned it into an audiobook on my YouTube channel (since the publisher is out of business and the author cannot be found. although I would love if I could because this is an homage to him).
It's wacky, it's tacky, and absolutely scientifically incorrect on many fronts. But my GOD is it entertaining-a page turner! Every page says something ridiculous and it makes you want to see what could possibly come next.
His work is out of print but if you are a fan of those bad B sci-fi movies then hop over to my YouTube channel The Wrathful Proser and or grab a copy of this book!
January 30, 2023
It's the biggest load of crap under the sun, I mean it's as the cover suggests: a t-rex in the artic...
BUT, it's one of those so bad it's good kind of deals.
It was one of the books that I had the most fun with. Because it's not something you take too seriously, and I think neither did the author.
It flows nicely, somehow I couldn't let it go, despite it being so stupid.
Alot of satisfying moments as well.
And with some imagination there are a few scary scenes.
But yeah, it takes a lot of imagination, and mercy.
If you come across a copy, Go for it. But just keep an open mind.
BUT, it's one of those so bad it's good kind of deals.
It was one of the books that I had the most fun with. Because it's not something you take too seriously, and I think neither did the author.
It flows nicely, somehow I couldn't let it go, despite it being so stupid.
Alot of satisfying moments as well.
And with some imagination there are a few scary scenes.
But yeah, it takes a lot of imagination, and mercy.
If you come across a copy, Go for it. But just keep an open mind.
July 5, 2023
My friend passed me this book, fished out from the footwell of the back seat years ago, and told me it was the worst book directly inspired by Jurassic Park he had ever read. He wasn’t wrong.
As a game I started keeping track of all the causalities in pencil on the inside cover. The dinosaur gets a lot of people…
I can’t recommend reading the book, and don’t try to track its size between episodes or even think logically about any of it. Treating it like a bad tv movie is perhaps the best. A dog eared copy to be shoved at a friend after reading (as it was how I was given the book and how I past it on) is what one needs to do.
As a game I started keeping track of all the causalities in pencil on the inside cover. The dinosaur gets a lot of people…
I can’t recommend reading the book, and don’t try to track its size between episodes or even think logically about any of it. Treating it like a bad tv movie is perhaps the best. A dog eared copy to be shoved at a friend after reading (as it was how I was given the book and how I past it on) is what one needs to do.
November 19, 2021
Като цяло Carnivore не е голяма литература като "Юрски парк" на Крайтън… и слава Богу затова. Поне аз, когато чета за тиранозаври, не се интересувам от хипотезите за теорията на хаоса или размислите за греховната дързост на човечеството. Не, че тук става нещо различно – в крайна сметка хората арогантно изтървават от контрол нещо, което са искали да монетизират – но е наблегнато на кървавото наказание, а не на философстване защо е така. А това е, което аз искам от книга за чудовище – екшън и яко качамак! Получих ги.
Прочетете повече в Цитаделата:
https://citadelata.com/carnivore/
Прочетете повече в Цитаделата:
https://citadelata.com/carnivore/
June 7, 2024
I was looking forward to reading this book because the description on the back sounded exciting. However, the story worsened with each chapter and having the T-Rex compared to a bird constantly was not creative on the author's part. The main girl character is extremely annoying where I was wanting the T-Rex to kill her off. The ending is disappointing. The only thing that kept me reading was that I liked how the author wrote.
September 20, 2023
The trick to writing a ridiculous creature-feature that breaks all laws of science and physics is that the story needs to be campy and fun. Unfortunately, this book isn't fun. I was extremely disappointed.
May 4, 2024
Not nearly as bad as what everyone says. It's a fun story, and if the cover image (the tyrannosaurs' shadow looming over the arctic bar) didn't tip you off to the fact that scientific accuracy is not a focus, I don't know what to tell you. I will say, the ending did feel a bit rushed though.
September 14, 2023
1 star because it's just so bad. +1 star because it's nonsensical fun!
August 7, 2024
Listen — you douse any monster in radioactive waste, & I’ll believe it can thrive in the Antarctic. It’s Creature-Featureolgy 101.
March 14, 2025
The story was alright. But I got tired of people doing stupid decisions.
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