Big Game

by Alex Laybourne

Matt Carmichael had always been a disappointment. To his father at least. Matt’s refusal to hunt was just one of the excuses he used to abuse his family to the point of destruction.

Twenty years later, Matt is reunited with his father and brother for a holiday of a life time. He knew something was wrong. He knew he shouldn’t trust his father, but it had been twenty years, and people could change.

Matt was wrong.

Trapped in a land that time forgot, Matt is pulled back into the world he fought to escape, and is forced to do the two things he had always refused. In order to survive, Matt must both forgive his family, and join the hunt.

As they journey deeper into the lost world, Matt learns the hideous truth about his father. The family’s darkest secrets are brought to light. In a land of ancient beasts, man still remains the greatest predator of them all.

132 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 27, 2015

About the author

Born and raised in the coastal English town Lowestoft, it should come as no surprise (to those that have the misfortune of knowing this place) that I became a horror writer.

From an early age I was sent to schools which were at least 30 minutes drive away and so spent the most of my free time alone, as the friends I did have lived too far away for me to be able to hang out with them in the weekends or holidays.

I have been a writer as long as I can remember and have always had a vivid imagination. To this very day I find it all too easy to just drift away into my own mind and explore the world I create, where the conditions always seem to be just perfect for the cultivation of ideas, plots, scenes, characters and lines of dialogue everything basically, and when the time is right, I can simply pluck them from the allotment of my mind serve them up on the pages of whatever work is to be their home.

I am married and have four children and my biggest dream for them is that they grow up and spend their lives doing what makes them happy, whatever that is.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fast-paced story with perhaps just a little too much going on for the length it has. There are drug dealers and toxic family relationships and trans-dimensional travels and dinosaur hunts and all manner of whizbang suchlike, so there's not much room left over for any character development beyond "she is pretty, he is mean, Dino is hungry". I'm not sure why it's listed with the "prehistoric" subtitle since it's dimensional rather than time travel, but that doesn't really matter. It was not a bad read, but not too memorable.

[A. Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good book, till the end.

Let me get this out first, I hate books where everyone dies. In my (personal) opinion there's no better way to ruin an excellent book than to kill everyone, or in this case, all but one character. The second thing I found almost laughable was the drug subplot. Really? You've got dinosaurs and the people financing the greatest scientific discovery in human history are clearing land to plant drugs instead of selling dinosaur eggs? I was so angry I almost didn't write a review, but the book was otherwise too good not to.

OK, rant over. Other than the above this is one of the best dinosaur books I've read in a long time. The action was intense and very well written, and the characters fit their places within the plot in every way.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes dinosaur action and doesn't mind the things I mentioned above. In fact, if not for those two things I would have gladly given this offering five stars.

[FictionFreak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reminded me of one of those horror/sci-fi anthology series, fun all the way, but things get wrapped up quick at the end. I like those shows, same with this. Good afternoon/weekend read.