Carnivore By Leigh Clark

Carnivore

By Leigh Clark
1997 Leisure/ BMI
Paperback, 311 pages

    A group in a secluded outpost in the Antarctic discovers a large egg deep in the glacial ice. Could it be a dinosaur egg? An EPA agent and a geologist are brought in for the excavation and sure enough, that is exactly what it is.

    The book cuts right to the chase and so will I… there is radiation at this outpost because the Russian leader is, in fact, looking for safe places to dump nuclear waste. The egg hatches and it is a foot tall Tyrannosaurus. The evil Ruskies expose him to more radiation and he grows quickly and before page 70 is eating the humans of Project Deepcore. He’s just a growing young T Rex looking for meat!

    By page 100, I’ll admit, I actually got a little restless. I was one third through the book and all it had so far was an endless supply of humans getting noshed on by a hungry dino. Not that that is a bad thing, but were they going to take him to a circus in the USA? To Madison Square Garden to break loose and devour New York. No, it seemed he was going to stay in this frozen wasteland eating the cast of characters. I feared it might get dull before the end.

    Well, it soon picked up as the main bad guy, Tarosh, becomes even more zealous and starts killing those who defy his orders. Our heroes, the geologist Troy and the EPA agent Kelly, who may or may not be becoming romantic, make plans to get away but between the dinosaur and the Russian madman, things look bleak.

    Yes, this is silly and gratuitous but sometimes that’s all I need in a book. There is a lot of human meat stuck between dinosaur-teeth (not fangs, as Clark occasionally says… T Rexes did not have fangs) and human blood reddening the snow. Also, the temps are so low that piss freezes before it hits the ground but the (warm-blooded) dinosaur seems to get along just fine. Hey, I don’t care. The gore is ladled-on thick, and the suspense gets pretty intense.

    Leigh Clark wrote a few other horror novels and this one was enjoyable enough to warrant looking into his (her?) other work. A word of warning… I read this book during a cold week in January and the freezing landscape in the book made me feel even colder. It might be a better cooling summer read for you.