Carnivore is a sci-fi horror novel written by Leigh Clark that is an unusual cross between Jurassic Park and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). In it, a group of researchers and evil Russians use chemicals to make a revived and recently hatched Tyrannosaurus rex baby grow to adult size in a matter of weeks.
Because this is a Tyrannosaurus rex and it does get mistreated, it gets loose and goes on a rampage at an isolated Antarctic research outpost. It then proceeds to eat everyone. Bloody Hilarity Ensues.
The following tropes can be used to describe the novel:
- Angry Guard Dog: Grushka, the husky that the Russians kept apart from the other sled dogs for "special" training.
- Artistic License – Biology: While it may have been the result of chemicals mutating it, the T. rex hatches from it's egg and grows to adult size in a matter of weeks.
- Behind the Black: The tyrannosaurus is consistently completely invisible to anyone not looking directly at it.
- Black-Hole Belly: The T.rex eats enough people at a time that it should, by all accounts, be rolling rather than running.
- Evil Counterpart: Grushka, the vicious Russian husky is portrayed as this for Wolf.
- Groin Attack: Apparently the only spot on a T. rex's body where a tranquilizer dart might actually have an effect is its pelvic region. Not long before this discovery is made, the dinosaur attacks a guy in the midst of relieiving himself and specifically targets his...er...package.
- Guns Are Worthless: Firearms are explicitly noted to be more useful for causing avalanches than actually harming bad guys. The tranq darts used to sedate the rex do little more than annoy it. And that's when they even penetrate its scaly hide.
- Invincible Villain: The Tyrannosaurus can move like the Flash and jump like the Hulk, is immune to bullets, is apparently sapient enough to figure out how technology works and how to counter it, and is apparently incapable of so much as twitching a muscle without killing at least three minor characters.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Why was there a T. rex egg in Antarctica?
- Mood Whiplash: After about two-hundred pages of high-flying, nonsensical dinosaur carnage with a cast of literally hundreds dying as soon as they're introduced, the book suddenly shifts gears into a moody, high-stakes Antarctic chase story.
- Nuclear Mutant: That exposure to radiation will accelerate the baby's growth with no negative side effects whatsoever is taken as a given by the characters. The events of the story don't prove them wrong.
- Red Shirt: Apart from the two leads and a dog, everyone else is either meant to die or be eaten by the T. rex.
- Shout-Out: The designated dog fight between Wolf, a loyal mixed-breed (timber wolf/husky) and Grushka, a purebred husky with a nasty streak. Wolf wins.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Some effort is made to justify this: there is literally nothing else for the rex to eat out in the frozen wilderness, and it needs constant food to stay warm.
