Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack [Paperback]

Thomas Hopp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2002

A U.S. space probe discovers a 65 million-year-old derelict outpost at the moon's south pole. Now the owners of the moonbase are returning to reclaim their home world-our world. In Montana, wildlife biologist Chase Armstrong and rancher's daughter Kit Daniels survive attacks by T-Rex and deadly Megaraptors to find that they are at ground-zero, where the invaders' lost city lies buried under a mountain of sandstone. Deep in the underground catacombs, trapped by human-sized, intelligent carnivorous dinosaurs, they may be mankind's last hope for survival."Solid science and pacing that never quits."-Kay Kenyon, Philip K. Dick Award nominated author of Maximum Ice"Fills the void since Jurassic Park. And, Hopp's book may be better."-Steve Brusatte, DinoLand Review

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas P. Hopp was born in Seattle, Washington. He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cornell Medical College and helped found the multi-billion-dollar biotechnology company, Immunex. He traces his ancestry to Blackfoot Indians, Prussian hop farmers, African slaves and General Stonewall Jackson.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The megaraptor pack moved through the juniper woodland with impeccable grace. Gliding silently among the trees of a Montana hillside, they threaded their way through hip-high sagebrush as if the six individuals were a single entity, a flowing front of vapor filtering through the vegetation like a dawn mist.

In the lead, the alpha female raised her head to its full height of nine feet, sniffing the morning air. At the front of her long, fang-lined snout, flaring nostrils took in the sweet smell of sage and juniper branches warming in the sunlight. But the megaraptor was following another scent on the light breeze: the enticing aroma of prey.

She made a faint chut-chut noise deep in her throat, warning the others to silence, then slowed her pace and lowered her long, feathered neck into a tight S-curve. With her head just above brush-level, her feathered dinosaurian tail stretched out straight behind her in fine balance, she advanced carefully on ostrich-like legs, setting her feet down gingerly on the dry grass. Sickle-shaped slashing claws on the inner toe of each foot twitched in anticipation of a killing strike . . .

The pack slowed its fluid motion as it emerged from the scrub woods onto the edge of a green meadow. The lead megaraptor's pulse quickened. Her prey was in view! The intended victim, a two-legged species she had seen before but never killed, was walking on the moist grass of a small prairie just beyond a long white, wooden obstruction dividing the field from the woodland.

But the alpha megaraptor paused, working her powerful reptilian jaws in a fit of uncertainty. She recalled with an avian, eagle-like intelligence that she had attacked this sort of prey once before. The pack had cornered two of these creatures, the other slightly larger than this one . . . As the pack had rushed in for the kill, the larger mammalian creature had raised its arms and held out a long stick that suddenly made a loud noise and flashed fire from one end, followed by harsh-smelling smoke. The pack's previous alpha female had fallen in that moment, thrashing in a death agony that seemed related somehow to the stick, the fire, the noise and smell.

The new alpha sniffed the aroma wafting from her intended victim. The breeze carried sweet, female, healthy scents that made drool drip from the alpha's fangs, but she was vexed by the sight of a stick in one of its hands and a faint smell she could not ignore. Mixed with the attractive aroma of prey was the slightest trace of the weapon's deadly smoke.

Yes, the prey could be reached easily and run down. But there would be no ambush, no final leap onto the startled victim, no slashing foot-claws, no clamp of jaws on flesh. No sweet taste of blood. The alpha sensed that she or one of her pack would fall first, when the creature's weapon roared. She licked the saliva from her jaws, settling in to wait for the creature to become separated from its stick weapon.

***

Kit Daniels loved the green grass scent that rose from the pasture on this sunny Montana summer morning. She walked out along the white equestrian fence toward the end of the pasture, inhaling the fragrant breeze and letting herself be lulled to a state of greater calm than she had felt in quite a while. Nothing disturbed the beauty of the small valley where her father's ranch lay. Birds twittered in a nearby paper birch grove and a pair of small, delicate, black-and-white pterodactyls flitted past her like swallows.

Kit paused to watch them only for a moment as they careened in search of flies or mosquitoes. She had other, more important business farther out in the pasture. Lucky appeared about to go lame. The old brown quarter horse mare had been frisking around the pasture like a filly and the excess activity had told on her aging left front leg. Can't blame her, thought Kit, with all the excitement around here. After all, no ranch Kit had ever seen was home to a family of nesting parasaurolophuses. Parasaurolophi? she puzzled. The long-crested duckbilled dinosaurs, Rufus and Henrietta, had arrived just two weeks before when the spaceships of the invading Kra army had released them on the nearby high prairie. The two elephant-sized creatures had wandered here and broken the top rail off a section of the fence circling the pasture, stepping over it to stake their nesting territory in the grassland not far from the house. They had proceeded to make themselves quite at home, digging up a! nest mound twenty feet across, laying eggs, and moseying to the barn to steal hay out of the loft whenever they felt like it. This was good, Kit knew, because the parasaurolophuses were pugnacious enough to keep their nesting and feeding territory tyrannosaurus-free.

The yearling triplets, last year's brood, had accompanied the adult pair when they arrived from-wherever the heck they came from-a crater at the south pole of the moon, so people said. As the parasaurolophus triplets raced past, going from four-legged to two-legged in a thundering sprint with Lucky galloping in pursuit, Kit gave out a sharp whistle any ranch hand would have been proud of. The noise had no effect on the undisciplined ducklings, but Lucky's trained ear made her turn, letting the parasaurolophus yearlings go their way. She trotted to Kit, favoring her left foreleg, and halted a couple of paces away.

"Good girl," Kit cooed. She leaned her M-16 automatic rifle against a fence upright and walked the few paces to the mare, patting her on a graying flank.

The alpha megaraptor raised her head to gauge the distance between the prey and its stick.

Product Details

• Paperback: 414 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (January 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595213685
• ISBN-13: 978-0595213689
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,663,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Patrick Hopp was born in Seattle, Washington, and lived his earliest years in a housing project on the banks of the Duwamish River. Despite a tough start in life, good grades at West Seattle High School and the University of Washington plus a perfect score on the Graduate Record Examination gained him entry to the Ph.D. program in biochemistry at Cornell University Medical College. He studied protein chemistry there and genetic engineering at Rockefeller University and went on to help found the multi-billion-dollar Seattle biotechnology company, Immunex Corporation. He created the first commercially successful nanotechnology device, a molecular handle called the Flag epitope. He plays guitar and bass and has performed onstage with blues legend John Lee Hooker and rock supergroups The Kingsmen and The Drifters. He has lived in San Diego and on Manhattan Island but currently resides in Seattle.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, February 10, 2008

By 

K. Boskey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack (Paperback)

When I recieved this item, it literally only took me about 3 days to read it because it just kept drawing me in, kept enticing me to read more to find out what happens next. The characters are well thought-out, and the story itself is detailed and yet easy to read. I have read this and the original and loved them both. I am particularly fascinated by how the author is able to write down an explaination for the return of the dinosaurs in a believable and well-executed manner. There isn't enough I can say about these two books. I recommend them to anyone who loves dinosaurs, sci-fi, or just a good book in general.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great sequel, January 12, 2011

By 

northern lights - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack (Paperback)

This sequel is even better than the first book, Dinosaur Wars. I liked the human/dinosaur confrontations; it's rollicking fun!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A versatile author, February 18, 2011

By 

ravenchat (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack (Paperback)

I first got onto Thomas Hopp via his mystery thriller, the Jihad Virus. Here he shows us his versatility by writing in a completely different genre, science fiction. One thing that seems to run through everything I've read is a sense of high adventure. In this book we once again get treated to heart-stopping chase scenes where dinosaurs threaten to make a meal of somebody. There are new battle scenes from the intrepid tank commander, captain Vic Suarez, a favorite of mine. The old paleontology professor Dr. Ogilvey is a treat as well. He's such an old curmudgeon, but with a heart of gold. And the budding romance of Kit Daniels with Chase Armstrong is in trouble this time. This book is crafted extremely well. Good solid prose and a gripping series of high-tension events. It's good for readers of all ages, great for adults, but no adult situations. Plenty of dinosaurs, action and adventure.