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The Characters page for the Carnosaur nove, see Carnosaur (Film) for tropes corresponding to the Carnosaur film series characters
Humans
Lord Darren Penward
The main antagonist of the novel, a rich British man who owns a large estate and plans to let dinosaurs he's resurrected through genetic splicing be put back on top of the ecosystem after a Third World War, which he believes inevitable.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The initial main antagonist of the novel, as his actions and plans drive the plot both directly and indirectly. However he ends up having to share the spotlight with his wife, Lady Penward, when she unleashes his dinosaurs and other creatures on his state.
- Death by Irony: Out of all the dangerous creatures he held, the one who mortally wounded him was none other than one of the bulls he kept around to feed the carnivorous animals.
- The Determinator: Being mortally injured does not stop him for too long, as he is able to capture his wife, escape with several dinosaur eggs and then feed his wife to a pair of dinosaur chicks as payback while implicitly setting the stage in motion to restart his plans even if he dies.
- Faux Affably Evil: He can put on a good gentlemanly façade but in truth is a self-righteous misanthropic jerk.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Is gored in the thigh by one of his escaped bulls.
- Mad Scientist: He resurrected dinosaurs with genetic splicing done on chickens and later on planned to unleash them worldwide after what he believed would be humanity's inevitable extinction in a third World War.
- Misanthrope Supreme: With a plan to replace humanity as a whole with hordes of dinosaurs after a Third World War, which he believes inevitable, he can't really be anything else.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Uses his money and status along with lies to keep the law from making him answer for the deaths caused by his dinosaurs.
- The Sociopath: Penward doesn't care that his breeding of dinosaurs will lead to countless deaths as proven by the many deaths already caused as the novel starts, all he cares about is realizing his mad ambitions. One example of this is when he plans to have Simon, the sole surviving child of his Deinonychus' attack on a farm, killed to keep him silenced, only a lot of complications foreign to that issue end up distracting him long enough to forget about that.
- Would Hurt a Child: If his endgame goal didn't spell out for you that he won't care if children are killed, his planned silencing of Simon, the child who survived his Deinonychus' attack on the child's farm, will.
Lady Jane Penward
Darren's wife and a very nasty person. Out of jealously towards Pascal, who she tried to force to submit to her, reconnecting with his old girlfriend she unleashes Penward's dinosaurs on his estate to wreak havoc.
- Big Bad Ensemble: She unleashes the dinosaurs that Lord Penward was holding, making her an imminent threat on par with her husband, though eventually Lord Penward gets the last laugh.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The baby rexes take their sweet time ripping her apart and eating her, with it taking hours for her to finally die.
- Dirty Old Woman: Tries to force Pascal into a relationship with her and when he reconnects with his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer, she goes mad and decides to unleash the dinosaurs to kill them all.
- Evil Is Petty: Why did she unleash the dinosaurs and other beasts on Penward's State? Because Pascal, who she tried to force into a relationship with her, reconnected with his old girlfriend.
- Karmic Death: Is eaten by two baby T. Rexes, a fitting end for a woman who let dinosaurs eat and kill a lot of people herself.
Penward's Beastiary
Dinosaurs
In General
- Prehistoric Monster: Most of them are aggressive, irrational and hellbent on killing humans without provocation. Though the carnivores have the excuse of being conditioned to feed on mammals since birth. The only exception in the whole novel is the juvenile Brachiosaurus.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Partly justified with their obsession with attacking humans stemming from having been fed mammals at a young age and associating their smell with easy food.
Theropods
Tarbosaurus bataar
The most dangerous beast in Penward's possession, a close relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex and one of Asia's largest predators.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Takes on a pride of 10 lions and comes out victorious with no visible damage.
- The Juggernaut: It takes an insane amount of damage for this thing to go down and plows through everything thrown at it beforehand. It only dies when a whole building's pillar crushes it and that's after being shot at with shotguns and rifles, hit with a car, attacked by a whole pack of lions and having its ears ruptured by high pressure hoses.
- Lightning Bruiser: Strong enough to rip everything else apart and fast enough to keep up the chase against the protagonists constantly. This is a reflection of its bird-like behavior in contrast to the expected (at the time) sluggish and clumsy behavior.
- Teens Are Monsters: At 9 meters long it hasn't reached its full size yet and thus is the equivalent to a teenager in human years going by size. It still acts as the most dangerous dinosaur of Penward's estate regardless and extremely aggressive to boot.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: It is a tyrannosaur that acts as the novel's greatest threat and stands above the other dinosaurs in threat level from its sheer strength, durability and aggression.
Deinonychus antirrhopus
One of the two major antagonistic dinosaurs alongside the Tarbosaurus, it goes on a killing spree which kickstarts the events of the plot and remains a threat through the whole novel.
- The Heavy: While Darren Penward is the novel's main antagonist, the Deinonychus is the main agent of destruction and killing in the novel, carrying out the majority of the human deaths and kickstarting the plot with its slaughter of a farm's family and animals.
- Raptor Attack: Arguably the true Trope Maker, it is a scaly creature that attacks people with impunity and has a hyperfocus on them specifically; that said the last part is very justified as it was fed with mammals through its life and thus associates them with easy food. Interestingly enough it has similarities to the Velociraptors of the Jurassic Park franchise (which the Carnosaur novel predates by several years) such as their intellect.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The biggest one. A Deinonychus survives the military assault on Penward's estate and rather than vanish into the wilderness or remain in Penward's estate it decides to hunt down Pascal and Jennifer, tracking them to the latter's house, entering and killing most of her family and then gravely wounding Jennifer before Pascal kills it with a pitchfork.
- There Is Another: One Deinonychus is killed in Penward's state by militaries but another shows up alive to kill most of Jennifer's family and injure her in turn before being killed by Pascal.
Megalosaurus
A sexually-frustrated theropod who is among the resurrected dinosaurs that wreak havoc when it gets unleashed, though spends most of its time fruitlessly looking for a mate.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Unlike the majority of the dinosaurs in the book, its death by getting run over by a lorry comes rather abruptly and unceremonious.
- Harmless Villain: Out of all the superpredators unleashed in the novel it is the least harmful one on account of spending its whole time looking for a mate despite its aggression, it doesn't gets any kills before he gets run over by a truck. To add insult to injury, said truck's driver is mauled not soon after by one of Penward's panthers.
- Undignified Death: Unlike the more action-packed deaths of the other dinosaurs, its end is rather anti-climatic as it gets run over by a truck as if he was any modern-day roadkill.
Dilophosaurus
A famous crested dinosaur who is among the unleashed dinosaurs that terrorize Penward's estate.
- Nuke 'em: Downplayed. It gets killed in an aerial bombardment by the British Army.
Altispinax
A theropod with a peculiarly-shaped back that acts as one of the many threats unleashed from Penward's zoo.
- Savage Spinosaurs: Played with. It is a carnosaur (the only true one in the book, as far as modern paleontology is concerned) rather than a spinosaur, but it plays a similar role in that it's a carnivorous theropod with a sail on its back.
Tyrannosaurus rex (Spoilers)
The most famous dinosaur of all time, and surprisingly enough a minor threat in the novel. It is represented through two hatchlings which eat Lady Penward at the end.
- Enfant Terrible: It is the only carnivorous dinosaur that remains a hatchling from start to end, but it is no less deadly.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: Despite the T. rex in the book being hatchlings, they are nonetheless deadly.
Herbivores
Scolosaurus
An ankylosaur dinosaur that is one of Penward's many resurrected beasts, it gets unleashed alongside the predators and proves as deadly as them.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: It is armed with a tail club with two spikes pronging out (which is no longer considered accurate, as the two spikes actually come from near the base of the tail).
- Tough Armored Dinosaur: An ankylosaur with the necessary strength and aggression to rip apart a tank and who takes a lot of punishment before it dies.
- Xenophobic Herbivore: Unlike its fellow herbivore, Brachiosaurus, this dinosaur is definitely not friendly nor peaceful and even rips apart a tank before being taken down.
Brachiosaurus
A juvenile sauropod that unlike the rest of Penward's animals is very much friendly and passive, posing no threat to Pascal or anyone else. It remains a neutral party during the escape in Penward's estate.
- Children Are Innocent: It's only a juvenile and lacks the aggressiveness of its fellow dinosaurs, enough that the military spare its life from the otherwise full-blown wipeout of Penward's animals.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Unlike the rest of Penward's bestiary, the Brachiosaurus is definitely friendly and passive enough to cause no human casualties. It even gets spared from the military assault thanks to its lack of aggression and instead gets to live as a "tourist attraction".
- Sole Survivor: The only creature of Penward's bestiary to survive both the military assault and everything afterwards, on account of being spared for its lack of aggression. Penward does show up with two rex eggs at the end, albeit they were unhatched for most of the novel.
- Token Good Teammate: The only benevolent animal of Penward's in the novel, it doesn't have any human kills nor does it try to attack anyone and remains neutral during the breakout. Thus the military spare its life when they wipe out the rest of Penward's bestiary and make it a tourist attraction.
Others
Plesiosaur
A sea monster that is among the creatures resurrected by Penward, though not a dinosaur it is nonetheless just as aggressive as the other creatures.
- No Name Given: Its exact genus is not identified and is simply identified as a plesiosaur. However, given its large size it is probably Elasmosaurus.
- Sea Monster: A prehistoric example, it is a very aggressive elasmosaur that attacks several boats.
