A really fun and mostly fast-paced read--you can throw a frisbee through the various plot holes, but it's easy to forgive for pure entertainment value.

A few complaints: the two females in this story are either 1. completely flat and do almost nothing to move the story forward or 2. so annoying you wish for a velocoraptor attack. Also, Ian Malcolm is maybe the worst written character I've ever come across, and I found myself fast forwarding through every speech after the third one. It's almost as if Crichton had never heard of a metaphor, which his book may have served as to some degree had he not shoved self righteous exposition down our throats at every opportunity.

But yes. Totally a fun ride. ( )

We all seen the movie, I have read Crichton before, I knew what to expect, I went in with pretty high expectations.
And at some points it was better. At others it was dated.

This is sci-fi, it was written in the late eighties and was set in the present/near future.
Computers that at the time needed a whole room, now fit in our pockets, we have cloned a sheep (and other animals) even if we haven't got to extinct animal yet, recreating them is way to plausible.

That being said, the fact that I had seen the movie meant that I had expectations about the characters and their personality. And they mostly fitted with the characters on the book. Except for Hammond, in the movie he was a nice grandfather and eccentric rich old man that liked dinosaurs. In the book he is a sad, crazy rich man that wants the world to be his way (dinos are just a novel way to do amusement parks).

The story takes a bit to get to the real action, as it begins with fragments of events that sugest that dinosaurs have escaped the island. Then comes the setup to the trip, they land on the island, go on the ride and all hell breaks loose.

That first dinosaur attack is scary, and for some time I actually think Crichton had killed Lex, the little girl. Then comes the graphical description od Nerdy's death, he totally deserves it, but it's disgustingly graphical. Then a whole lot of little nothings happen while Grant and the kids get back to the Visitor's center, and Arnold and Muldoon try to get in control of the Park (and keep failing).

Finally we get to the moment I was expecting for most of the book, the raptors attack (considering that they are shown early in the book as the most intelligent dinos in the park, it takes them way too long to make an attack). Those parts are compelling, I kept wondering if Crichton would have the courage to kill one of the main characters.

By the end of the book I was rooting for Hammond to get killed in some horrible way, he was a really annoying old bully. I hoped that a raptor or the T-Rex would bit it's head off, but he got kill by the Compys, little scavenger dinos with a morphine like bite, consolation prize, they started feeding while Hammond was alive!.

Then for the big finish, the National Guard blew off the island. ( )

My first impressions (Writing down my first impressions of the book. NOT an in-depth review. Reviews are based on personal enjoyment.)

RANK: Super Sensational

This is my new favorite Sci-Fi book I’ve read.

I haven’t seen the whole movie (I watch bits of it as a kid.) so I won’t be comparing it to the movie.
The whole book is well paced. Crichton manages to balance action set pieces and down time for the characters to breath. I enjoyed the beginning of book; The beginning drip feeds the reader with enough information of dinosaurs to keep engagement going. The tone seemed that something bad has happen.

The characters are well written. Grant is good character. Despite him being a Paleontology, He manages find ways to keep the kids safe and heads on into danger when he needs to. Malcolm is interesting. His talks about Chaos Theory, scientists only caring about accomplishment, scientists leaving a mark of their discoveries and finding out problems with the Park. This make him an engaging character. Malcolm is clearly a month piece for Crichton so he can go on a tirade.

The best part is the Dinosaurs. They come to life in this book. I am convince that Crichton has taken care of these animals before. Some scenes, Dinosaurs are written to invoke awe while others scenes they invoke danger. When Dinosaurs start attacking people, the characters are forced to find ways to keep themselves safe. I was on edge of my seat when a Dinosaur encounter happen. Crichton doesn’t hold back when he writes intense scenes. He shows the consequences of bring Dinosaurs back from the dead.

Overall, This is my new favorite book and I’m glad that I’ve read. This has good pacing, good character work, dinosaurs that come to life and themes that will make you think back to.

Movie wins out over book.



"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don’t even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it."

Malcolm: Movie wins for Ian, Jeff Goldblum perfection. Though book-Malcolm has a number of such interesting lines and is full of 1989 version* of chaos theory, eventually he grows tiresome . Interestingly--c'mon, is this seriously a spoiler?--book Malcolm is laid low by an infected wound. You can probably guess what happens.

Ending: Movie wins. That bit at the end of the book about searching for the raptor eggs and the breeding behavior? I mean yay for Dr. Grant, but talk about anti-climax.

Sexism: Edge to the movie for being slightly less annoying, although the movie paired off the paleontologists who had a non-sexual, mentor-mentee relationship in the book. The female child, Lex, is ridiculous in the book, annoying and helpless, although she is allowed to defy the stereotype by being dependent on a baseball glove and ball. In the movie, she takes Tim's computer role.

Children: Movie version wins. Tim's quite the hero in the book, a role given to Lex in the movie. Lex in the book is pretty much everything one might hate about children.

And, finally, Dinosaurs: obviously, much better in the movie.


Storytelling: Crichton's prose tends to be workman-like, and although he does manage to occasionally convey the immensity of the dinos, he rarely hit the from-another-epoch notes for me.

"Obviously the fitness of the animals to the environment was one area. This stegosaur is a hundred million years old. It isn’t adapted to our world. The air is different, the solar radiation is different, the land is different, the insects are different, the sounds are different, the vegetation is different. Everything is different. The oxygen content is decreased."

Different, right? Note that the velociraptors were scary in both places.



Interestingly, I had very few preconceptions about the book, except that it would be different from the movie; adaptations are rarely faithful to source material. Except, interestingly, it wasn't; the scriptwriters had barely touched it. Sure, backstories and detailed dialogues were left out, as well as opening extraneous scenes about some baby-biting dinos in Costa Rica. Mostly though, there was trimming, and parts of the movie--especially early on the island--seemed page for page for the book:
Nedry? All there, right down to the silver candy wrapper.
Chain-smoking Arnold? Yep, Samuel L. Jackson nailed that too.
Malcolm's croaking doomsday about 'life will find a way' and wearing all black? Yep, there too.

*As pointed out by others, note date limitation in knowledge for both.

Overall, interesting, but I was left with a curious desire to re-watch the movie.

Three triceratops. ( )

I watched the movie a couple of years back when my cousin was obsessed with it. I enjoyed this more than I remember enjoying the movie, but they are rather different! I really liked the focus on science and technology (which was nit in the movie). I loved the palaeontology aspects. Although the science isn't perfect (some is definitely no longer quite accurate) a surprising amount of it has also held up relatively well. (Yes, yes there's the scifi elements but beyond that!) I will say that a lot of the characters were rather frustrating but I still had a great time with this one! The setting and dinosaurs make up for it. I have picked up the sequel from the library and am excited to keep reading about the dinos! ( )