Congo

Read this a million years ago. Decent page turner.

I've seen the movie several times, but this is my first read of the novel. Very interesting to compare the original with the choices made for telling the story on film.

What an absolute mess of a book. Crichton is usually on point about accounting for and explaining every plausible scenario to a fault, but he did himself no favors. Events that should've taken chapters to draw out happened in paragraphs. Unnecessary scientific commentary interrupted plot. I know people will watch a crappy movie and say “oh, the book was better,” but at least the movie was b-movie funny.

I prefer the movie.

I've only ever read Crichton's Jurassic Park, and never really considered reading his other works until recently when I came across this in a used book store and bought it on a whim. I'm glad I did! I thought Congo was captivating throughout and was never slow through the entire read. He included details and historical facts in such a way as to interweave his story to real-life, which makes it that much more believable. I only ever give books 5 stars when I feel like it's truly deserving, and this is one of those instances, in my opinion. Highly reccomended.

Crichton is usually fun, but this is one of his weaker efforts.

Good read, better then the movie, that is for sure!

It is always with a mix of sadness and excitement that I approach a book from Michael Crichton that I haven't read. The books are always superb and riveting but thinking that this wonderful author has gone too soon and, selfishly, that I have not that many of his books left to read, makes me a little sad. This story is fun, goes fast without slumping and makes you smarter and more aware. The technology described is of course outdated, but this only adds to the vintage appeal of this book.