Jurassic Park

What isn’t there to love about Jurassic Park? There’s some interactions that feel a little dated these days, maybe Malcolm is a little too preachy, and Lex could probably talk about baseball a little bit less, but there’s dinosaurs! Just such a fun, easy read that anyone should be able to pick up and enjoy.

I was always curious about this book, and I'm so mad at myself for not reading it before. This novel had a fast paced story with lots of stuff to think about, and a good dose of science, I mean, what else could I ask! However, what kept me from giving it 5 stars were those kids, specially Lex. That kid was extremely annoying, and I couldn't stand her in any chapter. If that was Crichton's goal with that character, congrats! He made one of the worst kids on literature! Without Lex, the story would have been perfect. She's such a brat I couldn't help but dislike her. Besides her, I think the book is awesome!

Fun and surprising relevant read in today's context. It's difficult when reading this story not to see parallels with all the stories that are making the news today, from Theranos trial to the revelation of the disregard of Facebook/Meta on the consequence of their software on our children's mental health.

Some interesting quotes...

“What child won't want a little dinosaur as a pet? A little patented animal for their own. InGen will sell millions of them. And InGen will engineer them so that these pet dinosaurs can only eat InGen pet food...“

“The idea of living creatures being numbered like software, being subject to updates and revisions, troubled Grant. He could not exactly say why—it was too new a thought—but he was instinctively uneasy about it. They were, after all, living creatures.”

“Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something. They conveniently define such considerations as pointless. If they don't do it, someone else will. Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first.”

3/5 stars - I would have enjoyed this book much more if it weren't for the little girl, she grated on me far too much. Surely kids don't actually act like that, especially if there were bloody dinosaurs after them!

Michael Crichton does extremely well in raising the pace in the last 30% of the book. The hectic scenes are non stop, I couldn't put it down.

The detail about the dinosaurs and the characters are definitely the best of this book, the eccentric Hammond and the know-it-all Malcolm are great.

Enjoyed much more than film.

BLUF: This book is exactly how you think it will be. Good, but dated.

Plot: Eccentric Billionaire, John Hammond, owns a bioengineering firm which ventures into the re-creation of dinosaurs with the purpose of creating a zoo – the first of its' kind. It's not entertaining to have only omnivores; Hammond creates the carnivores too. Due to investor concerns (specifically, the deaths of some workers due to “construction accidents”, EPA investigations, and lizard attacks on nearby islands), Hammond's lawyers advises that outside experts be brought in as a test trail for the park. What should have been an enlightening weekend trip soon turns into a nightmare when the park's system crashes.

My Apathy: I'm disappointed in myself for not liking this book more than I did. I have read Michael Crichton outside this series and enjoyed it, but there is something about horror books with animals as the scare factor that just doesn't work for me. Ghosts, paranormal, etc. scare me. Dinosaurs, killer insects, etc. do not. That said, if you are a person who does get scared by man-eating dinosaurs, you will love this book. There are many close calls and enough tension to keep you on edge.

As for the rest: The story is pretty darn good. It's everything you could want: there are those in the shop trying to bring the park back on line, those in the field fighting for their lives and to get back in the resort, and many deaths in between the groups. The characters were realistic in their flaws and personality, but I don't really have anything to say about them. (Three weeks later and they don't stick in my head. Hmm...)

Comparison to the movie: The movie does not majorly deviate from the story until after the car crashes down the tree. This is perfect for those of us who cannot envision a book after seeing a movie, as it allows us to view the book from our perspectives. (I hate the feeling of déjà vu that comes when this happens.)

My real only complaint: As with The Lost World, Ian Malcolm drove me up the wall. This character will talk your ear off and it is absolutely painful. I'm not sure if this is because he is into himself or if it is simply the content of his speech. Thankfully, he has much less of a role in this book than he does in The Lost World.

This is a fantastic dinosaur-based sci-fi book. Never before have I read a book with so much scientific detail where I felt like I was reading a non-fiction alongside a fiction. Now I understand there's famously some false information in here. However, some of the truly scientific things about chaos theory, the evolution of dinosaurs, possible behaviours of dinosaurs and how they may have tended to their young and so much more made this feel like a truly educative read.

It's not really like the film at all. The general idea is the same - Island of dinosaurs, people (all names the same) go to test it out and then havoc ensues. However, the storyline is vastly estranged and the characters are uniquely different creating what feels like a 4th Jurassic Park film (excluding JW and JW:FK as they are a new franchise). I highly recommend for anyone wanting a good, fun, educational and enjoyable piece of dinosaur fiction

this book is not really about dinosaurs.

this was an amazing book and i'm so glad i've read this. i'm sure i'm not alone in having the 1993 movie as a firm (and horrifying) part of my early childhood. i'm not really a huge fan of dinosaurs or horror or sci-fi, so i avoided this book because i've always imagined that it was some kind of movie-to-print adaptation. i literally only found out this year that it wasn't, and i'm so so so glad that i read it. i'm also really happy that i went into it only remembering certain key scenes from the movie but otherwise not really remembering much of the details.

John Hammond is your eccentric old rich white guy who doesn't seem to have grown past his childhood, and the only thing that he has gained in the 70 or so years that has passed since he was a child is a healthy capitalistic greed. so he decides to use his money to buy Isla Nublar, a remote island within Costa Rica territories, and aimed to turn it into a dinosaur themed park, genetically cloning dinosaurs from their blood in prehistoric insects fossilised in amber.

“Donald,” [John Hammond] said, “Believe me when I tell you that everything on the island is going forward as planned. Everything on that island is perfectly fine.”

(VO: it wasn't.)

this book delivers on the thrills and violence which the entire movie was made out of. although i knew broadly what was going to go down, i was still kept on the edge of my seat at 3am in the morning, unable to stop listening to the audiobook because i just wanted to know when that T-rex was gonna pounce. but if the book had solely been just all about the adrenaline-pumping action scenes, i would never have picked it up at all.

when reading this book, it's important to remember that it was published in 1990, just when the world was just starting to embrace consumer technology on a larger scale. Internet wasn't a widespread thing back then, but more and more electronics were invading every aspect of the average person's lives. you can see it in the way Timmy, the young boy in the book, is made fun of by Lex, his younger sister, and his dad for liking computers more than sports, and how he, an 11 year old boy, eventually saves a few lives by making educated guesses on the park's control system and restoring power to the Safari Lodge which electrifies the skylight and in turn kills the raptors that had been snapping away at it trying to get in.

but at the same time, the book is extremely critical of humanity's, and particularly scientists' increasing hubris with technological advancements, and that is mainly delivered through all the lectures and long monologues of Dr Ian Malcolm, a mathematician specialising in chaos theory who had been steadily disapproving of the park from the get-go. he criticises John Hammond for thinking that he could make animals completely foreign and unstudied in all of human history, and that they would all behave in ways that they could predict just because he wills them to.

“We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about it. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.”
(Ian Malcolm)

i don't think Malcolm was anti-technology per se, since he is described as being one of the hip new school of mathematicians who embrace computers as part of their field. it feels like he's against the human indolence that technological advancements brings about. when we rest on our laurels and think that everything is “under control” because technology gives us a nice, logical, predictable algorithm that helps us predict the future, and we very quickly and conveniently forget that nature is never as predictable as technology would think it is.

i think this whole book was a long rumination about how human nature is going to eventually destroy itself with the vicious cycle between the increasing conveniences and efficacies of modern technology, and the increasing arrogance and laziness that it generates in human beings. Jurassic Park is a cautionary tale of that. so while, of course, dinosaurs feature heavily in this book, the idea and consequences of cloning them in order to serve as a money-making, controllable enterprise for human beings to consume as entertainment is really the vehicle to drive that message across.

Ive seen the movie several times and generally enjoyed it. But it has some very annoying anti-science rants in it. Now I see where they come from. There is a several page screed about hot stupid engineers are and another even long one about the failure of science. These are both from the mathematician character, who should know better. If you want an example of how running something like Jurassic Park isn't that difficult, just go to Disney's Animal Kingdom and count how many people are eaten by tigers everyday.

As a software engineer, I find the Nedry character offensive, But using the stereotype makes the writing a little easier, I guess. There is an important bit of information that is kept from the heroes by a mistake in the computer software, but it is a mistake that not even a beginning programmer would make. But when you start with the assumption that science and engineering are bad then you need to have characters do dumb things to prove your point.

I will probably read the next book but not for a while.

Fuck I hate Lex, the sister. She annoyed me to no end and pissed me off with everything she said and did.

Other than that, this was great! The movie is one of my faves of all time since its release in 1993 and I'm glad I FINALLY read the book. Now, I'm going to watch the movie so I can compare and judge. LOL

This was great. Highly recommend. Glad I finished it on Halloween!

I think this set it up great for the sequel, which I also will be reading. I finished this one really quick for how long it was. It was also my pregnancy insomnia book (meaning I read it when I would wake up at 2:30am and couldn't fall back asleep) and I still loved it despite how cranky I was at life while reading it. So that's saying something!

Overall, the pacing was great and the multiple POVs definitely worked.

But yes, Lex was terrible.

Executive Summary: One of Michael Crichton's best. There's a good reason why Jurassic World made so much money last year. Our fascination with dinosaurs. Crichton does a good job capturing that here.Audiobook: Scott Brick does a good job as always. His voice for Lex is so good as to be obnoxious and I found myself yelling at her to shut up just like her brother.Full ReviewThis is one of those rare books I read after the movie. I read it sometime in high school. I don't exactly remember when. However, I remember seeing the movie the first time vividly. I was not quite 11 years old. The perfect age really. I convinced my mother to take me to see it while my sister was away at camp. The movie both fascinated and terrified me. It's one of the few movies that have stuck with me so vividly over the years.By the time I got to reading the book I was a bit older, and that same sense of wonder had started to wear off. I was too young to enjoy the pseudo-science, and the action in my imagination just didn't live up to my memories of the movie. It was a good book, but “the movie was better”.With the 25th anniversary last year, a new audiobook got released, and I was interested to revisit the book. It was a lot better than I remember. I enjoyed the “science” better this time around, although the computer related stuff made me go: “Yeah that's what you get for tampering with such a complex system” a lot.It's been a long time since I've seen the movie now, and I plan to revisit it. This seems like one of those rare movies that doesn't tweak too much from the book. It's almost as though Mr. Crichton wrote it to be made into a movie. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that was true.My favorite Crichton book is [b:Timeline 7669 Timeline Michael Crichton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405420745s/7669.jpg 1525987] (whose movie adaptation is absolutely awful), but this book is probably my second favorite. The way he uses pseudo-science to create thrillers seems unmatched. This series is arguably his most successful. He takes our childhood fascination with dinosaurs to the next level. He also highlights the arrogance of men. You might think if given the chance, we'd be smarter than the characters in the book, but I'm not sure that'd be true. I fully believe if it were possible to recreate dinosaurs some greedy idiot would totally do it. There is part of me that'd want to visit the park too. Meanwhile the rest of my brain is screaming what a terrible idea it all is.All and all, this book is a fun ride full of wonder, terror and a lot of stupidity. I'm glad I revisited the book.

Burdened by the imminent disaster of climate change, what a relevant book for today. This was a wonderful blend of science fiction and thriller. This novel truly inspires the imagination, yet makes the reader think about whether advancing technology is the answer to our problems.

Read my full review here (contains minor spoilers) on my new blog:
https://poppyland.dev/articles/8

Minor spoilers ahead:

A book that started out strong, stumbled a bit, and ended okay. Not a bad book - indeed, it was quite enjoyable - it just hits a point where certain characters get on your nerves and it the story feels overly long, as if Michael Crichton was padding the story to meet the word count.

It was interesting to compare the book with the Steven Spielberg flick. There were differences, obviously, but it was fun to see what scenes made it into the movie. I like that in the book, John Hammond is far from being the nice, likeable character that the late great Richard Attenborough portrayed. In the novel, he's just an absolute b*stard and so blatantly out of touch with reality and the consequences of his actions (like funding the creation of dinosaurs and populating an entire island with them), that you'll almost gleefully enjoy his demise.

On the flipside, however, Crichton very obviously did not know how to write little girls. I say this because by three quarters of the way into the novel, you'll want to throw Lexi to the velociraptors yourself! In the movie, she's a fine, likeable character. In the book, she's almost a non-entity for most of the book whereupon she suddenly and inexplicably turns into an absolute brat. Seriously, there's a scene where she refuses to give her older brother (their ages are flipped around in the movie) a radio because "I found it first" and that trumps him needing to call for help. At that point, I started wishing that she'd either go back to plaintively complaining about being hungry, or that one of those aforementioned velociraptors would show up and eat her. Sounds terrible, but holy cow, she's bad.

All in all, I would still recommend this to anybody who wants to read a techno-thriller based on science run amok.

Je me suis enfin attaqué à un Crichton après des années à ce que des amis me le recommandent!

J'ai été très surpris par Jurassic Park, qui est beaucoup beaaaucoup plus violent que ce que le film laissait voir, beaucoup plus sombre et nihiliste aussi sur certains points. J'ai trouvé que le livre donnait au final une leçon encore plus avisée sur les dangers de jouer avec des choses qui nous dépassent et dont nous ne comprenons pas exactement la portée.

Un seul reproche à ce livre à mes yeux, c'est un début extrêmement long, on prend une bonne moitiée du livre avant d'arriver au parc, ce qui me rendait assez impatient. Mais au final j'ai dévoré l'autre moitié à pleine vitesse donc pas de regret!

4.5 ⭐ to Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.

Firstly let me say this was a really great buddy read with Meg from Tome Infinity (check her channel out).
Onto the book, I love it! Very much like the film but with just enough to make it different and unpredictable, the characters are ones we know well and so is the plot so I won't go over tgam but I will say I loved the relationship between Dr Grant, Tim and Lex.
Chrichton has a very detailed and analytical writing style that not everyone will enjoy, because of this in parts this book was slow, luckily I like getting plenty of detail so I enjoyed those parts to!

If your a fan of them film you need to read this book, even if your not this is a great science fiction read!