Jurassic Park | Michael Crichton | A Dark, Exciting, and Engaging Techno-Thriller!

Jurassic Park | Michael Crichton | John's Jurassic Park Review

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Jurassic Park

	Jurassic Park Michael Crichton Ballantine Books, 1991 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 646 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy....
"Wonderful...Powerful."
THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

A Dark, Exciting, and Engaging Techno-Thriller!

I saw the film JURASSIC PARK and loved it (who didn't?). Steven Spielberg had once again proved his genious. Later, I decided to read the book by Michael Crichton. I loved it just as much, if not more, than the film.
It was my first Crichton book, and I was very impressed by his talent of weaving science and probability in his mile-a-minute plot lines. The movie plot closely followed that of the book, and in the few places where it differed, I found I preferred the book.
The plot follows a businessman who creates a theme park out of cloned dinosaurs. He invites various paleontologists and scientists to test it out before it opens, but the dinos break loose and wreak havoc. That sounds groan-inducing, but Crichton uses at least 1/4th of the book it establishing the back-up science to make it almost believable.
Highly recommended.

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John's Jurassic Park Review

In 1989 Isla Nubar (an island off the coast of Costa Rica) was purchased to house dinosaurs in an attraction park which sounds like a good idea to me. This conclusion is determined with some over sight though. What if there was catastrophic system failure? What if some of the dinosaurs were extremely dangerous and much smarter than expected? These problems are adressed in Jurassic Park a technical in depth look at what an incredibly wealthy man who loves dinosaurs would do in order to bring them back to life. Of course bringing extinct creatures back to life would never work which is proven in Jurassic Park. The systems fail causing the dinosaurs to get free and attack the trial visitors. Eventually a helicopter from the Costa Rican National Guard rescues the survivors. This story is written with great detail and is one of the best books I have every read.

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Thrilling

I didn't think I'd care for this book; I saw the movie when it came out in 1993 and liked it well enough. No big deal for me.

But the book is GINORMOUSLY better than the movie. It is an absolute thriller. You won't be able to put it down.

Surprising SciFi Thriller

I hadn't heard about this book until the first movie was released. My initial reaction was, "it's a horror flick with dinosaurs - no way!" Luckily, I ended up seeing the movie at a dorm party after it was released on DVD. I enjoyed the movie, despite my misgivings and thought, "how bad can the book be?" Turned out that, as is often the case, the book was far superior to the film.

I thought it would be a horror novel, but Jurassic Park is actually a science fiction thriller. A SciFi thriller that made me a loyal fan of Michael Crichton. John Hammond has found a way to recreate living dinosaurs. And he is far less grandfatherly and sentimental than the film version. He's a businessman out to make money, who will let nothing stand in his way. One of the things that makes the book so much better is the emphasis on the science. In the movie viewers are like, "yeah sure, they make dinosaurs, disbelief suspended." In the book, Crichton lays it out with creepy realism, formulas and charts. At some points, it becomes a little too much and I actually skimmed overly some highly technical bits, but overall it adds to the credibility of the story. Crichton also lays out the computer science in more detail, such as the motions sensor tracking, the flaws in a mainframe system, etc. I was drawn into the novel in a way not possible with the movie. The character development is also top notch. Ian becomes more than a loony fringe scientist, and Hammond is much better as a quasi-villain. However, the kids got on my last nerve. They weren't as well developed as the adult characters, too mired in stereotypical "kidness." The little girl's constant whining was really annoying . However, that was the only aspect of the novel that I didn't care for. The dialog was great, the action sequences vivid and the ending more than satisfying.

Overall, this was a tight, fast paced novel. Crichton obviously did his research, making the science very real, but the action and adventure made the story come alive. With the advent of cloning, the book still stands strong today. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

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love MIKE CRICHTON , but the film was actually better

got to join the chorus of folks who are making the unusual assertion that the film is better . i read this in my mid twenties and thought it read like a mediocre screenplay . i was not surprised to see it was made into a film some years later . great idea and stuff , but it is that rare book i felt the film was far better than . many years later , after the release of the second motion picture , my brother told me he'd read the sequel and felt it was a better read than the original book as well (in his opinion) . thank gosh for MR. CRICHTON's ideas . thank MR. SPIELBERG for seeing the potential .

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