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Journal Entry 2 by choclaholic from San Antonio, Texas USA on Saturday, July 30, 2005
 2005/43
Although I read and enjoyed Jurassic Park at the time of it's original publication, and ventured excitedly to the theatre to see it's movie version, I honestly never had much interest in this book. I guess I thought Jurrasic Park told a complete story in and of itself, and I didn't think another 400 page volume was going to be able to add anything to it.
But recently, I needed some audiobooks to listen to while driving around, and this title was one of the few acceptable things available at the library. So I said to myself, "Okay, I'll bite". And I'm glad I did, because there WAS more of the story to tell.
Still, this time 'round, I'm actually going to break down my rating of the book into these pieces:
premise of story - 7 stars
quality of writing - 7 stars
development of characters - 6
thought provoking scientific theories - 10 stars
overal rating = 8 stars
(I know, technically this averages out to 7 1/2, but I'll give Crichton the benefit of doubt for creating Ian Malcolm, who is played by Jeff Goldblum in my mind's eye :)
So, here's the story: It turns out that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park had been mated and bred off-site; on an island different for the Amusement Park's. Now six years later, they were still there and still breeding, even though they weren't supposed to be able to reproduce -- but, as they have said, nature finds a way.
Even though most of the characters from the first novel were now dead, Ian Malcom survived. He walks with a cane and a limp after having spent a year in a Costa Rican hospital. When a Dr. Levine (both co-heart and nemesis to Malcom) goes off to the island to investigate the happenstance, Malcolm, a guy named Thorn, and some of the other memorable characters go off to rescue him. There's Sarah Harding, a Jane Goodall/Diane Fossey type, specialist in African predators. Plus there's two new kids: Arby and Kelly, pubescent students of Levine's. The kids stowed themselves away on the mission, but turn out to be critical players in the resolution of the dilemma.
As you can imagine, there were many exciting dino-adventures in this book, which happen more towards the last third of the book. This does include our heroes rehabbing an injured infant T. Rex, only to face the wrath of his protective parents. But I thought it was the science -- of evolution and extinction theories -- that was most fascinating part of the book. I gotta say, that Michael Crichton is quite a genius; I'm going to have to read more by him.
Also, I thought Crichton left it open for yet another sequel to this series, by throwing in this disease vector called "prions", (which is the source of mad-cow disease, among other maladies). I didn't think the prion issue was completely resolved, so I can imagine more consequences in the future...
Anyway, after I heard and read the book, I was so excited by it that I went out to get the DVD. But I was rather disappointed by the movie, as they cut out all the science and made it gratitiuosly violent. They screwed up the relationships among the characters and their motivations, and completley changed the plot. But my biggest peeve was that they made Malcom out to be kind of an idiot....I was really longing to hear Jeff Goldblum say the great lines he said in the book -- and, oh, I'd have given anything to watch Goldblum singing "I wish I was in Dixie", riding on the back of a motorcyle, while being high on Morphine! But alas, I guess that Malcom must be resigned to my imagination.
I recommend the book to all you geeky-nerdy-would-be-science types like me, but forget the movie. (Why the *f* did Speilberg make that, anyway? Just to show he could make frightingly realsitic looking dinosaurs? Baaaah!)
This is reserved for Flyinfox.
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The Lost World
