Jurassic Park (original 1990; edition 1991)

This is the second time I've read this. The first time was a long time ago, but I remembered loving it. These days I have a dinosaur obsessed daughter, and have seen the movies several times. The book, I was happy to find, was still a great read. You can see the parts that were placed in the movies, and the concept is of course the same, but the book is very different, far more detailed. The overall spirit is much the same as the movie adapted from it, with tension, adventure, some chomping and blood, but nothing gratuitous, no sex, no swearing. And a lovely, respectful use of science, maths, and philosophy. ( )

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The book before the film was even thought of. Crichton is not technically the best of authors, some of the characters are a little stilted and the plot veers towards contrivance at times. But he's very clever and imaginative at using a fantasy/SF setting to make a point, and not always the obvious point that seems to be the case.

Jurassic park is perhaps Crichton's most famous work, and it holds up pretty well even though it's now a couple of decades old. The basic point of the story is actually born out by the lack of progress in genetics. Life is complicated and hard. We have managed to clone a few animals and it's almost routine for a few strains of lab mice etc. We can extract fragments of DNA from fossilized bone, and sequencing has got ever easier, no longer requiring supercomputers - although your laptop might not yet be powerful enough. One of his fears of back-garage geneticists cooking up strange beasts has yet to come to pass - and likely never will. The fragments are too small and while DNA is DNA patching isn't as easy as he predicted. The other main error of assumption and one of the underlying themes in Malcolm's speeches, is in the corruptibility of science. This is an under appreciated issue, but nowhere on the scale that he's forecast in this or any of his other works. Science does work for industry and industry does fund 'independent' research at universities, but the boundaries are watched, and most people are ethical.

The story itself is fairly short and predictable - a rch businessman coerces some scientists to leave their academic pursuits and spend his money cloning dinosaurs so that he can open the world's most profitable theme park - one a remote island away from any pesky laws regulations and inspections. As may be guessed inconsequential corners are cut, and the resulting consequences lead to the animals roaming free and the heroes -including two pesky kids - contending for their lives.

He's fairly free and loose with the biology of the dinosaurs, and rightly so on the grounds that nobody does know for sure, and never will.

Entertaining romp and like all the best SF makes you think about society and world we live in. ( )

I completely understand why this has almost a cult following. It was better than I thought it was going to be. I only had a vague understanding of what happens in the movie so it was nice going into it with almost a clear mind about it. I think I would actually read the second book in this series (I think there are only two) if I found it somewhere. But overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. ( )

I first read this over twenty years ago and decided I should try it again now that I'm an adult. My memory definitely missed out on parts, I loved exploring the park with the characters and their excitement and wonder as people who didn't grow up quite so aware of dinosaurs as I did. There were definitely parts I felt like the dinosaurs weren't quite as scary as they could have been, that the reactions of the characters didn't properly portray the fear they likely would have felt in situations like that. But all in all I enjoyed it. ( )