The Lost World by Michael Crichton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Too much change is as destructive as too little.”
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.”
The Lost World is the follow-up book to Jurassic Park. It picks up after the spectacular downfall of the first island where the park was built. We find ourselves with Ian Malcom again and there are weird, mysterious lizard-like creatures that are washing up on the shores of Costa Rica. Where are they coming from? Is there some kind of…Lost World? Using this island to try and discover more about extinction and what causes it drives a lot of people’s decisions. The novel is based on a rescue mission. Several people travel to Site B where the dinosaurs for the original park were created. Obviously, some people die but who will survive? How did the dinosaurs survive? What will happen to the island?
Michael Crichton wrote another great book continuing in the vein of Jurassic Park. I love the science that was brought in and a lot of it was fascinating. The explanation of extinction as a science, the history of species on this planet including the rate of extinction, Red Queen phenomenon, and the information around the “edge of chaos” for complex systems just left me wanting to know more. It is fascinating and I love when books teach me things and introduce new topics. Early on, there was a whole monologue from Malcolm explaining how “human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable…we are stubborn, self-destructive conformists.” I love it when books add a different way of looking at humanity and describing some accurate notions that most people don’t ascribe to or even know. It hit the nail on the head that money drives everything now. “People aren’t studying the natural world anymore, they’re mining it. It’s a looter mentality.” The movie had some major differences from the book including Sarah Harding. She was described as young and having black hair in the book. There were characters that were totally not in the movie like Levine, Doc Thorne, and kids. A bunch of characters were eliminated to simplify the movie. Eddie in the book was only like 24 years old and the little speech about the “nerve-conduction velocity” was given to him in the movie. It wasn’t his in the book. The author also gave a much better explanation of Site B than the movie did. It cleared up a lot of things, and it made it all make more sense. I wish it was included in the film. This book had a good antagonist (apart from the dinosaurs) in Levine because he was an ass. He was smart though and had one or two good intentions. He frustrated me and made me want to reach through the book and punch him. I also found the repeating chapter names frustrating. There were lots of words that came up that I took note of. This includes locus, atavistic, diffidence, imperious, friable, sequela, and integumental. This is exactly the type of book to read on the plane or if you loved Jurassic Park. It was a quick read that I was excited to finish. The pacing was good and it was intriguing. Even though it was not as good as the first one, I do recommend this one.
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Tag: island
Scottish Matriarchy And The Disappearing Good Writing
*SPOILERS*
“Fear can make something beautiful appear ugly.”
“Sometimes I think we are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.”
Beautiful Ugly is about a husband, Grady, who is an author, and a wife, Abby, who is a journalist. She disappears on the night of him learning some exciting news then the book jumps to a year later. The story is told mostly from the perspective of Grady. It does have a few chapters from Abby’s perspective though. Grady is having trouble sleeping and is struggling with writing. He moves to a secluded, Scottish island to hopefully get his life together. One day he ends up seeing his wife who disappeared…or does he?
Alice Feeney is the author of this book and this is only the second book I have read by her. So far, not a good track record. I gave the first book I read by her a 2 and this one is right in that ballpark as well. First off, I am not a fan of unreliable narrators so when it was revealed that Grady hasn’t slept well and tends to default to drinking (is he an alcoholic?) when the slightest thing goes wrong plus at one point is introduced to tea that might be more than he bargained for, I sort of rolled my eyes. I tend not to like it when authors resort to using alcohol as a crutch for a character’s faults and their problems. I find it mostly cliché and unimaginative. I wish someone would do something unique with it. I wonder if this is something that Alice defaults to because there is a sentence that appears in both the books I have read by her. It is not exactly word for word but close enough and in this one it goes like this, “Not everyone likes to drown in their sorrows, some people like to swim in them.” Look at my review for Daisy Darker to see that quote from that book. Secondly, none of the characters stood out to me as memorable or particularly likeable. They were just blah. Thirdly, the scenery could have had such an impression. It had such potential but I don’t think it was used to its fullest. There were these redwoods which was the raison d’etre of the islanders. The sea and landscape could have been characters. As readers, we were told how beautiful it was but we weren’t shown it and I didn’t feel it. It wasn’t vivid enough. Fourthly, throughout the book there were a lot of cliché sounding phrases that just didn’t land with me. It felt forced a bit like “He’s chasing something he’ll never find, but we’re all guilty of that.” There was a chapter that contained a preachy monologue by Abby that had me rolling my eyes too. There were some good phrases though that were funny and that I liked such as “I’m not insulting you; I’m describing you” or “The only thing I don’t like about being alone is the amount of time it forces me to spend with myself.” Fifthly, the writing didn’t make sense at points. The plane meeting…he asked someone to move but then only two in the aisle? Grady says his nan was the only person he considered family but he loved Abby and she was not considered family? Finally, the “twist” and general plot didn’t fully line up or make sense to me. Different people with the same name? Come on. I will stop railing on this book because you get the drift. Read at your own peril. I did kind of like the chapter titles and the “Buried Lovers” story though. This is exactly the type of book you could tell was phoned in and used cheap tactics.