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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