The Lost World Jurassic Park : the Junior Novelization

Some good moments but mostly sentimental So I saw both the first movies before reading this and the original Jurassic Park book. Both are quite different from the films and so that makes me feel conflicted as I loved both of the movies. I do like the philosophical bits by Malcolm and some of the more science-based explanations behind the dinosaur behaviour and such though. It's written relatively well, not mind-blowing, but easy to read which I guess is good writing. If you've read the first or seen both films, I'd give this a read as its fun to see the differences and how Michael Crichton intended the story to be told.

Pretty much a carbon copy (Carbon-14?) of the much better Jurassic Park, but still pretty thrilling!

Entertaining and exciting. A good sequel! A slower start and then action-packed to the end

It unfortunately comes through quite clearly that Michael Crichton was pushed to write a sequel. A story that feels like it's still in the development stage.

This book I struggled more than I should have with. It was a very different pace than Crichton books tend to be. Traditionally the action if a roller coaster, has a high hill followed by a series of slightly less high hills and ends on a high hill of excitement. This book was the Millinium Force of books (she says while wearing a Cedar Point shirt). It had a very slow build and a very quick action packed conclusion. The story follows my soul mate, Ian Malcolm (seriously I hope Ian Malcolm is Crichton himself, to write his philosophy... He had to have believed it himself). and his somewhat lady love Sarah Harding going to Site B (where all the Dinos for Jurassic Park were experimentally made) to save there mutually disliked friend Levine. Being the butthead he is, he ventured to said Island, got stranded and needed rescuing. Levine has two student assistants that stow away on this adventure. To add to the drama we have Dodgeson from book one, and the Evil Biosyn trying once again to steal the dino tech for their own. The story is literally this group trying to survive on Isla Sorna overnight till their Helicopter comes. However this island is overrun by a very broken dino food structure. The book was exciting and a fun read. I mean it's Crichton. However the pacing was all wrong. Maybe cause it was a sequel which isn't really his bag? Everytime something exciting was going to happen it was delayed to help build intensity. But by the time they returned to it... It was like... oh yea that thing. The part I was most excited about (come on chameleon dinos that raptors and trexs are afraid of) ended up being as big of blue balls as Andromeda Strain... However! It was a billion times better than the movie. I don't understand why they changed so much. The book had a perfect amount of action to fit a movie. they honestly probably wouldn't have even needed to edit or cut much. But they chose to go a very different dumber direction. Seriously Hollywood, Crichton's stuff is already perfect for screen leave it alone.

I always end up reading books in the wrong order, and I read The Lost World before Jurassic Park. As one of my first Michael Crichton Books, I found it intriguing. I was already familiar with the story, but the detail Crichton goes into was incredible! The pacing was brilliant and at some points, I didn't want to put it down! I was right on the edge of my seat!

nothing much

It’s probably more like 3.5* but I liked enough things that I decided to round up! It’s less interesting and tight than Jurassic Park but still quite a fun book. I especially liked the dynamics between Harding and Kelly, which was surprisingly refreshing. What made Jurassic Park so effective was in the build up in the first 40% it was using the info dump of science it was actually introducing the variables of failure for how the park would fail and the problems the characters experience during the thriller aspects. In this book, there’s even more setup and it doesn’t do that. It puts forth an interesting question focusing on the gaps in our understanding regarding evolution, sure. But that doesn’t build the same sense of anticipation and satisfaction when the variables become pertinent to survival in the first one. Especially since the question put forth about evolution is unanswerable. Still. It’s fun when it gets going and I liked some of the new characters. Some twists and the scientific underpinnings are still interesting, just falls short of how fantastic the original was (imo).

Classic Crichton! Not quite as good as Jurassic Park, in my opinion, but a very strong book that has the benefit of being a stand alone-you do not have to read the first book to enjoy this one!

I like better than Jurassic Park. I got kinda confused with the characters names. It felt like the children were unnecessary they could have been adults, it seemed Crichton was just trying to follow Jurassic Park model. I really like some passages that discussed how important history was to science. Really appreciated that lol. Read in Sweden and Amtrak NY-PVD

I wonder what the threshold is for the number of times you can pass out on a dinosaur-infested island and not die. While I'm sure there are no conclusive numbers, I can say that Michael Crichton believes that it is fairly high. I really liked the first book in this set, and I really wanted to like The Lost World. I ended up finding the savior of the book, in my eyes, which was the loose inclusion of facts in scientific research and the links to still existing animals. Malcolm is once again his old self, when not idly ranting about how awful humans are, and apparently everyone is a scholar in some respects. Personally, I would rather shut up and breathe for a minute after escaping my death and save the idle theorizing about why things occurred the way they did once I was sipping tea at home. I suppose that's why I'll never reach the level of fictional academia. Here are some things that annoyed me about the book, while trying not to give too much away. First, the cutaways between mini-chapters or characters become increasingly annoying. I'm sure it's hard after a while, but there has to be a better ay than having a character black out or sleep. Second, everyone is an academic, and not even the children are spared. While I knew what I was signing up for after Jurassic Park, I didn't realize that we would delve even more into evolutionary theory than I really cared to know. Third, the main antagonist was easily known long before we had even seen them, and I realized it would play out much like Jurassic Park in that regard. I also felt like some of the dinosaurs were mentioned but never seen or seen enough. Carnataurus, for example, is a cool concept (though I doubt the legitimacy of the camouflage) but they were shoved aside for familiar foes. Fourth, I hate seeing the same characters rehashed with new faces and slightly changed personalities. Obviously Malcolm was the same, but aside from the villains, the characters felt like rehashes of the old group from Jurassic Park. From Levine and his dino hunting to what's her face the zoologist who studied carnivores. And to top it all off, I don't like the explanations given for how the island existed. (in the spoiler below) (view spoiler)[ You're telling me that, in a lab full of scientists working with zoologists, no one knew about the sheep meat? Everyone was freaking out but no one knew that was the cause? Really? And the fact that T-Rex can be wonderful parents, but apparently Velociraptors devolve into chaos is really annoying to me. They also were apparently so stubborn or "smart" to waste all of their time hunting our heroes, after being repeatedly killed and maimed. No, they wouldn't waste their time on the scrawny humans who yielded little meat, especially after killing whats his face and dragging the carcass back to base camp. They were smart enough to figure out hunting in a pack, they would eventually develop their own system for eating just like any other species, because group-based animals have inherent hierarchical instincts. It might not be pretty, but someone studying carnivores would be able to see it. And instincts would dictate child rearing, like in the T-Rexes. So while he may have created a good monster, I don't think his farce of scientific explanations can explain away why he wants them totally demonized; it's really just for the literature. (hide spoiler)] Things I liked included the multiple viewpoints, toned down brats (much better and improved since Jurassic Park) and the sense of death and despair that he can create in his writing. Until the character passes out, that is.