Lost World by Michael Crichton

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Lost World
Available from Amazon
Price: $21.45
Updated on 12-28-2008.

Features

Audio CD

Publisher: Random House Audio (September 17, 1995)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0679447636

ISBN-13: 978-0679447634

Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 4.9 x 1 inches

Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces ()

Amazon.com Review
Written in the wake of Jurassic Park's phenomenal box-office success, The Lost World seems as much a guidebook for Hollywood types hard at work on the franchise's followup as it is a legitimate sci-fi thriller. Which begs the inevitable questions: Is the plot a rehash of the first book? Sure it is, with the action unfolding on yet another secluded island, the mysterious "Site B." Is the cast of characters basically the same? Absolutely, from a freshly minted pair of cute, compu-savvy kids right down to the neatly exhumed chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (who was presumed dead at the close of JP). But is it fun to read? You betcha. Hollywood (and Michael Crichton) keeps telling us the same old stories for a very good reason: we like them. And the pulp SF formula Crichton has mastered with Jurassic Park and The Lost World is no exception. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly
One fact about this sequel to Jurassic Park stands out above all: it follows a book that, with spinoffs, including the movie, proved to be the most profitable literary venture ever. So where does the author of a near billion-dollar novel sit? Squarely on the shoulders of his own past work?and Arthur Conan Doyle's. Crichton has borrowed from Conan Doyle before?Rising Sun was Holmes and Watson in Japan?but never so brazenly. The title itself here, the same as that of Conan Doyle's yarn about an equatorial plateau rife with dinos, acknowledges the debt. More enervating are Crichton's self-borrowings: the plot line of this novel reads like an outtake from JP. Instead of bringing his dinos to a city, for instance, Crichton keeps them in the Costa Rican jungle, on an offshore island that was the secret breeding ground for the beasts. Only chaos theoretician Ian Malcolm, among the earlier principals, returns to explore this Lost World, six years after the events of JP; but once again, there's a dynamic paleontologist, a pretty female scientist and two cute kids, boy and girl?the latter even saves the day through clever hacking, just as in JP. Despite stiff prose and brittle characters, Chrichton can still conjure unparalleled dino terror, although the wonder is gone and the attacks are predictable, the pacing perfunctory. But his heart now seems to be not so much in the storytelling as in pedagogy: from start to finish, the novel aims to illustrate Crichton's ideas about extinction?basically, that it occurs because of behavioral rather than environmental changes?and reads like a scientific fable, with pages of theory balancing the hectic action. As science writing, it's a lucid, provocative undertaking; but as an adventure and original entertainment, even though it will sell through the roof, it seems that Crichton has laid a big dinosaur egg. 2,000,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB main selection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Lost World (Mass Market Paperback) I don't know if the dinosaurs bring out the best in Crichton or what. I've read a few of his books and haven't really cared for them, but I loved Jurassic Park and I really enjoyed this one too. It's a rollicking adventure story that doesn't stop very often. When it does, though, with some long scientific asides, it stops dead. Crichton sure is capable of writing an exciting tale. I wish he'd do it more often. Lost World has many exciting sequences as various dinosaurs (mostly Tyrannosaurus and Raptors) chase the humans all around the island. The action is breathtaking as, just when you think the humans have solved their problem (or at least are on the road to solving it), things take a turn for the worse. I am not one for hyperbole, but throughout the middle of the book, I couldn't put it down. I stayed up much later than I should, and only turned out the light because it was getting too late and I still had too far to go. This really isn't much more than an action yarn with some scientific ideas attached to it, though, so don't get the idea that it's really deep. In fact, the scientific ideas are one of the problems with the book. I'm not saying they're not accurate, as I don't know enough about them to make that judgment. However, there are times where Crichton just stops the action dead to go on for a page or two about chaos theory, evolution, or something. These are interesting, but they completely destroy the mood of the book. It's almost like mixing chocolate and shrimp: sure, some people may like it, but for the rest of us who like both but hate them together, it makes the finished product just a little less palatable. Thankfully, the asides don't come at you too much at one time, so once each one stops the ball starts rolling again. Being an action thriller, the characters aren't that complex. They seem like it at times (such as when they're spouting scientific theories), but they aren't really. Malcolm is scarred by the events in the first book, and there's an interesting sequence where this comes into play. Thankfully for himself and for the others, he snaps out of it fairly quickly. I liked his character, though, because he's a combination of a realist and a cynic. However, he uses his scientific knowledge and his intelligence to get them out of more than one scrape. He's probably the most broadly defined of the bunch. The other members of the expedition have their character hooks too, but they aren't that deeply explored. Crichton spends a lot of time detailing their background, but when events start happening, they're more fodder for these events than anything else. They are distinctive, they just aren't complex. The villains of the piece, though, are pretty dull and stereotypical. Dodgson is your typical greedy and lazy villain. His specialty is stealing other people's research after it's been tested, because that's easier and more lucrative than doing your own research and possibly going down numerous blind alleys. His allies are the typical nervous bunch, with one person worried that they're doing the wrong thing and the other one worried that they're doing the right thing but that it will go horribly wrong (which it inevitably does). Thankfully, once they get events rolling to their inevitable conclusion, they're pretty much sidelined and we don't hear much about them again until the end. The plot is kind of a runaround, but I really enjoyed it despite that. There are definitely predictable events in it, such as when a character does something and you know immediately what the consequences of that action are going to be, long before any of the characters do. That does mar things a little bit. But it's easy to look past them because Crichton writes the action so effectively. When characters aren't spouting scientific stuff, I almost held my breath as events happened. Especially effective is the trailer scene, where Malcolm and Sarah have to figure out how to get safely out of a trailer that's being pushed, prodded and smashed by two enraged Tyrannosaurs. It's hard to tell what's going to happen there, or who will survive this sequence. Nobody (with the possible exception of Malcolm) is safe in this book, so there is a lot of tension. I will say that not everybody dies, but there certainly is doubt when certain people are in danger. I wish Crichton would write more like these. To me, he seems at his best when he's writing scientific action thrillers. I wish there were a way that he could limit the scientific asides, though, as they really slow things down. I don't mind the asides themselves, but I think they could be included better. Still, this is one book that you won't be able to put down. And it has dinosaurs eating people. What could be wrong with that?

Lost World
List Price: $27.50
Available from Amazon
Price: $21.45
Updated on 12-28-2008.