In other hands, many events in this story would be easily dismissed as absurd and/or fantastical. Fortunately, Crichton always has a scientific explanation at the ready for gorillas, diamonds, volcanoes, etc.

Whether or not these explanations are made up for the sake of the material doesn’t matter. Crichton makes you believe it, and therein lies what you could call his genius.

LE MINIERE DI RE SALOMONE



Congo è stato il mio ultimo incontro con la letteratura di Michael Crichton: ho cominciato a leggerlo qualche anno prima, Il terminale Uomo, per poi proseguire con Jurassic Park e Sfera.
Mi sono piaciuti tutti e mi rendo conto che Crichton mi manca, se ne è andato troppo presto. E mi rendo anche conto che ho ancora tanto da leggere di suo, ha scritto e fatto molto nei suoi brevi sessantasei anni.

Come si fa a dimenticare che dalla sua penna nasce Westworld – Il mondo dei robot che lui ha anche diretto al cinema con quel magnifico robot pistolero del west interpretato da Yul Brinner che metteva i brividi! E come si fa a dimenticare quell’altra sua regia, 1855: La più grande rapina al treno, con l’adorato Sean Connery (e Donald Sutherland)!
E almeno un altro paio di film diretti personalmente da non dimenticare Coma – Coma profondo e Runaway (ma furono di più, una mezza dozzina di titoli, senza escludere che è tra i creatori della serie E.R., che da sola vale un inchino particolarmente sentito).


Michael Crichton [Chicago 23 ottobre 1942 – Los Angeles 4 novembre 2008] era alto 2 metri e 6 centimetri.

Congo è stato l’ultimo che ho letto e probabilmente quello che ho amato di più: perché mi piace l’Africa, e perché ho un debole per i gorilla (più dei dinosauri: ma i dinosauri sarebbero così popolari oggigiorno se non fosse proprio per lui e il suo Parco Giurassico?).
Creativamente prolifico e dinamico (romanzi, racconti, saggi, sceneggiature, regie, serie tv, produttore), con studi scientifici alle spalle (soprattutto medicina, ma non solo), questo Jules Verne del XX secolo è autore di pagine che parlano di viaggi straordinari, e per quello che mi riguarda – intendo, considerate le mie cognizioni sull’argomento – potrebbe avere inventato un nuovo genere, che non è né fantascienza né la sua variante distopica: il tecno-thriller.
Scienza, avventura, azione, suspense, shakerate e miscelate, senza vodka né gin né oliva (mi spiace, James – ma, a prescindere da Bond, il Martini è stato il primo cocktail di cui mi sono innamorato, probabilmente perché Graham Greene ne era strenuo difensore, e bevitore, nella variante strictly gin).


Amy

Qui (pubblicato nel 1979) c’è una spedizione nel cuore del Continente Nero, nel Congo del titolo, il cuore dell’Africa: deve impadronirsi di certi diamanti speciali necessari per fabbricare le armi indispensabili alla prossima Terza Guerra Mondiale. Si portano dietro strumenti tecnologici sofisticati e all’avanguardia. Dovranno vedersela con una guerra civile, con la competizione di un consorzio concorrente euro-giapponese, con l’eruzione di un vulcano.
Ma più temibile di tutti è la razza sconosciuta di gorilla che difende la città perduta di Zinj.



L’eterna lotta dell’uomo per piegare la Natura al suo volere.

Divertimento puro. Di quello che alla fine non fa sentire rincretinito.

Stendo un velo pietoso sul film omonimo ambientato in un’Africa di cartapesta che non merita neppure la singola stella della vergogna.

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Read this ages ago and only recently added. Interesting scenes and sci fi concept was signature Crichton.

Solid Crichton book. About as good as I remembered it.

A seriously good techno-thriller which had me wondering for the most part. Of course, it being written in the eighties not all of the technology that Crichton uses to construct the story are still relevant, but their canny placement in the narrative to resolve tangles or deliver surprise twists was simply too neat. The characters where typical thriller material - not sufficiently developed, but not boring either. Amy the talking Gorilla simply stood out, and I learned a good deal about the tropical rain forests of the Congo.

My only gripes with the book were to do with a few logical loopholes - the logistics devised for landing the second team in Congo without anyone noticing wasn't convincing, Elliot's reason to take Amy to the Congo wasn't sound enough, the Gorilla trance during the final attack on listening to the recording was simply laughable  

The 5-page reference section at the end of the book linking his hundreds of references to particular paragraphs in the book simply flattened me. A bonus stunner came when I read in the internet that in 2004, scientists discovered a new freakin ape species in the Congo for real as Crichton had postulated!  If this is one of his least popular thrillers, I just can't wait to pick up his other ones.

Going into this book, I’ll admit I was really excited. I had heard so many good things about Crichton, and though I don't recall reading any of his books, I’ve most likely watched all of the movies based on his books. For the most part, I loved it!

Crichton is such an fantastic storyteller. The pace of the book is near perfect, and the progression of events throughout the first 90% of the book kept me more than intrigued. In fact, this was easily one of my fastest reads and could have been completed even faster if I hadn’t had so many other distractions.

​The characters were believable and well crafted, the overlapping goals of the three main characters were well designed, and the addition of a talking (okay, signing) gorilla was definitely a treat.

Though I have to say I found the story to be a bit hodgepodge, with fairly diverse elements converging together, it was all relative to the story, for the most part. There are some items that I didn’t feel needed to be included; and there are some amazing technologies that truly didn’t seem to fit with the era this book was supposedly based in. Like a software program that takes about a day to learn how to translate the language of a group of apes using only a few small sample verbal recordings, and yet Crichton imagined these apes to speak concurrently with both voices (grunts and huffs) and hand gestures. Though only the vocals were analyzed, the software program was still able to translate enough of the language to let the scientists communicate with the apes.

The basic story is this: a mining corporation is in pursuit of a type of diamond that has little value from the perspective of fashion, due to the tainted blue coloring, but has enormous value for computer hardware applications. Their exploration team, deep in the Congo, suddenly stops reporting, and when the home office obtains control of the video equipment and is able to use it to view the campsite where the team was stationed, they find a grim scene.

One of their most talented scientists decides she is going to take it on herself to lead the next team, even though she has zero field experience. (Okay, I'll suspend disbelief and just run with it.) However, it seems the company is far more interested in finding the diamonds and doesn't care about recovering the bodies or equipment from the last team. Based on a few seconds of video footage they were able to capture from the event that killed their previous team, Ross decides she wants to take a primate expert with her, and contacts a scientist who is experimenting with teaching communication skills to a young female ape named Amy, who becomes an important figure in the story, and even has a good portion of dialogue throughout. As per any good thriller, there are setbacks around every corner, and the team is forced to navigate around those while all the time racing against an international conglomerate set on beating them to the discovery of the diamonds.

​I did find the setbacks and conflicts to be handled far too easily. For example, in one part, the aircraft the team is using is suddenly under fire from radar controlled anti-aircraft missiles being launched from the ground, and they're just like, "Let's open the back cargo door and throw out some chaff." Problem solved.

As mentioned earlier, the overall quality of the writing and the story are well crafted, however, there are several points during which Crichton takes the reader on a lengthy and mostly unnecessary sidebar. For example, though the action and intrigue in one section is becoming fairly intense, we suddenly spend 4 or 5 pages getting a history lesson on one of the technologies used in the book. This happens several times throughout the novel, so it appears to be intentionally written this way. I found those parts to be long-winded, distracting, and fairly dull.

The end of the book also appears to have been written specifically with the hope that the book would become either a movie or perhaps a video game. There are so many final conflicts that merge together at the exact time, it’s almost impossible to believe the heroes will ever survive. And then, suddenly, it’s over. The team does exactly what they need to do to get out of every conflict that cropped up in the final chapter and we are left with a fairly small epilogue to wrap everything up, which it really doesn’t do.
​
Overall I’m giving this one 3.5 stars, and I’m crossing my fingers that the next Crichton novel I read is better.

DNF. In this book, there are too many technical expressions and descriptive parts; and little emotion and action. This book sounds like an encyclopedia and not like a novel. I've even tried reading this book with the help of the audio, which usually gives me more desire to finish a book; but this book is so annoying, that though I read it while I was listening to the audio, it hadn't me motivated.

Below average suspense novel featuring creepy gorillas and wildy outdated tech descriptions.

A Heartbreak Hipster Review

Congo is definitely the most disappointing Crichton book I have read so far.

I expected this to be silly but also fun. I haven't seen the movie and I can't say I'm in any hurry to do so. The only thing I did know about this book was that it involved a talking gorilla, a bunch of scientists and an unknown species of hostile apes.



Fucking horrible creatures. But gorillas are okay.



According to Dr Naan - one who is seemingly incapable of giving a straight fucking answer when he’s about his UK visa, yet can articulate like Shakespeare when it comes to his controversial theories that 80% of females aged 15-40 are expected to have at least one sexual dream in which they get raped by three gorillas simultaneously.



I mean, maybe it’s true. But it still doesn’t justify what he and his cousins did to that poor little girl ...



Also, according to my ex-girlfriend's brother, some girls fantasise their exes getting their ass neatly handed to them by a steroid-fed mountain gorilla.



So that's my review of Luke Neely. He may have screwed a lot of things up, but deep down I do believe he has a heart of gold and all it takes is ...

Oh ... Wait.

I'm supposed to be reviewing Congo aren't I?



Well, Michael Crichton's Congo not only promises but delivers a genuinely intriguing premise. After an American expedition, seek-
ing diamonds in the Congo, gets savaged under strange circumstances, a rescue mission is sent in. These idiots enter the country under the political radar because civil war is breaking out and indigenous tribes are attacking and killing innocent civilians.
Karen Ross commands the ERTS Rescue Expedition. She enlists the help of an ex-mercenary named Munro. And then our true protagonists - Dr Elliot and his Ameslan-trained gorilla, Amy - join from San Francisco, thinking to escape the smell of fecal matter.



Now listen here people, because Mikey's not finished yet. Little does Elliot know that his cold-natured scientist friend has another agenda: she wants to locate and excavate the diamond mines beneath some active volcano. Oh, I thought we mentioned that on the brochure ...

Anyway, this idea introduces various concepts. All of them should have been awesome in the hands of this talented author. There was me thinking outright gun-conflict between the Americans and Chinese (fighting for resources which belong to neither of them). Though it will probably sound lame, I had also wondered whether these strange combat-trained gorillas would eventually team with the Americans with Amy as their translator. And mostly I thought people were going to have their faces crushed by bloodthirsty gorillas - that is, when they weren't already being mauled by leopards or getting swallowed by giant snakes. An over the top jungle romp by Michael Crichton sounds like a perfect recipe.

But what do we get instead?



"RECVD MESG AURL INFO PLS EXPLN.
AXIDENTL DISKVRY VRY XCITNG-DISCRIMNT".

I'm sorry?

"FUNXN COMPTRANLSS 99 CONFDNCE LIMITS TAPD.
AURL INFO (BRETHNG SOUNS) DEMNSTRTS".

Oh, I see. Wait what?

"SOUND COMPLEX: ? AWAY - .5444 - .343.
SOUND COMPLEX: ? HERE - .6344 - .344".

Okay, so what you're saying is -

"Amy(2) = distncton (£ + w%R), means
Grilla x 12 (<.435 + !!!) reslt = .004".



Michael, I can't understand any of this shit!!!!

What happened to the killer gorillas?

What happened to that ancient city?

What just happened to my brain?



If you had been my science teacher in high school then I probably would've had the guts to jump off the music-room balcony in front of my friends.

Now of course I understand this is what fans expect from Mr. Crichton. But it does get a little over the top. And I can't imagine anyone actually taking the time to decipher what this guy is really saying. I am not asking him to dumb it down, because unfortunately, that's no longer possible ...



And I don't want him to write like a brainless idiot.



"Monkey make booboo on Man's face. "Ouchy!!!" Man scream. "I tink my nose is broked and my eye hang like yoyo". Man run round in circle. Monkey twist his head".

But I would have appreciated him putting just a little more thought into whether or not all his scientific expo was balanced with the thrills most fans also want. Even in his last novel, Micro, which was terribly written, I still gave it three stars because it had a good entertaining body count. Kudos to Michael for not just resorting to cheap mindless action scenes, but my God, was this a boring one to read!!



Does this look boring? Hell no it doesn't!!

But the book has barely anything exciting. I mean, he did introduce the threat of the cannibals earlier on. And he does go into the extensive causalities suffered by such other explorers that tried to navigate the Congo in their time. But the people in this story just breeze through the jungle as if it were their own backyard, fiddling with their high-tech gadgetry and setting up camp whenever they get tired.



There is some cutesy charm in having a communicative gorilla. And I am surprised to say the characters here were probably the most real I have seen by Crichton. But that is not to say they were good. Only that, for the first time ever, he has allowed his characters to show at least some human emotions in the face of imminent death. Ross actually cries when she realises the computer terminal in Houston won't save her from the Congo Army's missiles. While Munro feels mostly like a poor man's Quint (you know, that other caricature from Jaws) - I still liked the fact that he willingly stopped thinking about those silly diamonds and began acting like he genuinely cared about his life and the others.



Do you love this town, asshole?

So yeah, I'm not going to take the usual path with this writer and complain about his cardboard characters. These ones were more like plastic. If they were storage boxes, they'd look pretty boring but at least they’d get the job done.



This is a gongo. It rhymes with Congo.

Now, for God's sake, I told myself last time that I would cool it with these freaking reviews. I am putting more effort into these than I am with my actual writing. Umm. Okay. So while there was nothing really bad about this book, I can’t justify giving it any more than two stars. The writing was pretty good, standardly decent. And most of the characters were surprisingly not terrible. Only there was just so much more potential. Crichton did not so much fail to see that, as much as know it was there and simply not bother. That makes it harder to forgive.
Some people died ... eventually. But their deaths were never actually seen. We're just told afterwards: some guy we didn't know the name of was found dead outside the campsite. It's kind of hard giving a shit about any of this.



Nobody important dies!!

Even the few deaths that do occur just end up being so unsatisfying. I don't mean to sound like a Tarantino fan though. By "unsatisfying”, I only mean they didn't have any effect on the other characters whatsoever. Thus there was never any tension or threat established. The heroes just take note of each death and continue having overly technical conversations with each other.

(Oh yeah - that just reminded me!! Crichton also took a leaf out of Stephen King's book: he kept reminding the reader that all the protagonists DO survive!! For some reason, he uses that device where the characters keep on commenting on everything that is happening - during some sort of interview after the events of the novel - just so you can rest assured your favourite characters are not going to die. Now this wouldn't have been so irritating had there actually been a purpose for it. But honestly, it serves nothing. There was no reason why we had to get the their retrospective thoughts as opposed to their present reactions).



(ShUdDeRs In ReVuLsIoN ... )

The idea that they are trapped in the middle of the jungle, with a diminishing supply of ammunition, and the apes bound to attack them every night till they all get killed - that could and really should have worked. There was one part in particular - my favourite of the entire book - where they try to escape the jungle. While they do not see the gorillas during this, they eventually hear something coming from within the enveloping foliage. An eerie orchestra of gentle sighing; the sound the apes make when they are watching. Just hearing this is enough to creep the people out, driving them back to camp again.
That part was clever and effective because not only did it establish that they truly were trapped in their situation - it also attributed a subtle, though creepy, characteristic to the enemy.
Except there was one thing Mr. Medical Degree never stopped to think about. Once I thought about it, I felt like real hot shit and was crossing my fingers it would not occur to him.

Would you like to hear it?



So these guys are surrounded by dangerous jungle. Out of this jungle comes a marauding army of deadly gorillas. Bastards can attack them from every and any side. And to top that off, the ammunition and defence equipment's steadily running out. Too many sides to cover. Not enough supplies to keep it up.

Am I correct?

So all this worrying brings me to question the most obvious flaw in your set-up, Mr. Crichton. Like half a mile away there lies an empty city. Now forgive me if I've let my imagination get ahead of me, but surely these guys would be better off taking their shit into one small building, one small room, of that abandoned city. That way they only have one doorway to guard, as opposed to an encircling jungle.



You go ahead and call me pompous ma'am. But I know who I’d rather take to the Congo.



Benjamin: "The village should be just over that mountain".

Elliot: "Thank God. I'm sick of this jungle".

Michael: "Hey guys, have you seen these flowers?"

Benjamin: "Yeah, Mike, they're nice. But now's not the - "

Michael: "Nice. These not just nice".

Elliot: Oh God, I think I just saw a gorilla behind that tree”.

Michael: "I believe the correct term, Doctor, is Beringei".

Elliot: "Is that their scientific name?"

Benjamin: "Okay guys, who gives a shit? Where’s the gorilla? Ahhhh GAAHD!!!!"

Elliot: "Oh Jesus!! The gorilla's got him!!"

Michael: "Indeed ... umm. Gosh!!!"

Benjamin: (Loses his arm. Screams incoherently).

Elliot: "What should we do? Should we help him?

Michael: "Ah now. You can't mess with nature"

Elliot: "Yes but - "

Benjamin: (Ribcage now crushed. Choking on his own blood).

Michael: "Just watch how it kills. It's amazing".



I've always heard he was a prick in real life.

Anyway, so I can wrap this up and post it let me give my opinion of this book in a nutshell. Congo was overall a very disappointing book. Certainly not one I would recommend if you are reading Crichton for the first time. Some parts were kinda cool. But for all these, there were always two parts more that failed to hit the target one expects when reading something by this usually satisfying author.

The book was interesting in the second half with the first half using lot of technical jargon which almost made me abandon it halfway. Once you overcome the first half, it becomes interesting and edgy. The author has described the African jungles so vividly that you visualise it right before your eyes. All about an organisation's quest to explore blue diamonds which sends a woman, Karen Ross accompanied by a primatologist, Peter Elliot who becomes the central character along with his pet gorilla, Amy. You feel for Amy when she converses with her handler Peter Elliot. The expedition is led by a mercenary turned expert jungle guide Munro. There are the unusual twists and turns given the jungle backdrop, the tribals and the gorillas. The whole technical stuff appear a bit outdated today since this was written way back in the 80s. Otherwise this is a good book to read.

After reading Congo I will see monkeys and apes with a lot more respect. The gorilla is described to be far more docile creature than the chimpanzees, however fearsome they appear. Don't judge a book by the cover (pun intended). I was actually surprised by such tidbits in the book regarding primate behaviour. Enjoy the adventure !

i'm having a little trouble with myself right now. i just gave this one 4 stars and Inner-Snob Mark is getting very twitchy, almost trigger-happy, ready to take control of my favorite hand and bump this one down to 3 stars. never fear, i have a tight rein on Inner-Snob Mark and have carefully compartmentalized him away tonight. but he does have a few good points. my God, i gave the timeless classic The Last Unicorn 3 stars. i gave Room - which wrecked me emotionally and had me crying like someone died - the same 4 stars. and Congo gets only 1 star less than either Picnic at Hanging Rock or The Thin Red Line - two books that i think are perfect from beginning to end. eh, so fucken what. stars are stupid, right?

okay, so that's the disclaimer. it will probably be longer than the actual review.

i LOVED this book. it was one of those immersive experiences, one that i dived into and stayed deep. Crichton is not known for having an interesting writing style, but his prose is clean & straightforward & dry without being off-puttingly clinical. ack, Inner-Snob Mark just had a spasm when i used the words "Crichton" and "prose" in the same sentence. no complaints whatsoever about the quality of writing. Congo is not corny and it is not emotionally manipulative and there aren't stupid lines where i start breathing loudly in frustration. what it does have is a superbly brisk narrative that does not falter despite the very dense level of information surrounding it. and that's another great thing: the very well-done infodumps. i'm going to sound a little schoolboy-ish here... but i learned so much! about the Congo, of course. but this being Crichton, i also learned a lot about apes and technology and corporate philosophies and tons of other interesting shite. the author makes sure all of his research is on the page and yet it didn't feel didactic and it didn't take away from the plot - if anything, it drew me in further.

oh yeah, and it had one more awesome thing. in my GR friend Bill's words: The big star in this story is Amy, a gorilla with a 620 sign vocabulary. After reading this, you will want a gorilla for a best friend. ah, Amy... i know we would be fast friends!

Enjoyed this immensely! I have vague recollections of the movie, group goes to the Congo, take a communicating gorilla, bad gorillas attack, volcanic eruptions and Tim Curry haha but the book is so much better. I loved the amount of detail, the science parts, the historical parts and the 'atmosphere' that the author evoked of being in the Congo, brilliant!