4.8⭐️ JAKIE TO BYŁO DOBRE! Na początku byłam pozytywnie nastawiona, ale nie sądziłam, że będę się bawić tak dobrze. Myślałam, że styl pisania sprawi, że to będzie trudna przeprawa, a właśnie dzięki niemu pochłaniałam tę książkę o wiele szybciej, niż chciałam. Sam pomysł na książkę jest dla mnie niesamowity i dodatkowe smaczki w postaci ciekawostek - coś świetnego. Co najbardziej mnie urzekło to pokazanie różnorodności postaci - naiwny bogacz z marzeniem o stworzeniu czegoś jedynego w swoim rodzaju, chciwi pracownicy, rozsądny naukowiec i mój ukochany Tim, mądry i ciekawy świata chłopczyk. Same opisy dinozaurów i podawanie ich cech, żebyśmy dokładnie wiedzieli z czym mamy do czynienia ogromnie mnie ekscytowały. Wydaje mi się, że Crichton świetnie zbalansować rozrywkę i fakty naukowe - i just loved it.

Ah, Jurassic Park, a keystone moment in movie history where dinosaurs were brought to the silver screen in such an indelible way. I don't think it would be inaccurate to say the movie franchise (especially with the most recent entry of Jurassic World) has significantly overshadowed the book. Heck, I only just got to reading it now, 23 years after the movie was released. Having recently seen the movie, I was struck by the differences between the novel and the movie. Some changes were welcomed, others lost some of the book's depth in the translation.

First off most of the characters are portrayed a bit differently in the movie from the book. In the book John Hammond is not the lovable grandfatherly figure Richard Attenborough portrayed in the movie. Book Hammond was rather narcissistic and self-absorbed. Where as the Movie Hammond experienced some humility by the end, it seemed like Book Hammond had a restraining order out against that emotion. Nothing could possibly go wrong with his brilliant idea, the government was an unnecessary impediment on human progress, and when things do go wrong they are the fault of his (highly trained specialist) underlings and their lack of vision. He is a nice enough man if you are agreeable with him, but if you cross him he will treat you rather poorly. All in all a less sympathetic (though a bit more believeable) of a character.

Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are not romantically involved in the book and there is in fact a large age difference between them. This pleased me because it allowed the characters to shine without having to devote time to a romantic plot-line or undercurrent. They are both very capable and knowledgeable in the book and easy to root for. While separated for most of the book they are very calm and collected under pressure and maintain an effective mentor-student relationship. They were great in the movie, but I think I liked them more in the book.

Jeff Goldblum is Ian Malcolm, nuff said.



John Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson from the movie and Park Operator), Henry Wu (chief scientist), and Robert Muldoon (big game hunter and park warden) are explored in much more depth than in the movie and provide some fascinating insights into the events as they unfold.

Arnold comes from en engineering and theme park operations background. As such he views the park through his own experiences, knowing that things will go wrong and how to best deal with them. He isn't caught up in the grand vision of Hammond and treats the park problems as things that will occur as a matter of course and that can be fixed.

Wu, the brilliant scientist behind the miracle of resurrected dinosaurs, views things through a highly scientific lens. He is much more interested in the process and methodology that went into creating them than the end product. He isn't married to the notion of bring back dinos as they were, but instead pushes to explore how they could be using the techniques he has developed. He clashes with Hammond on this topic, wanting to expand science while Hammond is more than content with just cranking out existing dinos and not meddling with their appearance.

Muldoon is a former big game hunter turned conservationist. He has hunted plenty of dangerous game and has no rosy eyed vision on what dinos are: they are big, smart, dangerous creatures that should be treated with respect of rocket launchers, depending on what the situation calls for. He knows what needs to be done when things (inevitably) go wrong and provides a very pragmatic view of the park and its inhabitants.

All in all, the secondary characters provide a wide and nuanced view of the experiment Hammond is trying to pull off. This really gave the book a very nice bit of depth beyond "Amusement Park Tries to Kill its Guests." Where as the movie was very much about surviving dino related deaths, the book took time to explore different views on the park and serve as a cautionary tale about pushing the boundaries of science too quickly. Malcolm seems to be the avatar of this view, noting "Story of our species, everyone knows its coming, but not so soon."

Crichton also adds in some moments of levity so it isn't all scientific doom and gloom/raptor attacks:

n"I don't see him [juvenile T-Rex] at the moment."
"Maybe he's down hunting the apostasaurs."
"He would if he could, believe me. Sometimes he stands by the lagoon and stares at the animals, and wiggles those little forearms in frustration."n

But this was by no means a flawless book. I thought Crichton got a little too hung up on technical details and spelled some things out a but to specifically when a general comment would have sufficed. This was especially true as we are shown the computer interface that must be used to save the day at the end. Speaking of the end, I felt the book end was rather sloppy. Instead of ending like the movie with the survivors flying away, Crichton decided that Grant et. al. needed to do a a head count of all the raptors to insure that none escaped to the mainland. While possible important, it really threw the flow off of the narrative.

All in all, though, this book was quite riveting. Up until the end it had a great pace, fascinating characters, and a great plot. If you liked the movie, you'll love the book.

I was honestly shocked at how different this was from the movie. This is my first time reading this one and I've only ever known Spielberg's adaptation of it and man, this book is simply awesome. The character work is great, the feel of horror and dread built into the pages whenever a dinosaur is prowling is top notch and I really appreciate the direction the book went in the end. The only part I really had gripes with, and they're minor, is that it's pretty clear that Malcom's monologues are just a mouthpiece for Crichton's real-world beliefs that he wanted to write into the story. Picturing Jeff Goldblum certainly helps in the delivery though.

I'm incredibly curious about The Lost Worlds now because I hear it's an even larger separation between book and film.

So, straight to it. Jurassic Park, the book, is inimitable, apart from a few clumsy attempts. One thing that differentiated it from its wannabes is that, unlike books about sharks, snakes or let's say, zombies, dinosaurs come in very varied shapes. This means that the way the casualties meet their end is just as variable.



Michael Crichton props up his last act with inspired flair and experienced cunning. He knows that the action in this book will go only so far, just like last acts in an all out comedy movie WILL be lame, unless something rash and daring is undertook. The soliloquy (for us) of Ian Malcolm are just like the morphine that the doctor prescribed for him. Malcolm's rants about science are dishonest but it's all in good jest.

The verisimilitude of Isla Nublar is out of this world. The landscape, the computers, the dinosaurs, the genetic restraints that shackles the dinosaurs, and lastly, the human protagonists in the book, are so well imagined, arranged spatially, manipulated to create tension and pacing, that I recognize the hand of a master entertainer at work. Spielberg, eat your heart out.





The ultimate slap in the face of conventional science fiction is the fact, that Jurassic Park takes place in our timeline. How gutsier can you get? The book is now half forgotten, but that will change when the next wave of genetic manipulation arrives. Jurassic Park can have quite a few interpretations that pertain to civics, science, philosophy, and of course maths' sexy cousin, Chaos Theory! The only thing that matters though, is that the book makes good on its promise and gives us more than what it says on the tin; pure fun.

I originally noticed this audiobook as a Youtube upload off to the side as I was listening to Prisoner of Azkaban for the umpteenth time. I've got The Lost World at home and I've never seen the films (not completely, anyway), so I figured Why the hell not? I haven't been a ginormous fan of dinosaurs since I was about ten, but this book cured that so quick. I was instantly back in my kid-mindset when they were first discussing the park. Just the thought of SEEING these enormous beasts had me drooling. Like. BRACHIOSAURUS. And TRICERATOPS. PARASAUROLOPHUS (my favorite, incidentally). PTERODACTYLS. EEEEEEEEEEEKS.

Needless to say I watched Land Before Time the other night again and was so happy to see dinosaurs again. But the concept of Jurassic Park has brought dinosaurs into modern day and it's PHENOMENALLY written. With this book, Crichton has firmly established himself as one of my favorite writers (and it pisses me off that he's dead now), but I own Lost World and Pirate Latitudes at home, so I'm sure I'll be getting to both of those sooner rather than later, as well as picking up a hardback copy of this to complement its sequel. But JESUS can Crichton write. I can't even fathom the amount of research he put into this book. Guarantee he was an expert on everything from archaeology to genetics to chaos theory to evolution, and that's a LOT of scientific-ness to be an expert about. And the book just goes to show how important that research is, because it makes the story that much more believable.

I saw in another review that this tale is very reminiscent of Frankenstein, in its warning against humans who have too much power. I have to say that while I wholeheartedly agree with this comparison, I feel like Jurassic Park is a much better example. Frankenstein is a classic of course, but when I read Frankenstein the book just seemed to drag. I remember it being overly wordy and so dry. Maybe that's because I read it for school and maybe not, but I'm definitely not as keen to reread it as I am to reread Jurassic Park.

The characters are all very believable, although I had trouble keeping people separated in my head -- Grant and Malcolm got mixed up consistently and I had to keep reminding myself that they were different people (and usually in different places), and it was fun keeping Harding and Hammond separate too. Ellie and Wu and the kids were easy, and I have to applaud Crichton for bringing together such a large cast.

Gonna watch the movie tomorrow!! :D

Also: THANK GODS HAMMOND IS DEAD. That loon was seriously going to just RESTART all of this madness?? THANK YOU, COMPIES!!

And then I was watching Westworld last night -- for those of you who aren't familiar, it has a similar premise of a malfunctioning theme park, but the people who inhabit said theme park are all robots, like the lovely Yul Brynner here--



and I'm sitting there watching it going "this is SO similar to Jurassic Park." Looked it up and Westworld was WRITTEN AND DIRECTED by Crichton almost TWENTY YEARS before JP was published.



Well played, Mr Crichton.

UPDATE: Watched the film, liked the film, but the book is SO MUCH BETTER. The dinosaurs were SO COOL, but I didn't like how they made Malcolm all drooly over Ellie and kind of made it a would-be-love-triangle, that just felt awkward when I don't remember it ever being hinted at in the book. And he seemed like so much more of an asshole rather than the level-headed guy he was in the book. And Hammond should have stayed the same, because his maniacal tendency really freaked me out. But SAMUEL L JACKSON. YAS. Casting was perf btw.

n  BookTube channel with my awesome brother, Ed - The Brothers Gwynnen
n  My personal BookTube channel - William Gwynnen

Dived head first into my first Michael Crichton novel... where else could I start other than the titanic Jurassic Park. Some say it has got a bite for it.... now I've got that terrible pun out of the way I can focus on the part of actually talking about it...

I loved the espionage and corporate machinations in this. Far more than a film, there is a focus on other companies trying to obtain the power to bring dinosaurs back, all driven by greed and avarice.... not a good combination when dealing with deadly creatures than can cause havoc... and do cause havoc.

“Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.”

Whilst the culmination of this book felt a bit dragged out, so some of the tension seeped out of the story, I still throughly enjoyed the story, especially as when the tension was weaker in the final third, I loved the philosophical edge that was injected. Much as with Frankenstein, the idea of 'Man Playing God' is poised, and discussed. I loved it. We're not given answers, but we are given opinions and it was executed in a way that did not detract from the story in moralistic lessons, but instead enhanced it so much.

I will definitely be reading some more Crichton in the future!

4/5 STARS

It's freakin' Jurassic Park! What else is there to say? The guy who reads this does a good job. I give him and the book 5 stars.

Story *****
Audiobook *****

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this book. I guess I've always had my reservations because of what an impact the movie had on me as a kid. I was about 9 or 10 when the movie first came out and it blew my mind. As the book likes to point out, boys love dinosaurs and that was true.

As a side note, I'm loving how much my son (5 y.o.) loves dinosaurs. He knows so much more about them than I do, in fact his favorite is the Giganotosaurus, a dinosaur I learned existed from him.

(the hipster's T-Rex)

Now, I'll be the first to admit my memory of of the movie is a tad hazy, but from what I do remember, the movie actually follows the book quite a bit, at least up until about 2/3 of the book where either my memory is bad or the books is completely different (oh and Grant loves kids in the book, which is ... opposite). More than I would have guessed, which was not a lot.

There's a little more detail to the initial attacks we see in the movie and it's not quite as gruesome in parts (and much more gruesome in others). The girl gets attacked by the Compsognathus (little green dinos), or **"compys" as they're known. **excuse my spelling, I listened to the audio and like Fox news, I don't feel the need to fact check.

The park is just about ready to open and it's time to get all the consultants together to make sure it's on the right track. Thus, Grant and Sattler, Ian Malcolm, the attorney Jennaro, and a couple others are flown in.

Of course, nefarious doings are going on and a competitor wants in on the dinosaur action. In comes Dennis Nedry, who is pretty much spot on copied in the movie. Excellent job Wayne Knight. He's pretty much built the entire IT system for the park and thus has quite a bit of control over pretty much everything. I don't remember his involvement in the park being this extensive, but then again, I was 9. There's a frikkin' T-REX!!!



As we all know, everything goes to pot and we all know what goes from here. Even though the movie diverges from the book, we all know what goes on from here.

And it's awesome. I had a blast listening to this book and Scott Brick is such a talented narrator, you don't even notice him reading. It's just pure story.

A couple *important* things I wanted to point out... some spoilers for the book:

1. The lawyer, Jennaro, is not as spineless as in the movie, does not get eaten while he's sitting on the toilet by a T-Rex (okay, that was an awesome addition), and even saves the day at one point by pointing out law that doesn't exist. (No, this sudden support for the lawyer has nothing to do with the fact that I have an Esq. on the end of my name ... perish the thought)



2. Was Lex Murphy that annoying in the movie? I really don't remember that. She's super duper annoying in the book.

3. Ian Malcolm's Chaos Theory should have been cut down like in the movie. There are a number of times he's going off about it and you're literally thinking, aren't there dinosaurs around the corner about to eat them? Does anyone care about any theory at this time besides the theory of escaping dinosaurs? Still a great character, just weird timing of his rants about corporations and such, which I'm not disagreeing with.


(literally the only image you're allowed to use when referring to Ian Malcolm)

4. So this book was published in 1990 and this book had maybe a total of 15 to 20 people at risk, not counting the rest of the world that could potentially be at risk by dinosaurs escaping. We're talking people you're honestly worried about dying or not throughout the book.

Jump to 2015, Jurassic World, and we've got an entire park open with thousands and thousands of people at risk. Does that say something about how our society's penchant for destruction?

5. But seriously, back to Malcolm, Chaos Theory essentially comes down to - because dinosaurs are an unknown, and much like the weather - unpredictable - you're all screwed and nothing will work right. And then Malcolm gloats. Even while dinosaurs are stalking him.

Now, the opposing argument in the book is that zoos exist so why can't dinosaurs be kept in a zoo? My problem is that if everyone gave up because there was an unknown then we'd have just about nothing. People go forward with the unknown all the time. Many fail, but that's how great success comes as well. I guess I'm saying I needed more to this theory and preferably when I can think about the theory and not when DINOSAURS ARE LITERALLY AROUND THE CORNER TRYING TO EAT YOU.

6. Jurassic Park gets lots of crap for providing false ideas as to what dinosaurs actually looked like (see raptors). While it's true, if you ignore the story, it is explained. You know that whole science part toward the beginning, well they talk about only finding partial DNA and having to graft in DNA from other animals (which actually becomes a huge problem). This would lend toward dinosaurs that don't actually look like they're supposed to and I'm fine with that explanation.

I have to say, after 25 years, Jurassic Park really held up well. Lots of the communication issues would be the same problem nowadays because of the fact that they're on a remote island that cell phones would be problematic on anyway. It helps that a book doesn't have to actually reproduce computer screens so you can picture those as high tech as you want as long as you ignore the amounts of memory they mention. At least they're in the gigabytes still.

And most of this I just point out because of how into the book I was. I really had a blast listening to Jurassic Park and I can highly recommend a reading of this classic. One of the few book/movie combinations where I can honestly say I loved both for their own reasons. Now, I need to go track down a copy of that movie. If only there were some online subscription service like Oyster for movies.

4 out of 5 Stars (highly recommended)

A technique has been developed,to clone dinosaur DNA,and bring the extinct species,back to life.And after they are cloned,something goes very wrong.I see lots and lots of glowing reviews,here.But,it didn't really appeal to me.
I remember,there was a lot of hype surrounding this movie.I watched it,in a theatre, and got very very bored.It was a lot of noise,a lot of giant creatures crashing against each other, and a lot of mindless action.It was mind numbing,but that is the recipe,for Hollywood success.
I found the
book later.I have never been a fan of Crichton's writing style,and skimmed through quite a bit of it.It wasn't as bad as the movie,but was very forgettable.I gave the book away,it didn't seem worth keeping.

It's been many years since I've watched the movie and after reading this, I feel like I would be doing myself a disservice if didn't go watch it again. Someone pointed out that the book is adult horror in nature while the film was re-imagined for a larger audience. I will have to agree with that assessment because this book was downright terrifying at times. Sure, Crichton leaves some deaths to our imagination, but the ones he does describe are filthy and disgusting.

This is a classic that will continue to spawn more films and more spinoffs because it is that good. Personally, I could have done with a lot less coverage regarding the kids. They were whiney (what kid isn't?) and made a ton of mistakes to raise the stress levels. I could have also done with less scientific ramblings from Malcolm. Crichton sure loves to cram his opinion down the readers' throats until they choke on it. Not a perfect book, but damn near perfect.

Unleash the dinosaur mania

Techno thrill me harder
This is one of Crichton's best novels, which varied widely in quality, and could be called part of the foundation of the Sci-Fi thriller, aka techno thriller, genre with mainstream media adaptions and many great, new authors following in his footsteps.

Seems fictional, but…
Until the first hybrids, most novels of this genre were pure fiction with fantasy or Sci-Fi elements and analysis and criticism of society, until the interdisciplinary approaches came and lead to today's milestones like the works of Suarez, Sakey, and others who create technothrillers that could come true. Or already are, who really knows that?

Luckily the usual Chrichton flaws are avoided in this one
In other of his works, Chrichton has the problem of and with telling too slowly, info-dumping, character development, suspense, and especially letting people talk and talk until a pretty constructed and unsatisfying end gives one a short wtf, was that really all, are there no more explanations, moment. But he was a real life physician too, so I would say that rocks the house so much that his stylistic flaws can be forgiven.

Luck with the movie version too
Spielberg's adaption took much of the atmosphere of the book and it´s one of the rare cases where both the book and the movie are fine pieces of art. And hey, dinosaurs and genetic engineering, that must be great!

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

I loved this book. The story is scary, action-packed, and kept me reading. Throughout the beginning and middle, there were a lot of similarities to the movie, but the entire last portion of the book was completely different, in a good way. Much like my opinion of Stephen King's IT and its 2017 film, I enjoyed both the book and movie here, despite having a great deal of differences between them. Despite having so many different dinosaurs and characters, I felt each had their own unique spotlight and it was all balanced very well. The best example was Dr Malcolm's constant input and taunting, using his chaos theory foundation, which was a lot of fun throughout. I also really enjoyed the in-depth information on the animal's behaviors and vivid descriptions of how they appeared, both of which really brought you into each scene. The only thing that I didn't like about this book is how long it took me to actually sit down and read it. I spent years really missing out on something great here!