El mundo perdido

A fun and logical sequel.

A really good book. If you go into it expecting it to be like the film be surprised or disappointed by it. Ian and Sara are still my favourites. I just wish it didn’t take so long to get to to the dinosaurs and site B.

Not so disappointing, but not amazing, either.

I did like the majority of the book, though. But it really is forgettable and almost monotonous. The dinosaurs, apparently, are even more memorable compared to some of the characters.

The connection to the first book is genuinely good. I love to see more dinosaurs and more ways these dinosaurs kill. It's pretty much almost Jurassic Park with weak characters and repetitive plot.

Three stars are just merely for the dinosaurs, though.

This might turn out to be one of my favorite books of all time. I feel like there was so much to love. I don’t care if he was just cashing in on the success of the Jurassic Park movie. I’m not even mad that Malcolm’s death was retconned. What I’m mad about, is that Hollywood took a beautiful book and hacked it into pieces and tried to dazzle us with animatronic dinosaurs. Okay so I like animatronic dinosaurs too, but still- there was no need.

The plot is this: Dr. Levine suspects something happened that involved Dr. Ian Malcolm in Costa Rica six years ago. Of course, Malcolm denies it because NDAs and all that. But he says: “Get me physical proof of a dinosaur Lost World and I’ll help you on your Costa Rican dinosaur expedition.” So Levine snoops and snoops and eventually gets Malcolm the evidence he required. Dinosaur chaos ensues. Meanwhile, those bad guys over at Biosyn still want all the Dino tech for themselves, so they are in the distant background doing bad stuff.

The science: I found all Malcolm’s musings on Chaos theory and order absolutely fascinating. Crichton makes it very accessible to the reader in a way that is thought provoking but also not difficult to understand. I’m glad he was resurrected because truth be told, he’s a much more interesting character than Dr. Grant.

Sarah Harding. She’s basically Wonder Woman. I want to be Sarah Harding when I grow up. She is an example of a female heroine done right. I’m sad she was written by a man but Crichton did her justice. She’s strong. She’s brave. She knows what she wants and she goes and gets it. She is not a damsel in distress, and at NO point in this novel does she require rescuing from the men. In fact, they quite frequently needed rescuing from her. And that scene with Dodgson? Absolutely priceless. Her relationship with Kelly was perfect and I adored her for it. Kelly becomes a little Sarah Harding in her own right.

Were there as many dinosaurs in this as in Jurassic Park? No. Did I mind? No. The characters and the story of their survival took front and center here and it was fantastic. I sort of think of it like I think of Spielberg’s production/direction strategy. Less is more. A ripple in a puddle. A thump in the distance. The threat is always there, but you can’t always see it. It’s your imagination that makes the horror real.

The action scenes were all edge of your seat thrill rides. The classic trailer on the cliff scene was done much better in the book. The presence of children on the island heightened the suspense.

My only word of warning: if you liked the movie before, you’ll probably be disappointed in it by the time you’re done reading The Lost World. Read it anyway. It’s worth it.

Honestly, who doesn't enjoy a good book about dinosaurs?

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first one. The science was interesting, and based on the first book feels believable. (Bc corporations are greedy and will do sneaky shit to make money....)

I liked the characters just as much this time around, and glad that Dodgson got what he deserved. If you like the Jurassic Park movies, you will probably also enjoy these books.

Not even close to as amazing as the first book, but this still has some great dino moments and absolutely fascinating ideas.

WARNING: This review contains unhidden spoilers for Jurassic Park.

The sequel is a little slow to get into. It's been six years since the events of the first book, but it's all been covered up and the people involved deny having been a part of anything. Hammond has stayed dead (unlike Malcolm) so we need a new reason to head back into dino territory and that reason comes in the form of a curious scientist, Levine, who strikes up a bizarre friendship with Malcolm based on the theoretical idea of a 'lost world' - an isolated location where animals previously considered extinct may have actually survived.

Thing is, this is the theory that starts us off, but it's a pretty flawed theory because these animals didn't survive - they're a product of Hammond's greed, which was so beautifully destructive in the first book. Obviously we already know there's going to be living dinosaurs, and as soon as they mention 'Site B' you can pretty much rule out natural occurrence. So why bother with Levine's ridiculous theory in the first place?

The science is this book both fascinated and frustrated me. There's so much of it, and honestly I loved how crazy the theories were but I'm pretty sure if you actually knew a bit about science and examined this you'd pick out a lot of flaws. But, since this book is smarter than me, I kinda just went with it and appreciated learning all these new things about biology, evolution, extinction, chaos, etc. But it comes thick and fast and this book is far more interested in examining theories of dinosaur behaviour and extinction than bringing the thrills and chills that the first book delivered so brilliantly. Malcolm has a ton of info dumps and it's hard to keep up, meaning the pace really drags at times. I was never bored though? I was really interested in all the behaviour discussions, but as for proteins and chemicals it kinda just whooshed on over my head. It was fun to try and comprehend it, though, and act like I was smart.

The dinosaurs that we meet are familiar faces, but they seem far less antagonistic in this one, and everything is 'fascinating, unusual behaviour' rather than 'HOLY JEEZUZ THE DINOS ARE GONNA EAT US.' Which made me sad, because I am a twisted person who enjoys reading about fictional people suffering gruesome deaths at the hands of dinosaurs and other savage creatures. It doesn't really amp up until about 3/4 of the way through, but at least the ending is action-packed! I probably would have enjoyed less raptors because they did all the menacing of the first book so I was ready for something different. Also just would have been nice to have new dinos to learn about. But hey, who can really complain about those savage velociraptor claws?

The characters blended together a little bit again, but you could also kinda guess who was going to end up as dino-chow. The kids were less annoying, but Arby was like a washed out copy of Tim from the first novel, so he and Kelly didn't really bring much to the table. Also they seemed a bit unbelievable for a couple of 13yr olds. I liked Sarah, and I liked that she was gung-ho, but I did think it was a bit much at times? (She was far more annoying in the movie, though. Book Sarah I can actually stand. Movie Sarah needed to be trampled by triceratops or ravaged by raptors.) Malcolm had so much sass in the first book but he's relegated to snarky scientist in this one so it takes out a bit of the fun. I do still love him as a character though. I like that he's so cynical.

I love the setting, and this idea that there's these dinosaurs living on their own private island roaming free. The whole 'studying extinction' side of things was a bit of a mess, but meh. I wasn't particularly invested in their research, anyway. I just wanted plenty of interactions.

Crichton writes the interactions and encounters wonderfully - he has a gift at creating suspense and formulating a fantastic visual to accompany the story. There was some great tension throughout.

It doesn't quite live up to the first book, but there's still some fascinating ideas and suspenseful moments. This book has solidified my love of Crichton's work, so I'll be working my way through his books in the future.

Michael Crichton always gives good science and when you add in dinosaurs, it should be great.

But it's not. It's a slow burner, no action for the first 200 pages, just lots of science. However, I like the way he educates the reader and tries to add a story in there. For instance, I now know why human babies are totally helpless for the first couple of years of their lives, whereas some baby animals can walk a few minutes after birth - you'll have to read the book to find out why.

It's very obvious that he is full of great ideas, but this plot is paper thin and the characters are all one dimensional. His experts are geniuses with little or no backstory, family or kids. His token woman is a tough naturalist, with little or no backstory, family or kids; and his two child heroes, are geniuses who cope astonishingly well, when their lives are under threat from man eating dinosaurs.

This is either a screenplay adapted into a novel, or a novel that was written with a view to the screen adaptation.

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"All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don't you take it away from yourself."

The best thing about The Lost World is the crispy sequel it provides to the Jurassic Park duology. The book is set a couple of years after the first one and although there is only character from the original book (Ian Malcolm), it still uses a pretty number of characters to make it beautiful. I did find the story lacking a little in the characterization. I mean, personally to me, the characters just didn't feel sympathizing enough. I liked Malcolm, of course but that's only because I knew him from before. Sarah was also great but somehow it felt as if she was simply "indestructible". I mean, the girl fell down from the boat in the middle of the ocean and still survived, and we have no idea how she did it!

As for the other characters, for the most part I felt that the kids were just added to raise the stakes, or to give a nice throwback to the original book. Dr. Thorne and his Eddie Carr seemed decent enough. And yet, if any of them had actually been eaten by the dinosaurs, I wouldn't have cared. I simply could not care enough about these people and the only reason why my rating is so high is that I rather liked the narrative style of the book and the concept.

The concept behind the story, in fact, was the reason why I even read it. When Malcolm explained the importance of Site B, it occurred to me why hadn't I thought of it before. It made total sense. And then, when we finally visited Site B, everything did make sense. Oh, except Levine, maybe. I was so annoyed by the guy, I wanted him half dead by the end of it. *facepalm*

On the other hand, I think it was also a little repetitive of the first book since there were many things that Levine observed that we had already observed. Of course, some things were different, some dinosaurs were newly introduced, some aspects were astonishing. All of that made it a wonderful read.

Now I have heard from a couple of readers how this book surprised them because of the Malcolm's "resurrection." But here is the thing: I doubt I'd call any of it resurrection, per se. I mean, in the previous book, Muldoon did suggest that the man was gone but we must always remember how this one started. It explained completely how the man had actually been thought dead. He could barely make it. But he did make it, didn't he? And that's what matters. We didn't quite see his death. Instead, what we heard here is how he spent months and months in Costa Rican hospitals. I believe that about makes up for it.

And yet, the best about the book was its attempt at creating strong females. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Dr. Sattler from the previous book wasn't strong enough. She was. A lot more than Sarah Harding could ever be, I believe. But there was a difference there. Sattler, when she went into the field to save her friends, did that without being someone from the field. She barely ever dealt with huge wild animals (she was a botanist, I think?) and that's where her strength was. She seemed like a homely woman who had just taken a vicious turn to protect everyone. Sarah Harding, on the other hand, was a woman who stayed out in the fields for more than half her time. She was the independent woman that the world broadcasts about today, not because she stayed out but because she dared to do something different. Add to that the things she told Kelly about being a self-dependent woman and you literally find the woman every female wants to be today. For a novel from 1995, I'd say that was a rather nice shot; that I literally fell in love with.