Jurassic Park Book Review

As a huge fan of Spielberg's dinosaur-packed movie, I decided to seek out the novel that sparked the Jurassic Park fire. The book is a sci-fi thriller written by Michael Crichton in 1990. Let's dive in and take a look.

The main plot is very intriguing. A billionaire, John Hammond creates a theme park which hosts biologically recreated dinosaurs. The story picks up when Hammond invites a team of experts to investigate the park and make sure it's safe.

On the team is Dr. Grant the paleontologist, his assistant Ellie Satler, Ian Malcolm the chaos theorist, and a lawyer, Donal Gennaro. Also, Hammond invites his obnoxious grandchildren, Lex and Tim Murphy. They quickly discover that the island isn't as safe as it seems -- the dinosaurs break free and the humans are tossed into desperate struggle to survive.

Jurassic Park was written in a very detailed, scientific way. Michael Crichton was clearly dedicated to creating a realistic situation. He offers many scientific explanations that actually sounded plausible at the time like extracting DNA to create the cloned dinosaurs. Still, Crichton's technical jargon feels dated now. It's hard to take the book seriously when its idea of "cutting edge" technology is a main frame computer that runs on a couple gigabytes, the storage space of an iPod Shuffle.

The computers are the dinosaurs that steal the show.

Another aspect of the book that didn't appeal to me was the characters. Unlike in the movie where Jeff Goldblum's charisma shines, the book's cast feels stiff. Dr. Grant, for instance is the definition of a bland character. He has nothing witty to say, no character intrigue, just a paleontologist who seems fairly interested in the park.
     
In honesty, the only character who felt fleshed out in the whole book was John Hammond. This man is technically a villain filled with greed (and a complete disregard for safety) but we also feel sympathy for him -- we can relate to his dream of bringing dinosaurs back to life.

While Jurassic Park is sub-par with its characters, it does succeed in the action department. There are many thrilling adventures in the book didn't make their way to the film like the escape from a T-Rex on a river raft or the Pteradon Hatchery scene. Crichton has a knack for describing dinosaur violence and gore, too. The dilophosaurus' slaughter of Dennis Nedry is written in rich, gruesome detail. We see that the author has a much firmer grasp of action than character development.

Conclusion:

Jurassic Park has a fascinating premise and exciting action scenes but it lacks warmth or heart to its characters. John Hammond may be deep but the other characters are too shallow. Also, the overly-scientific prose seems dated. Still, this is a fairly enjoyable read that I would recommend to fans of the movie or fans of dinosaurs in general.

Score:
2.5/5 Fairly Good