A relentless romp through a Costa Rican island inhabited by unpredictable prehistoric creatures? Why not!
Quite a few leaps of faith are required for the science and nature elements of this story but if you can leave what you know (or think you know) at the door then you’ll enjoy this, quite frankly, remarkable book.
The film was amazing, and the adaptation of the book is first class. There are elements of the book which they left for the sequel and occasionally funny imagery was left out (T Rex asleep leaning up against a tree isn’t going to scare anyone!)
There are more dinos in the book and the poison shooting dilophosaurus gets a bit more attention. The T Rex attack starts the ball truly rolling though and it does not stop. Until it does. You breathe a sigh of relief, then velociraptors. They wait patiently until the T Rex is finished then use their superior intellect and super jumping power to completely ruin everything.
Dr Grant uses his knowledge to get rid of some but there are many, many more.
If you want to learn a bit about Chaos Theory, Ian Malcolm is on hand to sort of explain why the park will fail (he predicts the failure by theorising you can’t predict anything).
Having seen the film about a million times I can safely say it will not ruin the book. There are enough differences in the plot, most notable is Gennaro who is nothing like the simpering wimp of the film and Hammond who was portrayed as a cuddly grandpa by Spielberg but who Crichton depicts as a megalomaniac drunk on his own power.
To be clear, Jurassic Park is first class trash fiction. It won’t expand your brain too much but you’ll love every page.
Charlotte Wood is a feminist and writer of the macabre and sinister. She reads horror, fantasy, classic literature and historical fiction (with a preference for history from a woman’s perspective).