It took me a while, but I finally finished the Jurassic Park novel by Michael Crichton. Here’s my first take on it:

I love it. Totally recommend. It’s been years since I watched the Spielberg movies, but they definitely feel like two different works. To say nothing of Jurassic World (lol). As I’ve said before elsewhere: the movies make you want to have your own dinosaur park; the book? Hell no!

The novel’s dinosaurs are so much more terrifying than the ones in the movies. In some ways, they’re like aliens: they’re not just reptiles, for they take on traits of amphibians and birds. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs in the movies are basically reptilian wild beasts. Like tigers or wolves, but with scales and much bigger.

You can argue which one is scientifically accurate, but that would be missing the point. The book delivers its message better because the dinosaurs are presented in such a way where you never want to see one ever again. This is not the case with the movies. When you have Jurassic Park games in the vein of Zoo Tycoon, you just got to wonder how the author (Rest in Peace) would react to them. Reminds me of people who tattooed themselves with an image of Tolkien’s ‘One Ring’ (bruh).

Moving on… one issue I have is that there are tons of characters in the book. And with all the actions going about all at the same time, I find it hard at times to distinguish certain characters.

That being said, there are some highlights. I love how they made John Hammond such a villain; Crichton pulled no punches there. Meanwhile, Ian Malcolm is basically the author’s mouthpiece. And I’m okay with that.

Basically, if you want to read this book: take everything you know about the movie, then throw it all away.

Now let’s wrap this up. The book ended on a cliffhanger. I won’t say anything more because I don’t want to spoil things. I’m curious how things are things are going to go with The Lost World considering the plot differences between the book and the movie.