Customer Reviews

The Lost World (Large Print)

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When it first came out almost two decades ago, "Jurassic Park" (the movie) was a huge sensation. Steven Spielberg marshaled Hollywood's technical wizardry in order to create the closest that we'll ever be to seeing the actual dinosaurs. Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel by the same name was revolutionary in many respects. However, the distinction of creating and popularizing the "modern man meets dinosaur" sci-fi subgenre belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Almost a century ago he wrote "The Lost World," and imaginative and suspenseful novel that tracks an expedition of European scientists, journalists, and adventurers deep inside the South American jungles where they explore a hitherto undiscovered plateau that seems to have been cut-off from the rest of the world for millions of years, and where some dreadful prehistoric creatures still roam.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for creating Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous literary characters of all time. Sherlock Holmes was based on an actual person, a university professor that Doyle knew, and was characterized by cold, calculating and brilliant abilities of deduction. "The Lost World" has seen the introduction of Professor Challenger, a character that Doyle used for a few more of his subsequent works. Challenger is no less brilliant than Sherlock Holmes, but in every other psychological (and physical) trait is the exact opposite of the famous sleuth. Where Holmes is cold and aloof, Challenger is passionate and physically confrontational. In terms of appearance, Challenger is stocky and exceptionally strong, and sports a long black beard. Challenger continues Doyle tradition of strong-minded characters that use wit and ingenuity to solve even the problems where the brute force may seem to rule the day. Personally I found the scenes of disputes between scientists and academic particularly amusing: it seems that very little has changed in the last hundred years.

The creatures in this story are a bit of a jumble of dinosaurs and some more recently extinct plants and animals. A few scenes in the book are worthy of any action movie, and have been well orchestrated. In today's terms it is quite unrealistic to believe that over millions of years certain species have persisted (and others had joined them), but if you can suspend disbelief on this point then you will certainly enjoy this book.

Doyle is a masterful storyteller, and aside from a few linguistic and historical peculiarities that reveal its age, "The Lost World" could easily go head-to-head with anything that Michael Crichton or some other modern sci-fi/thriller writer could come up.