The Lost World (Mass Market Paperback)

2.)It is, however, a lousy sequel to "Jurassic Park"; for one thing, it does not follow the obvious plotline Crichton set out at the end of "Jurassic Park" (the dinosaurs escaping to the jungle) for the planned sequel. For another, contrary to what Crichton claims at the beginning of this book, which claim is defended by his obsequious fans among the reviewers, Ian Malcolm was quite thoroughly dead at the end of "Jurassic Park", sufficiently much so that it rated a comment which I quote: "They (the Costa Rican government) did not even permit the burial of Hammond or Ian Malcolm." If the story had been told in the first person, and this comment had come from the mouth of a fallible character, Crichton's claim in "Lost World" that rumors of Malcolm's death had been erroneous would have been plausible. But the story was told in the third person, omniscient narrator style; that quote came from the mouth of the author, and can not, therefore, be set aside so easily. Yet here in "The Lost World", that is exactly what Crichton tries to do: he claims that rumors of Malcolm's death were greatly exaggerated.

3.) Why does he do this? It's pretty obvious, actually, and I'm astounded that none of the other 400+ reviewers here seem to have figured it out. It has nothing to do with needing to bring him back to make the book match the movie sequel; nothing else in the book matched the movie, so what makes anyone think that Crichton or the producers would care if that detail was different? No, it has to do with the fact that if Malcolm isn't available, Crichton doesn't have anyone handy to spout chaos theory, and he neither wants to leave out his pet psuedoscience, nor create a brand-new chaotician character to act as his mouthpiece. Understandable, but not really forgivable; if he needed to keep Malcolm alive for the sequel, he shouldn't have killed him off in the first place. Very careless.

4.) One of the weakest points in the plot is the fact that I find it extremely implausible that Malcolm would even CONSIDER going anywhere near the island once the suggestion was made that there might, again, be dinosaurs on it. After what he'd been through in "Jurassic Park", and given what we know of his character, it seems highly out of character for him to so readily join the expedition. There should at least have been serious soul-searching, or a more pressing reason for him to go. As it was, he seemed almost eager: 'Oh, the dinosaurs may not all be dead after all? Well, in that case count me in!' Just not at all in character, but then again, see comment #3; Crichton needed him to be there, so he was there. Never mind what the character would really do.

5.) There is almost NOTHING in common between the novel, "Lost World", and the movie, "The Lost World". There are two characters in common, plus one character in the movie who is sort of a pastiche of two of the characters in the book (Thorne and Eddie are sort of combined into one), and I think there was one scene that was similar; I don't remember the movie well enough to be certain. But seriously, that's IT. I've never seen a movie have less in common with the book it's named after (I won't even say 'based on', 'cause it really WASN'T!).

All in all, a tolerably good action-adventure novel, but don't expect it to follow logically from "Jurassic Park", or to bear any resemblance to the movie version.

Crichton sure is capable of writing an exciting tale. I wish he'd do it more often. Lost World has many exciting sequences as various dinosaurs (mostly Tyrannosaurus and Raptors) chase the humans all around the island. The action is breathtaking as, just when you think the humans have solved their problem (or at least are on the road to solving it), things take a turn for the worse. I am not one for hyperbole, but throughout the middle of the book, I couldn't put it down. I stayed up much later than I should, and only turned out the light because it was getting too late and I still had too far to go.

This really isn't much more than an action yarn with some scientific ideas attached to it, though, so don't get the idea that it's really deep. In fact, the scientific ideas are one of the problems with the book. I'm not saying they're not accurate, as I don't know enough about them to make that judgment. However, there are times where Crichton just stops the action dead to go on for a page or two about chaos theory, evolution, or something. These are interesting, but they completely destroy the mood of the book. It's almost like mixing chocolate and shrimp: sure, some people may like it, but for the rest of us who like both but hate them together, it makes the finished product just a little less palatable. Thankfully, the asides don't come at you too much at one time, so once each one stops the ball starts rolling again.

Being an action thriller, the characters aren't that complex. They seem like it at times (such as when they're spouting scientific theories), but they aren't really. Malcolm is scarred by the events in the first book, and there's an interesting sequence where this comes into play. Thankfully for himself and for the others, he snaps out of it fairly quickly. I liked his character, though, because he's a combination of a realist and a cynic. However, he uses his scientific knowledge and his intelligence to get them out of more than one scrape. He's probably the most broadly defined of the bunch. The other members of the expedition have their character hooks too, but they aren't that deeply explored. Crichton spends a lot of time detailing their background, but when events start happening, they're more fodder for these events than anything else. They are distinctive, they just aren't complex.

The villains of the piece, though, are pretty dull and stereotypical. Dodgson is your typical greedy and lazy villain. His specialty is stealing other people's research after it's been tested, because that's easier and more lucrative than doing your own research and possibly going down numerous blind alleys. His allies are the typical nervous bunch, with one person worried that they're doing the wrong thing and the other one worried that they're doing the right thing but that it will go horribly wrong (which it inevitably does). Thankfully, once they get events rolling to their inevitable conclusion, they're pretty much sidelined and we don't hear much about them again until the end.

The plot is kind of a runaround, but I really enjoyed it despite that. There are definitely predictable events in it, such as when a character does something and you know immediately what the consequences of that action are going to be, long before any of the characters do. That does mar things a little bit. But it's easy to look past them because Crichton writes the action so effectively. When characters aren't spouting scientific stuff, I almost held my breath as events happened. Especially effective is the trailer scene, where Malcolm and Sarah have to figure out how to get safely out of a trailer that's being pushed, prodded and smashed by two enraged Tyrannosaurs. It's hard to tell what's going to happen there, or who will survive this sequence. Nobody (with the possible exception of Malcolm) is safe in this book, so there is a lot of tension. I will say that not everybody dies, but there certainly is doubt when certain people are in danger.

I wish Crichton would write more like these. To me, he seems at his best when he's writing scientific action thrillers. I wish there were a way that he could limit the scientific asides, though, as they really slow things down. I don't mind the asides themselves, but I think they could be included better. Still, this is one book that you won't be able to put down. And it has dinosaurs eating people. What could be wrong with that?