Author: Michael Crichton
Published: 1995
I finally found time to read a book again! Sorry... I get really excited by little things like that.
Actually, I don't usually get excited by little things. But it is nice to have a little time to actually read for pleasure again. I've actually just been reading this on my lunch breaks for the last couple weeks. And I feel like it's taken me forever to get through this thing.
I never read this as a kid, unlike its predecessor, Jurassic Park. My reasoning? Because I saw the movie first and was supremely disappointed. And even though I know the book is generally better than the movie, I just couldn't bring myself to read this thing. Even though I bought the book so many years ago. It has sat on my bookshelf for all that time. Untouched. Unread.
I can't say it's as good as Jurassic Park. But it's much better than the movie version of The Lost World. So much of the story is different from the movie. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around all the major differences. For one thing, once they get to Isla Sorna to study the leftover dinosaurs, they pretty much stay there. Whereas in the movie, they get back to San Diego where a T-Rex goes on a rampage in the city.
The story does follow the further adventures of Ian Malcolm, who died at the end of the first book. Miraculously, he was brought back to life to become the main character this time around, stealing the spotlight from Alan Grant, who is hardly mentioned here.
Instead of checking out a possible zoo/amusement park on the island, this team of scientists is interested in studying how these prehistoric animals interact with each other in a world that is no longer tainted by man. The island's facilities had been abandoned around the time of the Jurassic Park fiasco. Therefore, the dinosaurs that had been created there had been left to fend for themselves. Malcolm and his crew wanted to study them to try to develop some new thoughts in how and why extinction takes place.
But things just never seem to go the way they're planned. Wouldn't be an adventure/disaster novel if they did.
If you read and enjoyed Jurassic Park, you'll enjoy The Lost World. Not the movie. The book. The movie sucks.
I read Jurassic Park and The Lost World when I was younger and I absolutely loved them.
ReplyDeleteI should try reading them again...