The Lost World

It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since that extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end - the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public.

There are rumors that something has survived.

So, this book is pretty good.  It was written by Michael Crichton as a sequel to his popular novel Jurassic Park due to pressure from Steven Spielberg and from fans of the original book. So in all honesty, this book was originally never going to exist. Just goes to show what we, as fans, can do (although the push from Spielberg helped as well).


The storyline is a bit different from the movie, so if you have seen that, you may want to temporarily forget it while you read this (and the book).

In The Lost World, like the movie, there is a second island. However, the reasoning for going to the second island is different from the movie. Not only that, but some of the characters are only in the book and vice versa. Although the book came first, I saw the movie before reading the book. When I finally got to the book, I was expecting to read the story from the movie. If you, like me, expect this, you will be disappointed.


That being said, the story is still really good. Ian Malcolm (the crazy chaotician from the first book/movie) is the main character in this book. He is sent to the island on a rescue mission to find a rival scientist. This differs from the movie in that in the movie, he was going after his girlfriend. The entire book is like this, with the movie being similar, but entirely different. In fact, only one scene from the entire book was actually used in the movie, so even if you have seen the movie, reading the book will give you an entirely different story.

Final Desicion?
4.5 Stars for Michael Crichton's The Lost World

So while Hollywood's interpretation of the book is vastly different, the story really doesn't suffer. If you like Michael Crichton, dinosaurs, or good page-turners, I suggest you take a look at this. And if you have seen the movie, but not read the book, I suggest you read it even more, so you can get an idea of the original work that the movie was 'based' on. And to Michael Crichton, R.I.P., you will be missed.

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