Jurassic Park

Enjoying the story so far. My only complaint is that some parts of the book have the words a bit washed away…

Un buen libro a mi hijo le encanta.

Thoroughly enjoyed the book, so well written and full of suspense! Great story! And seeing the movie is a must do.

Kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Would recommend to anyone who loves action and thrill

Came in excellent condition! Just as pictured in the photo. Love that new book smell. Happy to finally start reading after loving this franchise for years!

If you loved the movie, the book will blow your mind. The depth of the story, the character development, and the extra details left out of the film make it an even more gripping experience. Michael Crichton’s writing style pulls you right in, and it’s hard to put down once you start. Highly recommend for fans of science fiction, thrillers, or dinosaurs!

Great book. Throughly enjoyed this read, I’ve loved the movie since I was young. The audiobook was amazing as well!

I’m sure the information about the different species of dinosaurs was true. The story kept me reading hoping everyone would get off the island safely but that didn’t happen.The ending left the story open for another book about the migrating dinosaurs.

Even 35 years later the science feels compelling and the story is tight and fun. The plot flows effortlessly through the action. Great read.

It was a fun Read. Felt like the plot was the same but the adventure was much different then the movie.

I received this item on May 15, 2025. This version of the school and library binding features a cover that is white, with a black T-rex skeleton, and dark red letters. I was expecting the red cover seen in a previous buyer's review, but this one is good too. The book was shipped loose in a padded envelope, so it came slightly dented. The true dimensions of the book are 1.25" x 4.37" x 7.75".

Easily the best book I have read this year. Maybe even one of the best books I've ever read. Even if you have seen the movie the book is worth a read.

Loved the movie, the book is even better! A great read, I really enjoyed the whole thing. No sequel though.

Google says that 97% of people like this book. I am part of the 97% on Google. This book is so far my number one favorite book of all time. It is way better than the movie and I wish this was the movie. But if the movie was exactly like the book it would be four hours long and rated R. I loved it so much. There were parts where it was boring when he talked about science and math but I pushed through and the last eighty pages are a five-star rollercoaster. The book tells us why things happen unlike the movie. There is a lot of cussing but if you ignore that this should be considered one of the best books of all time. It’s already one of the best movies. The characters are mostly the same but characters like Doctor Harding, Doctor Wu and Muldoon play an even bigger role in the novel.

Michael Crichton was a master of hard science fiction. As I was a!already familiar with Spielberg's adaptation I decided to have a look at the source material. It is a gripping read with loads of dinosaur action that is presented in a realistic fashion. If dinosaurs had survived the KT extinction event this might be how they would behave. In general terms the novel has been well-a adapted to find though there are some differences, I found it fun to look for these minor variants it did not spoil either novel or film.

I’ve seen the movie at least a hundred times but never read the book cause I thought it would be the same story, boy was I wrong… the characters for the most part are way more interesting than the movie made them. My biggest surprise was Ian Malcom actually being likable in the book and is portrayed as a way smarter person than the movies lead you to believe he’s also not as annoying instead they made lex extremely annoying. They also described lex and tim as complete opposites of what was shown in the movie. Lex is supposed to be a short tomboy who loves baseball, the movie made her into a hacker who doesn’t know much outside of computers. As for tim he’s actually the computer guy and is taller than lex. The lawyer Genaro is a completely different person in the book, he’s described as a short muscular family man a complete contrast to the blood sucking lawyer portrayed in the film lol. There’s also a few other twist that are completely different from the movie that I really wasn’t expecting. I won’t spoil it but it sorta makes the sequels to the movie not make much sense. It starts off a little slow but once it’s gets to the good parts it’s hard to put it down. The way the dinosaurs are described is pretty scary, especially the raptors. I knew they were smart from the movies, but the way they were depicted in the book made them seem far more terrifying. If you’ve seen the movies but haven’t read the book, I recommend you do it’s almost like a whole new movie yet very familiar.

WARNING! Cliffhanger! This rated about a 4/5 on my trauma scale, because while it’s a good place to leave off, the ending really has you wondering.Scientists have done it, they’ve managed to clone dinosaurs from the Jurassic Era, and with the backing of some important people, John Hammond has managed to create his own park full of them.When concerns are raised, Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ian Malcolm are brought in to assess the situation, only they find way more than they bargained for.Ok this gets a 4/5 stars for two reasons: 1. The beginning. It started off quite slowly, introduced a lot of people and places, and was not nearly as gripping as when they finally reached the island because of it. I will say, however, that parts of the beginning are actually quite creepy, which made it interesting in between the introductions, but those first one hundred pages or so were less evenly paced than the rest. 2. The cliffhanger ending. Somehow I thought it’d actually have an ending, but it didn’t, so you’ll want to have the Lost World lined up.Now, this is actually quite different from the film. Hammond is a far more detestable figure, the kids are reversed in age, and a few characters are far more/less important than they were in the movie.That being said, the book’s pace picks up the minute they reach the island, and suddenly there is action- and a whole lot more adventures than were in the movie.It’s a gripping tale of scientific conceit, and the sheer ego that one man has (actually, more than one) in the belief that they can control nature.Ian Malcolm, was definitely the mouthpiece of the book, with numerous keeper quotes about the audacity of the scientists, while Alan Grant was the physical hero of the piece.Hammond, is the villain, and obnoxiously so; while the little girl Lexie, is the most frustrating and annoying character in the book (I was definitely wanting the T-Rex to eat her at times). I kind of liked the dinosaurs though!Apart from some strong language (understandably), and of course the situations, this is a book that will appeal to those who love a scientific thriller; I’d put it in the PG13 and advanced reader category if you’re wondering if it’s good for kids.A gripping thriller, that has withstood the tests of time quite well, and is a fascinating read for fans of the films.

The first time I read this book was somewhere around 1993-1995, when I was a teenager and well before I had taken any biochemistry or genetics classes. That was a very long time ago, and my memory of this book was probably warped by seeing the movie quite a few times in the years in between.Reading it through for the second time, as an adult, I find this book immensely fun, but there are some problems.The dinosaurs are genetically engineered to need L-lysine, so that if they leave the island, they won’t die. For them, it is an essential amino acid, so it is added to their foods. Guess who also must consume L-lysine because we can’t make it ourselves! That’s right, humans. All essential amino acids are readily available in meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. Lysine is available in soy, black beans, quinoa, and pumpkin seeds, and chances are many more plants available to dinosaurs that made it off island. But, for the meat eaters, all meat has lysine in it… so I’m not really sure why this was ever thought to be a “good idea”. Michael Crichton with his medical school background surely must have known that lysine was an essential amino acid for humans, and while difficult, it isn’t top of the list for vegans to supplement like Vitamin B12.How DNA is talked about…. as a piece of DNA. Presumably, dinosaur genomes comprised a certain number of chromosomes, each species may have had different numbers, such as humans have 46, chimpanzees have 48, it is mostly the same stuff but split up on the different chromosomes. In order to “make a dinosaur”, or anything from a starting genome, you must have a way for that genetic material to replicate once you inject a genome into an egg that has had the original genetic material blasted out. You can’t just put in one long piece of DNA, you need sites to initiate chromosome replication, you need centrosomes and telomeres. A lot of times, these are very similar on different chromosomes, and assembling a whole genome takes a lot more effort than what was described here.Ugh... the thriller trope with a very young, attractive female scientist (24?) who is an expert in her field, while the male scientists are all mid to late 30s or 40s. And… she is given absolutely nothing to do. She is the only adult woman for almost the entire book (there are some adult women at the beginning). I know this was written at a different time, but geez this could have been better.“When you compared the DNA of man to the DNA of a lowly bacterium, you found that only about 10 percent of the strands were different.” Um nope. This isn’t true now, this wasn’t true in 1990 when this book was published, this has never been true. Some genes overlap, some DNA bounces back and forth between human (or animals) and bacteria, but the genetic material is VERY DIFFERENT in prokaryotes versus eukaryotes. Humans have close to 50% genes in common with a banana, last common ancestor 2 Billion years ago. Humans share around 80% of DNA with fish (last common ancestor 375 Million years ago), and humans share 98% DNA with chimpanzees (last common ancestor ). So… this 10 percent “different strands” is way out there, even if we were living in a world where dinosaur DNA could be obtained and then used to make some dinos. (This stuff erks me, just like typos in books.)All the computer charts and navigating menus… which makes up a big part of the book and hasn’t aged well. Velociraptors are attacking and a kid is trying to figure out what buttons to push to turn on the electric fences. I know this was supposed to be riveting climactic stuff, but pushing buttons on a computer just doesn’t get me on the edge of my seat these days.Anyway, I’ve decided to rate it 5 stars, because I read this during the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when I was feeling very nervous about an upcoming surgery, so I needed some escapism and this was a great book for that.

I read this years ago and loved it.  Helluva page turner.  So when my boss/client told me to pick a popular writer of thriller-type novels, and study one of them to get the tone he wants for his novel, I chose JP because I was familiar with it, not just from having read it but from multiple viewings of the film which I love.  A familiar work would allow me to study the structure without losing myself in the story.  I thought.  Turns out I was dead wrong about that.  I got caught up immediately.Because I was interested in how it worked as narrated as well as how it read, I purchased the Audible version of it at a discount, and moved back and forth between it and the ebook.  (By the way, it's nice that at least some Kindles will play the audio right along with the ebook.  Audio broadens my understanding of a work, and listening while reading, though it slows down the latter dramatically, even though I normally listen at 1.5x the normal speed, is a highly immersive way of approaching the text.But what about the book???  Yes, okay I'm getting to that.  The book.  Well... It still counts as a page-turner, no question.  I got caught up in the narrative so often that I found I had to consciously slow down and look for the things I wanted to study.  Crichton could tell a story!  And in that respect, he's like Tolkien, a damn fine storyteller, but kind of a crap writer.Yeah, I'm sorry if there are Crichton fans out there foaming at the mouth, but the drawbacks of his writing are so clear, and in some cases so dire, that I couldn't  overlook them.  The most egregious problems are his characters.  None of them have real internal lives.  Crichton gives lip service to family, exes, jobs and the like, but they're not terribly developed.  But this is a thriller, you say, they don't have to be.  And I would agree up to a point.  But consider:John Hammond is a joke.  He's an uber rich guy who exists for two reasons: First to pay for and supervise the development of the park, and second, to be annoyed when people tell him the park isn't going to work.  He's so obtuse that when Ian Malcolm explains things to him, his consistent response is to ask the rest of the people in the room what Malcolm is talking about.  There's nothing about him that isn't cardboard, and even the cardboard doesn't ring true.Ian Malcolm, or as I like to call him Information Dump Malcolm, exists to explain things.  From the get go, all he ever does is lecture.  He doesn't have conversations, he doesn't connect with anyone.  He's like an AI.  Say: "Chaos Theory," and off he goes, explaining it.  Say: "Look, real dinosaurs," and you get pages of explanation about what's wrong with science today. After a while I just skimmed over his dialogue. The kids:  Two of the most utterly pointless, useless characters ever penned.  Lex is so annoying that I kept hoping the T-Rex would gobble her up like an hors d'oeuvre.  She never shuts up, never does what she's told, screams, whines, and makes endless noise when everyone is telling her to be quiet or the dinosaurs will eat them.  She's an insufferable know-it-all, who knows virtually nothing about anything, and doesn't really want to know anything.  All she wants to do is play "pickle" and whine about how none of this is fun and she's hungry.  The only time she's bearable is when she's unconscious.  Tim is a virtual non-entity, but at least he's an improvement over his sister.Everybody else: Almost totally interchangeable except for their area of expertise.I don't really feel like I'm being harsh here either.  I'm willing to give props for a compelling story told in such a break-neck fashion that had I not been paying close attention to the text, I might never have caught these problems. Or at least they might not have gotten up my nose so completely.  What you have is a decent thriller with a great plot and a damn good hook: cloning dinosaurs.  It was timely then and it still is, it plays to our fears and our desires, and Crichton knows how to manipulate both.I think I'm pretty much finished with this book now, I doubt I'll ever need to read it again unless I want to remind myself of the spare, efficient style of it.  Crichton proved to me that the advice about dialogue -- use "said;" the eye skips right over it -- is completely true.  His work is an education for any writer, but particularly those who are going to write fast-paced stories.  He tells a great story, and that's really the bottom line.

Before I say anything about the book, I need to say Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World, are probably two of my all time favorite movies so I can’t really help but compare the books to the movies. I’ve probably watched those a thousand times. The movie were perfection and set the bar high; I never read the book because I was afraid it would suck and then how would I view the movie? Alternatively, what if the book was better and then the movie suddenly sucked? The third movie was a total disappointment. It would be a long time before I figured out the third movie had no book to support it, and I would then attribute the bad plotline to the fact that the story had been nothing more than box office fan fiction. Now with advertisements for a fourth Jurassic Park, and a second fan fiction, I found myself once again intrigued and captivated by test-tube dinosaurs… And hoping the 4th is a better fiction than the 3rd considering it too is inspired by its predecessors and not actually based on a pre-written plotline. So I worked up the courage and opened the book.A short summary probably isn’t necessary with the story’s fame, but just in case, here goes. Eccentric billionaire John Hammond is the founder of a biotechnology company, InGen. He’s working on a top-secret project: A state of the art genetics lab with a resort on a privately owned island off Costa Rica where the main attractions are genetically engineered dinosaurs. But after locals begin complaining of strange animal attacks, Hammond’s investors want the project investigated for safety reasons. Enter paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, mathematician Ian Malcolm, and lawyer Donald Gennaro; it’s their job to assess the park’s value and safety measures. Also meet John Hammond’s grandkids, Alexis and Tim who’re just here for the tour. Unfortunately, they’re all arriving in time to witness what happens when a disgruntled employee takes revenge on a dinosaur zoo. Chaos ensues.I’ve never been more relieved by a book’s excellence! Of course, the book was very different from the movie in some ways. John Hammond isn’t a jolly Santa-like Dino-nut who wants to bring adventure to the world’s children; oh no, he’s just an overambitious money-grubbing douche-bag who won’t listen to reason. And Alan Grant? He loves kids. (That was actually harder to get used to!) And if you’ve seen the movies and know that the velociraptors are supposed to be the villains of the story; they are but the T-Rex is almost as bad. Maybe he can’t see you moving, but he’s going to track you like a bloodhound.I actually didn’t mind the differences. It was like having two people look out the same window and having them each describe their first impression. Nobody ever views the world exactly the same way as the person next to them, even when they’re looking at the same thing. So going from the movie to the book was like experiencing the story through someone else’s eyes. It was just as beautiful as before, just different. I loved ‘seeing’ the paddocks teaming with strange animals for the very first time; hearing about the sounds they could have produced, feeling character reactions. The banter between long-winded Ian Malcolm and the employees were fascinating even as Grant stood by, being both a main character and oddly quiet observer.My only complaint with the plot had to do with Arnold finding the products of Dennis’s sabotage. Something about “the security system is down.” Basically, security is security; it’s not an either or kind of thing. How can a company so genius it can use DNA to raise the dead forget to think about two separate security systems? Or rather why would human security and animal security be tied so disastrously together? It seems you would have to worry about locking down the humans at a resort in the event of an animal escape. It would also seem in the event of a natural disaster you’d want those fences on a different system, on a back up generator, to protect guests… Or am I forgetting the year this story was written; maybe with tech at our fingertips I’m forgetting how limited it once was. And I’m not saying the fictional-theoretical security system couldn’t still have been sabotaged, I’m just saying regardless of human interference, one system to control both inhabitants of the island seems rather short sighted…The book was a fun adventure with just enough science talk to make the story plausible. The movie version may have changed some things around, it still managed to keep the integrity of the book. Although, the two endings were very different… So different it made me think about The Lost World and of course now I’m reading that.