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Some random thoughts about "Lost World": Jan 12, 2001 (15 of 17 found this helpful)
1.) This is an okay book, neither as good as it's fans claim, nor as bad as its detractors say.
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.
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Dinos Dinos Everywhere! Apr 16, 2003 (14 of 16 found this helpful)
I don't know if the dinosaurs bring out the best in Crichton or what. I've read a few of his books and haven't really cared for them, but I loved Jurassic Park and I really enjoyed this one too. It's a rollicking adventure story that doesn't stop very often. When it does, though, with some long scientific asides, it stops dead.
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 safel
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Micheal Crichton delivers again Feb 25, 2000 (5 of 5 found this helpful)
So far, my favorite book is "The Lost World", despite some of it's obvious flaws. Such would include the large number of inconsistancies between Jurrassic Park and this sequel, and obviously the only reason Crichton wrote this was because Universal wanted a sequel for Jurassic Park, but these are easily forgiven over the quality of the work. As opposed to the first Jurassic Park, Crichton takes much more time in his visual descriptions of the actions in this novel, giving a better sense of the passage of time. One would notice that this book is noticably longer than the first. Crichton, like usual, is a master of educating his readers while entertaining them, better than many writers. Of course, one has to mention the often frightening edge-of-your-seat suspence that makes this novel impossible to put down. If you read this book and find yourself still craving knowledge and dinosaur action, I would suggest the novel "Raptor Red" by Robert T. Bakker. This book is also extreemly informative as well as action-packed, however it does not have the real scary edge of The Lost World or Jurassic Park. On the other hand, it is written from the Raptor's perspective, and is a real interesting twist on normal dino stories.
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Amazing, A Sequal thats Worth the Time Mar 4, 2000 (5 of 5 found this helpful)
I'm quite skeptical about sequels, especially when the first was simply so clever. I could never have expected The Lost World to be so much different, and yet every bit as good as its predecessor. Perhaps one my favorite aspects of this book is that Crichton takes a risk (which is quite renowned for now) and offers an entirely new breed of dinosaur toward the end, the Chameleon-Raptor mix. The moment I begin to see this being, I envisioned one of the most devastating beasts the World would have ever known. I wish there had been more dealing with this creature throughout the adventure, but I was pleased to see Crichton back off the complex, realistic style he's so fond of and side track down a more creative, "what if" path. This book is not JP and it doesn't read like JP did, but I consider it worth every dime that JP was.
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Site B Revisited Apr 21, 1999 (4 of 4 found this helpful)
I've just re-read The Lost World back-to-back with Jurassic Park, and the sequel suffers somewhat by comparison. It's a lot bleaker than the movie version, with a smaller, less hospitable island, and the creatures wasting away from prion diseases (mad dino disease!) The T-Rexes display proper Spielbergian family values, but the raptors (and others?) seem to be afflicted with terminal behavioural problems; the outlook for them is not good. Where The Lost World loses out, compared to the first story, is in the plot and the human action. In Jurassic Park there was a terrific buildup and a scramble for survival, truly compelling stuff; in the sequel, we have a sort of field trip/rescue operation which only occasionally gains momentum. That said, there is plenty of food for thought, with Ian Malcolm & Co never at a loss for a theory or three concerning extinctions. Some people have said that Arby and Kelly add nothing to the story and might as well not be in it at all; I say that at least they're smart and sensible (unlike poor Lex in Jurassic Park, who has some of the dumbest lines ever printed.) So to sum up, not bad but lacks the bite of the original.