Michael CrichtonJurassic ParkMonika says:
1989 - Strange things happen in a coastal region of Costa Rica. An unusual lizard bites a little girl on a beach and she almost dies of an allergic reaction. Lizard bites are reported from other areas of Costa Rica as well. The victims are mostly sleeping infants, sometimes the bites are fatal. Biologist Marty Guitierrez decides to start an investigation and observes the beach. Just as he is about to go home for the night with nothing accomplished he spots a monkey with a half eaten lizard hanging from his mouth. He is convinced that he is on to someting and sends a piece of the lizard to a lab to have it tested for pathogenic agents. One of the employees at the lab is reminded of the dinosaurs her son always draws when she sees the lizard. She decides to consult an expert and faxes the x-ray of the lizard to paleontologist Alan Grant who is at a dig on Egg Mountain in Montana. When Grant receives the fax he first believes in a silly joke. Then he and his assistant Ellie Sattler are invited to test a new amusement park that will soon open its gates - for a generous fee that would secure financing of there work for the next summer. So they set out with lawyer Donald Gennaro and mathematician Ian Malcolm for their excluxive weekend job. They are in for a big surprise when they arrive on Isla Nublar off the Costa Rican coast and discover that this isn't your ususal amusement park, but a zoo that offers cloned dinosaurs as tourist attractions. Now the team is supposed to put the safety of the park to the test. On the same weekend progammer Dennis Nedry who designed the park's computer system is supposed to fix some last bugs. But he has a hidden agenda of his own and accidentally triggers a desastrous chain of events. When in the 80ies it seemed to become possible to isolate the DNA of
prehistoric animals Michael Crichton used this idea for his best book so far. Finding
traces of DNA in fossilized bones supposedly was impossible. He thought it more plausible
to draw dinosaur DNA from blood sucking insects trapped and preserved in amber. Why with
both methods scientists face nearly insurmountable problems is very well JURASSIC PARK shows what could happen in the unlikely case that somebody actually succeded in bringing dinosaurs back to life. Can this work at all and what risks would have to be considered? Crichton mixes science and fiction so well that the reader is equally entertained by the excursions in the history of science and by the actual plot. He talks about the beginnings of paleontology, some of the most popular dinosaur experts and tops it off with the basics of chaos theory. The latter has led to the creation of one of Crichtons most likable characters: Ian Malcolm, the unconventional mathematician who always wears black because he doesn't want to waste his life thinking about what to wear. It doesn't matter that the characters in the novel are slightly overdrawn. Crichton didn't set out to write a 19th century character drama. He wanted to create a continually rising tension that reaches its climax near the end when the velociraptors break out. He treats his characters none too gently. Not only minor characters are killed off, a fact that adds a lot of credibility to the plot. Some of the characters are trapped in the park's visitors center while others are out in the field with the dinosaurs. Crichton gives detailed descriptions of the different dinosaurs at the park based on the latest research. In the 70ies a new generation of paleontologists, with John Ostrom and his student Robert T. Bakker leading the way, introduced a revolutionary new way to look at dinosaurs. They are no longer believed to be cold blooded slow reptiles who had to live in swamps to support their enormous weight, but instead viewed as agile animals who are more closely related to present day birds than to crocodiles and other lizards. Many of the smaller kinds are now supposed to have been active warm blooded animals with feathers to keep them warm. The latest discoveries in China and Mongolia seem to confirm this theory, but unless somebody invents a time machine and goes to the Cretaceous Period those questions will never be entirely resolved. But in the realm of fiction all we need is the reader's imagination to bring Tyrannosaurus rex, Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Maiasaura and Velociraptor back to life. They are what JURASSIC PARK is really about: beings who were brought to a world that differs considerably from their own, that went down 65 million years ago. Their encounter with homo sapiens could only lead to disaster. JURASSIC PARK is one of those novels you can't put down once you became
absorbed in the plot. It may be a bit "technical" now and then, but is one of
the most thrilling stories about a scientific subject ever written. One of the best novels
of the 90ies. Unfortunately the auther since has never reached this level of Links:See also our review of the sequel to JURASSIC PARK: and our reviews of the movies: |
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Copyright 1998 Christina Gross & Monika Hübner |
