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Synopsis:
Dinosaurs! Millions of dinosaurs! Ruuuuuuunnn...
Review:
I've never been fond of thrillers, but this was reasonably entertaining. I had seen the movie before I read the book, but didn't remember much of it, so that was okay.
I have a wickle tiny pet theory about scientifically minded thrillers, such as Mr. Crichton seems to enjoy writing. The main reason people read them is for that satisfying smug feeling you get when you read the careful explanation of a scientific principle that you were already familiar with. I used to be quite badly into dinosaurs, but that didn't help in the slightest, which was a little disappointing. I therefore had to rely on my A-level in Biology to achieve the smugness affect. And the stuff about DNA did mostly fall comfortingly below my level of knowledge. All the bits about chaos theory were quite nicely explained, but were then re-explained a few times, which got quite boring. I think it was possibly to increase the "you mad fools! What have you done...!" factor, which was quite high enough as it was.
The plot itself was very B-Movieish (scientists create monsters, monsters run amok, monsters get blown up, but then it turns out they weren't completely destroyed, thereby setting the whole thing up for a sequel... Not to give the ending away, or anything...), and a bit predictable, probably even without seeing the movie first. The kids were realistically annoying, but didn't get eaten, which was a shame, and also reflected badly on the T Rex. T Rexes are supposed to be impressive. As far as big scary dinosaurs go, they're the standard, and both the T Rexes in the book were given pretty much nothing. Especially considering the little girl was thrown clear of the land cruiser when the Big Rex attacked, and with nobody around to sit on her (for example) I doubt she would have had the sense to stay still.
Anyway, conclusion; kinda fun, needed more death.
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