Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

It's been a long time since I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. My only memory of the book is what I saw in the movie. So I thought that I would re-read the book, and refresh my memory. I'm glad that I did. The plot of the book is very similar to the movie. Obviously, the main plot, that John Hammond built a park with dinosaurs in Costa Rica. The dinosaurs came from the DNA of mosquitos caught in amber millions of years ago. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm are the main protagonists, and Dennis Nedry attempts to steal the dinosaur embryos. The book, though, has more detail, and some slight divergences. There are more people on the island. Some of the people who live in the book, die in the movie and vice versa. And the kids: Timmy is the older one, and Lex is young one.

Crichton's story is quite enjoyable, and you can see Crichton's personal quirks showing up in Ian Malcolm. Grant and the kids have a much more tense time getting back from the outage that leaves them stranded in the park, and the whole group are attacked much more frequently than in the movie. I really miss Crichton's writing, and I'll probably be re-reading more in the future. Next up will be The Lost World.

Congo by Michael Crichton

I thought I had read all of Michael Crichton's books, but I realized as I was looking through his list of books that I had missed Congo. Congo was one of the earlier books, published in 1980. A scientific expedition from Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. (ERTS) to the Congo went awry in a horrible way. The entire team was killed. When the video transmission connected for the daily morning update, the home team in Houston find the Congo team dead, with their heads smashed in. Who could have done it? From a brief glimpse in the video, Karen Ross was chosen to take a team to the Congo when she realized that one of the creatures caught on the video image might be a gorilla. But gorillas aren't supposed to violent. Ross enlisted the aid of Peter Elliot, who had been working with Amy, a gorilla that has learned American Sign Language to communicate with her human handlers. Elliot agreed to go to the Congo with Amy to help Ross find out what happened to the first team. In Africa, the ERST team connected with a white African mercenary, Munro, who agreed to take the team into the Congo to the lost city of Zinj.

As is usual with Crichton books, he went into detail about the travails of experimentation in teaching language to gorillas, and he also examined the interactions of tamed gorillas with their wild counterparts. Are gorillas behind the attacks and murders in the Congo? It seemed to point that way until Elliot realized that there was a separate race of gorilla, previously unknown to man, who had been trained in the earlier development of the lost city of Zinj to act as security guards. How does the team protect themselves from the gorillas, and does the team find the valuable blue diamonds that ERTS, along with other competitors, wanted so desperately to find? The story is very fast paced, and I found myself feeling more of a connection with Amy the gorilla. Crichton did an excellent job of making Amy a compassionate character.

I understand that there was a film version of the book, that came after the success of the movie version of Jurassic Park. I have never seen it, and I don't think that a movie could do the book justice. If you haven't read Congo, you should give it a try. It's a good example of Crichton's brand of science fiction thriller.

Easy Go by John Lange (aka Michael Crichton)

As I've mentioned before, I love Michael Crichton. It's such a shame that there will be no more new books by Crichton, and that means that I've been looking for authors with a similar style to get a good thriller fix. So, as you might have imagined, i was happy to find out about the John Lange books, which are being re-released in e-book format. That's the pseudonym that Crichton wrote under while he was in medical school. Recently, I read Easy Go, which has a hunt for ancient Egyptian treasure as a theme. The gist of the plot has a group lead by an Harold Barnaby, an Egyptologist who translated hieroglyphics that show where an undiscovered tomb can be found. He enlists the help of writer Robert Pierce, who comes up with an ingenious plan to fund the search for the tomb, AND to make money off the deal. The plan is to find the treasure, then send pictures of the trove to the Egyptian authorities to extract a generous ransom before turning over the items. The book covers the build up to the search and then the search itself.

The story is thrilling. I found myself really liking Pierce, who was the hero of the story, and wishing that things would work out so he could win out in the end. Things look bleak, and then ending has a very interesting twist. So far, I think that it is my favorite of the John Lange books that I have read in recent months. The characters are well drawn, and the plot moves along at a fairly good pace.

Grave Descend by John Lange

I really miss new books by Michael Crichton. Crichton wrote the type of book that I love to read: scientific thriller. It was so obvious that the man was highly intelligent because he was able to discourse on any topic, especially the scientific ones, and make you think he was an expert on the topic. Crichton did his research. I loved listening to some of his talks after he wrote State of Fear. Crichton was telling people to doubt the science of climate change. Crichton was saying that we need to read about the topic and not trust to politicians to have the best solution to any problem. In fact, we should all see that politicians always have an agenda. Science based on politics and fear was not the science that Crichton thought we should subscribe to.

Now none of that has anything to do with Grave Descend. Well, not exactly. Imagine my excitement when I learned recently that Michael Crichton had written books under the pseudonym John Lange in the 1970s. Hard Case Crime recently republished the books, and of course, I had to check it out. Grave Descend is a very short, fast-paced read. James McGregor is a professional diver, who is called to for a salvage project on a boat, The Grave Descend, that sank in the waters of Jamaica due to an explosion. McGregor immediately questions the story because the parts just don’t add up. He goes to check out the location of the wreck, and surprise, surprise, the Grave Descend is anchored there. Within minutes, McGregor sees someone fiddling with a remote, and boom! Down goes the Grave Descend. McGregor finds himself embroiled with money launderers, the Sicilian Mafia, and the police, as he tries to piece together what happened to the Grave Descend.

The book wasn’t like a typical Crichton story, but it did have a hard-boiled, edgy feel with taut, fast-paced action. After reading Grave Descend, I started looking for other John Lange books at the library, and I will definitely have to loosen the purse strings to buy some of the Kindle editions. If you have a spare evening, I strongly recommend Grave Descend. You won’t regret it!