Jurassic Park

Title: Jurassic Park

Author: Michael Crichton

Published in: 1990

Date read: 11th September 2026

Score: 5/5

Genre: Science fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Horror

Plot: (Warning, may contain spoilers):
Published in 1990, Jurassic Park is a cautionary techno-thriller that uses cutting-edge genetic engineering, chaos theory, and paleontology to explore what happens when humanity attempts to conquer nature for profit. While many are familiar with the film adaptation, the original novel is famously darker, more violent, and deeply invested in the philosophical arguments surrounding scientific ethics.

The Plot:
The story centers on Isla Nublar, a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica purchased by eccentric billionaire John Hammond. Through his bioengineering firm, InGen, Hammond has achieved the impossible: utilizing preserved prehistoric DNA trapped in amber to clone living dinosaurs. Before opening his revolutionary theme park to the public, his nervous investors demand a safety audit.

Hammond invites a select group of experts to tour the island and endorse the project: paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, and brilliant mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm. Joining them are Hammond's young grandchildren, Tim and Alexis, and InGen's legal representative.

What begins as a breathtaking look at resurrected giants quickly spirals into a fight for survival. During a fierce tropical storm, a disgruntled employee sabotages the park's computer matrix to steal embryos for a rival corporation, shutting down the island's high-voltage security fences.

The Mystery & Complications:
As the fences lose power, the prehistoric predators are unleashed into the wild. Unlike a straightforward monster movie, the true horror of the novel comes from the breakdown of human logic and systems control:

The Illusion of Control: The park relies entirely on automated tracking, automated feeding, and population controls (such as engineering all dinosaurs to be female). Malcolm argues that "chaos theory" guarantees a complex system will eventually break down in unpredictable ways.
The Wild Breeding: Even before the power failure, Grant and Sattler uncover disturbing physical evidence suggesting the dinosaurs have found a way to bypass their genetic restrictions and breed in the wild, unnoticed by the computers.
The Corporate Espionage: The group must deal with the realization that the primary threat isn't just the animals, but the dangerous lengths to which individuals will go for corporate gain.

The Escape Campaign:
Trapped out in the park, Grant must protect the children while navigating a landscape ruled by apex predators, including the terrifyingly intelligent Velociraptors and the Tyrannosaurus rex. Meanwhile, the remaining staff back in the control room engage in a desperate race against time to reboot the computer networks, outsmart the escaping fauna, and restore the island's defenses before the animals can escape to the mainland.

Comments:
Wow, I have meant to read this book for a very long time but have simply never done it. Two months ago, Sam Neill passed away and I am very rarely affected by the death of celebrities but this really shocked me and for weeks, I could not stop thinking about him and the space that he left behind. I have realised that it was because when I watched Jurassic Park the film at the cinema, no film had ever affected me so much before nor has one affected me since. That film and the amazing story it was based on left me in awe. I adore the fact that my children loved it too when they saw it 30 years later and I took them to the cinema last year to see Jurassic World Rebirth and the magic was still there.

Back to this book, I loved it from the front to back. I loved that it has so many differences from the film that would not have made it well to the screen. These subtle differences made me feel like I was reading a new book and so much links to the second film, The Lost World. Although I will never try to take anything away from the creative genius that is Steven Spielberg, this book is Jurassic Park and everything I loved on the screen started in these pages. Absolute masterpiece.

I often hear people ask which book they wish that they could read again but for the first time, this has to be one of them for me. It would replace all of those memories from the cinema in Rhyll, North Wales, where I saw this with my brother on holiday and the countless times that I have seen it on TV, DVD and the follow up films in the franchise that is still so strong.

Books that we've read by Michael Crichton (2):
Jurassic Park (1990), Eruption (2024)