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Title: Jurassic Park
Series: —–
Author: Michael Crichton
Rating: 3 of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 416
Format: Kindle

Project Reread:

I am attempting to reread 10+ books in 2016 that I have rated highly in the past. I am not attempting to second guess or denigrate my younger self in any way but am wanting to compare how my tastes have changed and possibly matured. I am certainly much more widely read now [both in the good and bad quality sadly] than then.

I will hopefully be going into the reasons for any differences of opinions between then and now. If there is no difference of opinion, then it was a hellfire’d fine book!
Synopsis:

John Hammond has created dinosaurs and wants to create a theme park with them. His investors are edgy and force him to hire several experts to tour the island.

Murphy hitches a ride and per his rule, anything that can go wrong, does.

Including the biting off of heads. Which is just awesome.

My Thoughts:

Back in 2002 I reread Jurassic Park. It was the first time I had read it since highschool in the 90’s and probably had just watched that terrible Jurassic Park III movie.

When I was looking at my review, it was rather short, as were most of my reviews back then. 1 or 2 sentences.

I was sure that upon this reread I would have much more to say.

In all honesty, I could let that old review stand.

Now that I have read more of Crichton’s stuff, his propensity for techno-blather is more apparent. It seriously gets in the way of the story. Not because it is dated, but because he goes on and on and uses projections as fact.

My biggest issue was the dna thing. I didn’t have an issue at all with the fact that they “could” clone dinosaurs but with the fact that they just willy nilly used whatever kind of other dna they wanted to fill in the gap and it all just worked. It doesn’t work that way.

On the character side of things, well, what a wretched group. I wished they ALL had died. Hammond was an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Ian Malcom was a self-absorbed asshole who loved to make cryptic remarks without actually saying anything and then gloating about everything. The kids, ahhh, what a bunch of whiners and that little girl just made me want to throw her to the t-rex. Ellie and Grant were both cardboard. Nobody else even stood out, so I guess they were either dinosaur fodder or wet cardboard.

On the good side of things, the dinosaurs eating people was as awesome as ever. Something about that is just viscerally satisfying. Back then AND now.

Unfortunately, the downsides were much more apparent this time around. Also, I am not nearly as willing now to put up with a huge crap fest to get the few diamonds buried deep within.

I would still recommend this to people, just not as enthusiastically as I would have before. Because hey, dinosaurs eating people is just plain awesome!

Project Reread Verdict:

Will Not Read Again