Jurassic Park

There is something about dinosaurs that captures the hearts and minds of children and adults alike.  A world where the past is big, mysterious and full of teeth.  I have never known a child to not like the famous predator, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, despite the fact that if it were real it could swallow any one of us without even breaking a sweat.  I was no exception to this and growing up the biggest influence on my love of these terrible lizards was undoubtedly Jurassic Park.

This brings me to this weeks recommendation, the original tale written by Michael Crichten. As a child I only ever knew of the movie and only recently discovered there was a book. I was pretty excited about this, let me tell you.  There was a time where I watched Jurassic Park at least once every month, sometimes up to twice a week.  This was only two years ago.  It is likely, actually definite, that I have seen this movie in excess of 50 times. 

It kind of feels like an old friend...

I had found this one also at a Lifeline book fest for a dollar, the K-Mart price sticker still proudly displaying $9.96.  As I picked up the book I could feel the same excitement I felt when I was six years old, walking into the local cinema with my parents to get the first taste of what would surely change my life.  Although I felt mostly excitement there was also some apprehension.  What if it wasn't what I expected? What if it was boring? What if it was all facts and no play?  The cover promised it to be 'the most electrifying techno-thriller of all time', what ever that means. 

I needn't have worried.  I easily raced through it's 400 pages in the week, a no mean feat considering I was busy running kids to school for my sister and catching up with people in my home town.  Jurassic Park is definitely the kind of book that keeps you up to all hours of the night with the promise of just one more chapter...

One of the most interesting things I found in the book where the differences in the personalities of the characters.  Alan Grant was actually a child loving man who is not at all obsessed with velociraptors. John Hammond is a lot more crazy and unreasonable than the movie let on and the kids are actually more annoying in the book than the movie.  One thing I found was slightly distressing is the number of times I felt compelled to yell at the characters in the book to stop doing something or start doing something to prevent them from being eaten.  I guess that is the mark of a good story teller, you don't actually want any of the people to die, even the guy in the movie who gets eaten off the toilet.

A favourite moment from the film doesn't appear in the book, but there are still some pretty unfortunate ends...

The book is also much longer than the movie, which is mostly the case with book to movie adaptations.  Something that Jurassic Park fans will love is the appearance of events that have been weaved into the later movies.  Each time one such scene popped up in the book I felt a little excited and smug, like I knew something no one else did.  Some of the events bordered on fantasy if you ask me, while others felt so vividly possible that it easily rationalised sleeping with the light on.

The simple conclusion I found is that if you love Jurassic Park the movie, you will adore the book.  I am actually looking forward to reading it again sometime, kind of like my rewatching of the inspired movie.

4.5 stars out of five. AWESOME!