Nerdy MJ Reviews Jurassic Park

***WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***

Title: Jurassic Park

Author: Micheal Crichton

We've all seen the classic, Stephen Spielberg movie that taught every 90's baby that it would be beyond terrible if dinosaurs existed in modern times. But today I still meet people that have no idea that this iconic blockbuster ever existed in paperback form as a New York Times' bestseller. Meaning, they've never heard of the book and have no idea who Micheal Crichton is.
No offense to them, but I knew that Jurassic Park was a book when I was nine. I took it home from the library, opened it up, and then stopped reading less than three pages into when I realized I had no idea WTF Crichton was going on about. I didn't know what a prologue was and I still can't pronounce Procompsognathus. So, needless to say, I decided to put off reading this book until I was older.
Well, I just finished reading it.
The writing is awesome, although some of the comedic scenes came off a bit campy times, which was a turn off for me, personally. I loved the entire first half of the book, though, and I get the hype. Mostly.
For me, this book kind of started to go downhill after the T-rex attack and not just because I realized the one in the movie was about ten times cooler and more terrifying. It's not because I think Crichton is a bad writer, either. I don't. I think he was probably one of the last few amazing scifi writers.
It's because I hated his freaking characters. Mainly, Dr. Ian Malcolm, who had actually been my favorite character from the movie. As far as the book goes, though, I can't f*cking stand the guy. Let me explain why.
We're all familiar, I think, with the lecture Malcolm gives John Hammond in the JP movie along with paleontologists Grant and Ellie. About how the scientists working for Hammond are unethical and lack moral, and it's true. They were unethical and they did lack moral. Not to mention, they were probably the stupidest f*cking scientists I had ever heard of in my entire life. Who in their right mind could possibly think it would be a good idea to not only clone carnivorous dinosaurs, but to place them on island full of people -- or that, technically, would be full of people?! I mean, really those scientists were just polishing their own egos by doing that. I get that and I totally agree with what is said in the movie.
In the book, though, Malcolm just doesn't berate the scientists of Jurassic Park. No, no, no. He goes onto to berate and rant about scientists and science, in general. And it goes on and on for numerous chapters almost right up until the end of the book. In case you're wondering if that could possibly get old after a while, the answer is yes. Very much so, yes. For numerous reasons.
For example, isn't a mathematician a type of scientist -- isn't mathematics and chaos theory, which Malcolm practiced and studied, used in science?
Not only that, but listening to Malcolm drone on and on about the evils science made me wonder if the cultural impact this book had on society in the 1980's and 90's had anything to do with the way some people view science today -- you know, as evil and unethical? I'll just let you guys think about that for a minute then.
Anyway, Malcolm is not the only character that was ruined for me in this book, I can assure you. There are several other things that made me not like it nearly as much as I thought I would have. I won't go into the biggest one, though, because would give away a ginormous spoiler and I'm pretty sure you guys would not appreciate that.
My rating for this book is going to be a six out of ten. The writing is awesome and the story is great, but scientific inaccuracies -- yes, because I care about those, even though I decided not to bore you with the details of an actual velociraptor -- and the cast of characters killed it for me, I'm sorry to say.
Would I recommend it to other people, though? Yes, definitely, especially if you're big into scifi like I am. Can't promise that you'll enjoy it, but yes, I would definitely recommend it.
That being said, I'm still hopeful that Crichton will have redeemed himself with The Lost World, which I will be reading in the future, despite this less than enjoyable reading experience.