[.ca] Lost World (ISBN 0582416949)

From Amazon.com:
Written in the wake of Jurassic Park's phenomenal box-office success, The Lost World seems as much a guidebook for Hollywood types hard at work on the franchise's followup as it is a legitimate sci-fi thriller. Which begs the inevitable questions: Is the plot a rehash of the first book? Sure it is, with the action unfolding on yet another secluded island, the mysterious "Site B." Is the cast of characters basically the same? Absolutely, from a freshly minted pair of cute, compu-savvy kids right down to the neatly exhumed chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (who was presumed dead at the close of JP). But is it fun to read? You betcha. Hollywood (and Michael Crichton) keeps telling us the same old stories for a very good reason: we like them. And the pulp SF formula Crichton has mastered with Jurassic Park and The Lost World is no exception. --Paul Hughes

A so-so sequel that should have been better:
Michael Crichton came up a winner with "Jurassic Park". Who doesn't love dinosaurs? So when you hit a winning ticket, you exploit it for all you're worth, right? Well, yes and no. Crichton had a good idea for a sequel but he doesn't do it the justice it deserved. There was no reason to bring Malcolm back; his turning up alive after being pronounced dead was just plain lame. I suspect Crichton was tired of Grant/Sattler and wanted to go with a new team. But the idea of a secret island where the real work of Jurassic Park was carried out is pretty good; after Jurassic Park was abandoned, what became of all those leftover critters? Malcolm's new team proposes to go in and find out. As usual, the dinosaurs save the book; the plot is contrived in spots; the characterizations, except for the two youngsters, Arby and Kelly, are flat and uninteresting for the most part, but the dinosaurs fascinate us by just being dinosaurs. Especially compelling is Crichton's description of the raptor pack which has grown to young adulthood without adult modeling; bred from a test tube, they had no parents to provide an example for social existence, and the result, as Crichton shows us, is a pack of unsocialized predators living in a world in which only the strongest and most vicious survived and all the others died. In such a world, nothing is going to survive very long; once they've eaten all their prey, they'll turn around and eat each other. The writing in general has a somewhat hurried quality, as if Crichton just wanted to bang this sequel out and get it over with before moving on to something else. But even with its flaws, Crichton still knows how to engage the reader's attention. "The Lost World" doesn't measure up to its predecessor by a long shot, but it's still a pretty good read.

Lost World is Found:
I think i have found my favorite book at last! . I actully read this book before jurrasic park which may seem silly but it edged em on to read more of Michael Crichton's books. It si all about a group of scienctist's exploring an island they beilive has prehistoric animals roaming it. The discover dinosaurs have formed life here and study them. Unlike some reviews state, i think this si probably one of the best books i have ever read. Though i do agree i see no connection with this book to jurrasic park which i have now read) i think it is much more like ' real life ' with the excepton that there are dinosaurs....

Extinction:
Life on earth has been marked by a steady amount of extinction. Ian Malcolm, mathematician gave a talk entitled "Life at the Edge of Chaos." Two self-organizing behaviors are of significance to evolution, adaptation and the location of complex systems at the edge of chaos. A person in the audience proposed that dinosaurs had not become extinct and that somewhere there was a lost world. Richard Levine, the curious millionaire paleontologist, sees an aberrant form in Costa Rica. It is not a lizard. Aberrant forms are always destroyed. They seem to be attracted by the soy bean fields. Rain forest is a good environment for concealment. Costa Rica has one of the richest ecologies in the world. Ian Malcolm and Richard Levine engage in a an arm chair search of the string of islands off of the Costa Rica coast. The wildly fluctuating Levine is seized with one of his enthusiasms and sets off on an adventure dragging other characters in the book in his wake as events unfold. I loved CONGO and JURASSIC PARK and so had looked forward to reading this book. In a sneak visit to the site, Levine's guide is suddenly snatched away from him. He had been entranced to see a maussaur, the tiniest dinosaur. There were rumors that unknown animals were showing up in Costa Rica. The book focuses on two children, assistants to Richard Levine and Thorne, a retired engineering professor. Thorne is something of a materials scientist. The children, Arby and Kelly, are appealing. When the trio reached Levine by satellite phone they detected distress and endeavored to try to find him. They did not realize initially that he was probably in the vicinity of Costa Rica. At Levine's apartment they discover he had been recovering InGen (JURASSIC PARK) files from an old computer. At Ian Malcolm's office some suspicious photographers had taken a snapshot of the map in his office showing the supposed sites of lost worlds identified by Malcolm and Levine. Malcolm phoned Levine's office to tell him the map was no longer secure and reached Thorne. Thorne, Malcolm, and the children think they can determine Levine's location through the recovered files. It is Isla Sorna. Sarah Harding, a biologist studying hyenas in Africa would meet them there. Reverse engineering is industrial espionage. Lewis Dodgson practices reverse engineering. He and a man named Rossiter seek to acquire the InGen technology in order to fabricate lab animals to stymie protestors impeding the research agenda in biotechnology areas. It is learned that extinction of the recreated dinosaurs may have hinged on something akin to mad cow disease. The adventure is far-fetched and exciting.

As good as Jurassic Park:
If you liked Jurassic Park, you will like The Lost World. If you can get past aspects of the book that are more unbelievable, like the recurrance of Dr. Ian Malcolm, it can be a fun book to read. There are different theories on the behavior of the dinosaurs in this book as the characters this time are trying to simply observe the habitat. Although I enjoyed the characters in this book, I agree with another review and I feel that once again the dinosaurs steel the show. Crichton is able to put you on the island and make you feel like you are there observing the dinosaurs. Crichton has again created an exciting and thought-provoking book and I recommend it to any Crichton fan.

A great adventure:
Although this book is excellent, I have to say that it is not as good as it's predecessor, maybe it's because we've read and heard the storyline before or the idea of creating dinosaurs has worn off, but either way it's still a good read. Once again, Crichton's opening argument to win over the audience and make them believe that Dinosaurs could've survived is totally believable. One of the biggest problems with the book, I thought, were the characters. I found it extremely difficult to actually like them. Apart from some minor problems, Crichton's 'The Lost World' is a worthy sequel to Jurassic Park, and I would suggest this book to any book-lover.