Congo (novel)

Congo

First edition cover
Author	Michael Crichton
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction novel, Adventure novel
Publisher	Knopf
Publication date	1980
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	348
ISBN	0394513924
Preceded by	Eaters of the Dead
Followed by	Sphere

Congo is a 1980 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton. The novel centers on an expedition searching for diamonds and inspecting the mysterious deaths of the previous expedition in the dense rain forest of Congo.

Plot summary

The novel starts with an abrupt end to an expedition sent by Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. in the dense rain forests of Congo when the team is attacked and killed by an unknown foe and all contact with them is lost. The expedition, searching for deposits of valuable diamonds in the world, discovered the legendary lost city of Zinj. A video image taken by a camera there, and transmitted by satellite to the base station in Houston, shows a peculiar race of gorillas to be responsible for the murders. Those gorillas are different from normal gorillas in their appearance and odd life styles. They are gray and rather small, and they seem to communicate via wheezing sounds.

Another expedition, led by Karen Ross, is launched to find out the truth and to find the city of Zinj, and the deposits of the new type of diamond that would change the shape of technology and the world as we know it: these diamonds are blue-colored due to boron doping, which also gives them unique semiconductor-like capabilities. This time the searchers bring along the famous White African mercenary Munro, as well as a female gorilla named Amy, who has been trained to communicate with humans using sign language, and her trainer Peter Elliot. Time is of the greatest essence, as a rival consortium of European and Japanese corporations has also set off into the jungle after the diamonds, turning the entire expedition into a race to the city of Zinj. Unfortunately for Ross and her team, the American expedition encounters many delays along the way, including plane crashes, native civil wars, and jungle predators.

Eventually, Ross and her expedition reach the City of Zinj and discover the consortium camp, like the original expedition's camp, in ruins and devoid of life. Ross and her team loses contact with the ERTS HQ due to a massive solar flare, then encounter the killer gorillas and are attacked. A brief battle ensues and several gorillas are killed. After studying the corpses and performing a rudimentary field autopsy, it is concluded the animals are not "true" gorillas by modern biological standards, but presumably a gorilla-chimpanzee or gorilla-human hybrid: their mass and height is closer to humans than gorillas, their skull is greatly malformed (the "ridge" that makes gorilla heads look "pointy" is nearly nonexistent) as well as their pigmentation is on the border of albinism: light gray fur and yellow eyes. In addition, they exhibit different behavior: they are much more aggressive, ruthless and partially nocturnal (attacks are always at night, yet a very large (100+) group was observed feeding during the day). Peter Elliot intends to name them Gorilla elliotensis after himself. Afterwards, Ross, Elliot, and Munro explore the ruins and discover that the killer gorillas were bred by the ancient inhabitants of Zinj to guard the diamond mines from intruders. After several more attacks, Elliot, with the help of Amy, finds a way to translate the language of the new gorillas (she refers to them as "bad things") and piece together three messages ("go away", "don't come", "here bad"); they stop fighting the humans and become confused, leaving the camp. Their victory is cut short by the eruption of the nearby volcano, accelerated by the explosives placed by Ross for her geological surveys, that buries the city, the diamond fields and all proof of the "new" species under 800 meters of lava. Ross, Elliot, Munro, and the rest of the team's survivors are forced to run for their lives. The team then manages to find a hot air balloon in a crashed consortium cargo aircraft and uses it to escape. In an epilogue, it is revealed that Munro was able to retrieve a few hundred carat worth of the valuable diamonds and sold them to Intel for use in a revolutionary new computer processor, while Amy was reintroduced into the wild and was later observed teaching her offspring sign language.

Place in literature

Congo is a Lost World novel in the tradition founded by Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and featuring the mines of that work's title.

Citation: in a footnote (p.56 in my green hardback version), Crichton specifically states: "The fabled city of Zinz formed the basis for H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, first published in 1885..." Tamrhind (talk) 09:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Congo is similar to the plot of HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness: in that novel explorers go to a remote location and find a ruined city, but dangerous non-human creatures which were bred by the former inhabitants remain there after thousands/millions of years and attack the party. The grey gorillas in the case of Congo and the Shoggoths in At the Mountains of Madness.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

In 1995, a film version of Congo was released, loosely based on the novel. It starred Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, Tim Curry, and Ernie Hudson. The version received mixed reviews from critics, and was nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture. Despite this, the film had an average box office performance, grossing $81 million domestically.