Jurassic Park (novel)

Jurassic Park

First edition cover
Author	Michael Crichton
Cover artist	Chip Kidd
Language	English
Genre	Sci-Fi Action
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	November 20, 1990
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	448
ISBN	0-394-58816-9
OCLC	22511027
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3553.R48 J87 1990
Followed by	The Lost World

Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction action novel written by Michael Crichton. A cautionary tale about genetic engineering, it presents the collapse of a zoological park showcasing genetically recreated dinosaurs to illustrate the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its real world implications. A sequel titled The Lost World, also written by Crichton, was published in 1995. In 1997, both novels were republished as a single book titled Michael Crichton's Jurassic World.

Jurassic Park received a 1993 film adaptation of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was a critical and commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film ever at the time and spawning five sequels.

Plot summary

In 1989, a series of strange animal attacks occur throughout Costa Rica and on the nearby island of Isla Nublar. One of the species behind the attacks is believed to be Procompsognathus, an extinct species of dinosaur. Paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student Ellie Sattler are contacted to confirm the animal's identity, but are abruptly whisked away by billionaire John Hammond - founder of bioengineering firm InGen - for a weekend visit to a "biological preserve" he has established on Isla Nublar.

The "preserve" is a cover for the construction of Jurassic Park, a theme park that will showcase living dinosaurs to the public. Construction is nearly complete, and the dinosaurs have been recreated using fragments of ancient DNA found in the blood inside gnats, ticks, and mosquitoes that have been fossilized and preserved in amber. Gaps in the genetic code have been filled in with "compatible" reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA, and all dinosaurs have been engineered to be female in order to prevent unauthorized breeding.

The recent animal attacks have made Hammond's investors worried about the safety of future park guests. To placate them, Hammond requests that Grant and Sattler tour the park and make an official endorsement ahead of the park's opening the following year. The pair are joined by a famous mathematician and chaos theorist, Ian Malcolm, as well as a lawyer representing the investors, Donald Gennaro, both of whom are pessimistic about the park's prospects. Malcolm, having been consulted before the park's creation, is especially emphatic in his prediction that the park will collapse. Hammond also invites his grandchildren, Tim and Alexis 'Lex' Murphy, to join the tour group. The park's staff includes engineer John Arnold, biotechnologist Henry Wu, game warden Robert Muldoon, public relations manager Ed Regis, and veterinarian Harding. While touring the park, Grant finds a Velociraptor eggshell in the wild, seemingly proving Malcolm's earlier assertion that the dinosaurs have somehow been breeding against the geneticists' design.

Meanwhile, the disgruntled chief programmer of Jurassic Park's controlling software, Dennis Nedry, attempts to commit corporate espionage for Lewis Dodgson, an agent of InGen's corporate rival Biosyn. By activating a backdoor he wrote into the park's computer software, Nedry shuts down the security systems and steals frozen embryos for each of the park's fifteen dinosaur species. During his attempt to rendezvous with Dodgson's agent, he becomes lost due to a sudden tropical storm. Without Nedry to reactivate the park's security systems, the electrified fences which contain the dinosaurs remain switched off and the dinosaurs are able to roam freely. Nedry is quickly killed by a Dilophosaurus, and a Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the tour group. Grant saves the children before escaping with them into the jungle, Regis attempts to flee but is killed by a juevnile T. rex, and Malcolm is gravely injured but is rescued by Muldoon and Gennaro.

The park staff try a full reboot of the park's computer system to reverse Nedry's sabotage, but fail to notice afterward that only the auxiliary power generator has restarted. Its fuel supply soon runs out, shutting the park down a second time. The park's intelligent and aggressive Velociraptors escape their enclosure and kill Arnold and Wu. Meanwhile, Grant and the children slowly make their way back to the island's control complex by rafting down the jungle river, narrowly escaping from multiple dinosaur attacks. Grant switches on the park's main generators, giving Tim the chance to reactivate the park's main power. Gennaro contacts a supply boat traveling to the mainland from the island and recalls it, acting on suspicions by Grant and the children that dinosaurs are riding it in an attempt to escape the island.

Hammond, walking outdoors while contemplating InGen's future, is killed by a pack of Procompsognathus after he falls down a hill and breaks his ankle. Grant deduces that using frog DNA to fill gaps in the dinosaurs' genetic code resulted in an environment that was conducive to dichogamy, causing some of the female dinosaurs to change into males and establish a breeding population. The park's automated computer tally failed to include newborn animals, having been programmed to stop counting once the assumed correct total number of animals had been found. Grant, Sattler, Muldoon, and Gennaro find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally, before realizing that the raptors are attempting to migrate off the island.

Malcolm dies of the injuries he sustained in the T. rex attack. Everyone else is evacuated by the Costa Rican Air Force, which has declared the dinosaurs hazardous and proceeds to raze the island with napalm. The survivors are indefinitely detained in a Costa Rican hotel. Weeks later, Grant is visited by Dr. Martin Guitierrez, an American doctor who lives in Costa Rica. Guitierrez informs Grant that an unknown pack of animals has been migrating through the Costa Rican jungle, indicating that dinosaurs have escaped the island and been reintroduced into Earth's ecosystem.

Development

The novel began as a screenplay Crichton wrote in 1983, about a graduate student who recreates a pterosaur. Eventually, given his reasoning that genetic research is expensive and "there is no pressing need to create a dinosaur", Crichton concluded that it would emerge from a "desire to entertain", leading to a wildlife park of extinct animals. Originally, the story was told from the point of view of a child, but Crichton changed it as everyone who read the draft felt it would be better if told by an adult.

Prehistoric animals featured

The following specified prehistoric animals are featured in the novel:

• Apatosaurus – Referred to as Brontosaurus by some characters. Replaced by Camarasaurus in some editions. Population 17.
• Cearadactylus – Referred to as Pterodactylus by some characters. Population 6.
• Dilophosaurus – Population 7.
• Dryosaurus – Usually referred to as Hypsilophodont. Population 34.
• Euoplocephalus – Population 16.
• Hadrosaurus – Population 11.
• Maiasaura – Population 22.
• Microceratus – Referred to as invalid junior synonym Microceratops. Replaced by Callovosaurus in some editions. Population 22.
• Nanosaurus – Referred to as invalid junior synonym Othnielia. Population 23.
• Procompsognathus – Population 65.
• Stegosaurus – Population 4.
• Styracosaurus – Population 18.
• Triceratops – Population 8.
• Tyrannosaurus – Population 2.
• Velociraptor – Population 37.

Animals in which their origin, genus and population are unspecified are the following:

• Giant dragonflies
• Unhatched herbivorous Coelurosauria - Referred to as informal generic name Coelurosaurus.
• Opossum
• Small rodents - Simply referred to as mice or rats.
• Birds
• Snakes
• Leeches
• Cicadas

Themes

1917 skeletal diagram of Tyrannosaurus published by Henry Fairfield Osborn, which was the basis of the novel's cover.

Jurassic Park critiques the dystopian potentialities of science. Malcolm is the conscience that reminds John Hammond of the immoral and unnatural path that has been taken. The final condition of the park is epitomized by the word "hell", which highlights the nature of Hammond's sacrilegious attempt.

Michael Crichton's novel is another version of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus tale where humanity creates without knowing. Henry Wu is unable to name the things that he creates, which alludes to Victor Frankenstein not knowing what to call his flawed imitation of God's creative powers. The immorality of these actions lead to human destruction, echoing Frankenstein.

As Dale Speirs notes at p. 18 of "Vanished Worlds: Part 6" in Opuntia 483 (Sept. 2020), Jurassic Park resembles Katharine Metcalf Roof's November 1930 Weird Tales story "A Million Years After", about dinosaurs hatching from millions-of-years-old eggs.

Similar to how his other novels represent science and technology as both hazardous and life-changing, Michael Crichton's novel highlights the hypocrisy and superiority complex of the scientific community that inspired John Hammond to re-create dinosaurs and treat them as commodities, which only lead to catastrophe. The similar fears of atomic power from the Cold War are adapted by Michael Crichton onto the anxieties evoked by genetic manipulation.

Reception

The book became a bestseller and Michael Crichton's signature novel. It also received largely favorable reviews by critics. In a review for The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt described it as "a superior specimen of the [Frankenstein] myth" and "easily the best of Mr. Crichton's novels to date". Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Gene Lyons held that the book was "hard to beat for sheer intellectual entertainment" largely because it was "[f]illed with diverting, up-to-date information in easily digestible form". Both Lyons' Entertainment Weekly piece and Andrew Ferguson's review in the Los Angeles Times, however, criticized Crichton's characterization as heavy-handed and his characters as clichéd. Ferguson further complained about Ian Malcolm's "dime-store philosophizing" and predicted that the film adaptation of the book would be "undoubtedly trashy". He conceded that the book's "only real virtue" was "its genuinely interesting discussions of dinosaurs, DNA research, paleontology and chaos theory".

The novel became even more famous following the release of the 1993 film adaptation, which has grossed more than US$1 billion and spawned five sequels.

In 1996 it was awarded the Secondary BILBY Award.

Adaptation

In 1993, Steven Spielberg adapted the book into the blockbuster film Jurassic Park. Following the release and critical and commercial success of the first film, Spielberg adapted the book's sequel, The Lost World, into a film in 1997. A third film, directed by Joe Johnston, was released in 2001. The third film, Jurassic Park III, drew several elements, themes, and scenes from both books that were not used in either of the previous films, such as the aviary and boat scenes.

Since the initial adaptation and sequels, there have been several movies added to the film franchise as a continuation of the original Jurassic Park franchise. These include Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and Jurassic World Dominion (2022). An animated series, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, was released in 2020 on Netflix and ran until 2022.

See also

• John W. Campbell's 1938 story Who Goes There?, about an alien monster in the Arctic thawed out and revived after 20 million years
• The Cursed Earth, a Judge Dredd storyline by Pat Mills in 2000 AD from 1978 that introduces the idea of a dinosaur theme park, with dinosaurs cloned from DNA
• Westworld, Crichton's earlier 1973 film also about a malfunctioning theme park
• Carnosaur, a 1984 novel with similar themes

Further reading

• DeSalle, Rob & Lindley, David (1997). The Science of Jurassic Park and The Lost World. Or How to Build a Dinosaur. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 0-465-07379-4.

External links

• Isla Nublar novel map Archived 2017-09-20 at the Wayback Machine
• Official website
• Jurassic Park title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Jurassic Park Archived 2015-06-17 at the Wayback Machine at the official Michael Crichton website