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Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park: A Novel Mass Market Paperback – September 25, 2012

by Michael Crichton (Author)

14,374 ratings

Book 1 of 2: Jurassic Park

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Timeline, Sphere, and Congo, this is the classic thriller of science run amok that took the world by storm.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

“[Michael] Crichton’s dinosaurs are genuinely frightening.”—Chicago Sun-Times

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price.

Until something goes wrong. . . .

In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.

Praise for Jurassic Park

“Wonderful . . . powerful.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Frighteningly real . . . compelling . . . It’ll keep you riveted.”—The Detroit News

“Full of suspense.”—The New York Times Book Review

Print length

464 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ballantine Books
Publication date

September 25, 2012
Dimensions

4.18 x 1.14 x 7.51 inches
ISBN-10

0345538986
ISBN-13

978-0345538987
Lexile measure

710L
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Even pure scientific discovery is an aggressive, penetrative act. It takes big equipment, and it literally changes the world afterward. Particle accelerators scar the land, and leave radioactive byproducts. Astronauts leave trash on the moon. There is always some proof that scientists were there, making their discoveries. Discovery is always a rape of the natural world. Always.
Highlighted by 2,500 Kindle readers
“All major changes are like death,” he said. “You can’t see to the other side until you are there.”
Highlighted by 2,434 Kindle readers
“Story of our species,” Malcolm said, laughing. “Everybody knows it’s coming, but not so soon.”
Highlighted by 2,395 Kindle readers
“All major changes are like death,” he said. “You can’t see to the other side until you are there.”
Highlighted by 1,591 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[Michael] Crichton’s dinosaurs are genuinely frightening.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Wonderful . . . powerful.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Frighteningly real . . . compelling . . . It’ll keep you riveted.”—The Detroit News

“Full of suspense.”—The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Michael Crichton’s novels include The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, and The Lost World. He was as well the creator of the television series ER. Crichton died in 2008.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

ALMOST PARADISE

Mike Bowman whistled cheerfully as he drove the Land Rover through the Cabo Blanco Biological Reserve, on the west coast of Costa Rica. It was a beautiful morning in July, and the road before him was spectacular: hugging the edge of a cliff, overlooking the jungle and the blue Pacific. According to the guidebooks, Cabo Blanco was unspoiled wilderness, almost a paradise. Seeing it now made Bowman feel as if the vacation was back on track.

Bowman, a thirty-six-year-old real estate developer from Dallas, had come to Costa Rica with his wife and daughter for a two-week holiday. The trip had actually been his wife’s idea; for weeks Ellen had filled his ear about the wonderful national parks of Costa Rica, and how good it would be for Tina to see them. Then, when they arrived, it turned out Ellen had an appointment to see a plastic surgeon in San Jose. That was the first Mike Bowman had heard about the excellent and inexpensive plastic surgery available in Costa Rica, and all the luxurious private clinics in San Jose.

Of course they’d had a huge fight. Mike felt she’d lied to him, and she had. And he put his foot down about this plastic surgery business. Anyway, it was ridiculous, Ellen was only thirty, and she was a beautiful woman. Hell, she’d been Homecoming Queen her senior year at Rice, and that was not even ten years earlier. But Ellen tended to be insecure, and worried. And it seemed as if in recent years she had mostly worried about losing her looks.

That, and everything else.

The Land Rover bounced in a pothole, splashing mud. Seated beside him, Ellen said, “Mike, are you sure this is the right road? We haven’t seen any other people for hours.”

“There was another car fifteen minutes ago,” he reminded her. “Remember, the blue one?”

“Going the other way . . .”

“Darling, you wanted a deserted beach,” he said, “and that’s what you’re going to get.”

Ellen shook her head doubtfully. “I hope you’re right.”

“Yeah, Dad, I hope you’re right,” said Christina, from the backseat. She was eight years old.

“Trust me, I’m right.” He drove in silence a moment. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Look at that view. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s okay,” Tina said.

Ellen got out a compact and looked at herself in the mirror, pressing under her eyes. She sighed, and put the compact away.

The road began to descend, and Mike Bowman concentrated on driving. Suddenly a small black shape flashed across the road and Tina shrieked, “Look! Look!” Then it was gone, into the jungle.

“What was it?” Ellen asked. “A monkey?”

“Maybe a squirrel monkey,” Bowman said.

“Can I count it?” Tina said, taking her pencil out. She was keeping a list of all the animals she had seen on her trip, as a project for school.

“I don’t know,” Mike said doubtfully.

Tina consulted the pictures in the guidebook. “I don’t think it was a squirrel monkey,” she said. “I think it was just another howler.” They had seen several howler monkeys already on their trip.

“Hey,” she said, more brightly. “According to this book, ‘the beaches of Cabo Blanco are frequented by a variety of wildlife, including howler and white-faced monkeys, three-toed sloths, and coatimundis.’ You think we’ll see a three-toed sloth, Dad?”

“I bet we do.”

“Really?”

“Just look in the mirror.”

“Very funny, Dad.”

The road sloped downward through the jungle, toward the ocean.

Mike Bowman felt like a hero when they finally reached the beach: a two-mile crescent of white sand, utterly deserted. He parked the Land Rover in the shade of the palm trees that fringed the beach, and got out the box lunches. Ellen changed into her bathing suit, saying, “Honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to get this weight off.”

“You look great, hon.” Actually, he felt that she was too thin, but he had learned not to mention that.

Tina was already running down the beach.

“Don’t forget you need your sunscreen,” Ellen called.

“Later,” Tina shouted, over her shoulder. “I’m going to see if there’s a sloth.”

Ellen Bowman looked around at the beach, and the trees. “You think she’s all right?”

“Honey, there’s nobody here for miles,” Mike said.

“What about snakes?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mike Bowman said. “There’s no snakes on a beach.”

“Well, there might be. . . .”

“Honey,” he said firmly. “Snakes are cold-blooded. They’re reptiles. They can’t control their body temperature. It’s ninety degrees on that sand. If a snake came out, it’d be cooked. Believe me. There’s no snakes on the beach.” He watched his daughter scampering down the beach, a dark spot on the white sand. “Let her go. Let her have a good time.”

He put his arm around his wife’s waist.

Tina ran until she was exhausted, and then she threw herself down on the sand and gleefully rolled to the water’s edge. The ocean was warm, and there was hardly any surf at all. She sat for a while, catching her breath, and then she looked back toward her parents and the car, to see how far she had come.

Her mother waved, beckoning her to return. Tina waved back cheerfully, pretending she didn’t understand. Tina didn’t want to put sunscreen on. And she didn’t want to go back and hear her mother talk about losing weight. She wanted to stay right here, and maybe see a sloth.

Tina had seen a sloth two days earlier at the zoo in San Jose. It looked like a Muppets character, and it seemed harmless. In any case, it couldn’t move fast; she could easily outrun it.

Now her mother was calling to her, and Tina decided to move out of the sun, back from the water, to the shade of the palm trees. In this part of the beach, the palm trees overhung a gnarled tangle of mangrove roots, which blocked any attempt to penetrate inland. Tina sat in the sand and kicked the dried mangrove leaves. She noticed many bird tracks in the sand. Costa Rica was famous for its birds. The guidebooks said there were three times as many birds in Costa Rica as in all of America and Canada.

In the sand, some of the three-toed bird tracks were small, and so faint they could hardly be seen. Other tracks were large, and cut deeper in the sand. Tina was looking idly at the tracks when she heard a chirping, followed by a rustling in the mangrove thicket.

Did sloths make a chirping sound? Tina didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure. The chirping was probably some ocean bird. She waited quietly, not moving, hearing the rustling again, and finally she saw the source of the sounds. A few yards away, a lizard emerged from the mangrove roots and peered at her.

Tina held her breath. A new animal for her list! The lizard stood up on its hind legs, balancing on its thick tail, and stared at her. Standing like that, it was almost a foot tall, dark green with brown stripes along its back. Its tiny front legs ended in little lizard fingers that wiggled in the air. The lizard cocked its head as it looked at her.

Tina thought it was cute. Sort of like a big salamander. She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers back.

The lizard wasn’t frightened. It came toward her, walking upright on its hind legs. It was hardly bigger than a chicken, and like a chicken it bobbed its head as it walked. Tina thought it would make a wonderful pet.

She noticed that the lizard left three-toed tracks that looked exactly like bird tracks. The lizard came closer to Tina. She kept her body still, not wanting to frighten the little animal. She was amazed that it would come so close, but she remembered that this was a national park. All the animals in the park would know that they were protected. This lizard was probably tame. Maybe it even expected her to give it some food. Unfortunately she didn’t have any. Slowly, Tina extended her hand, palm open, to show she didn’t have any food.

The lizard paused, cocked his head, and chirped.

“Sorry,” Tina said. “I just don’t have anything.”

And then, without warning, the lizard jumped up onto her outstretched hand. Tina could feel its little toes pinching the skin of her palm, and she felt the surprising weight of the animal’s body pressing her arm down.

And then the lizard scrambled up her arm, toward her face.

“I just wish I could see her,” Ellen Bowman said, squinting in the sunlight. “That’s all. Just see her.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mike said, picking through the box lunch packed by the hotel. There was unappetizing grilled chicken, and some kind of a meat-filled pastry. Not that Ellen would eat any of it.

“You don’t think she’d leave the beach?” Ellen said.

“No, hon, I don’t.”

“I feel so isolated here,” Ellen said.

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Mike Bowman said.

“I did.”

“Well, then, what’s the problem?”

“I just wish I could see her, is all,” Ellen said.

Then, from down the beach, carried by the wind, they heard their daughter’s voice. She was screaming.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books (September 25, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345538986
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345538987
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 710L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.18 x 1.14 x 7.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #28 in Mystery Action & Adventure
- #103 in Thriller & Suspense Action Fiction
- #121 in Science Fiction Adventures

Customer Reviews:
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Michael Crichton

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After graduating from Harvard Medical School, Michael Crichton embarked on a career as a writer and filmmaker, whose credits include 'The Andromeda Strain', 'Westworld', 'Jurassic Park', 'Rising Sun', 'Prey' and 'State of Fear' and the TV series 'ER'. He has sold over 150 million books which have been translated into thirty-six languages; twelve have been made into films. He is the only person to have had, at the same time, the number one book, movie and TV show in the United States.

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4.8 out of 5

14,374 global ratings

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4 star		12%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Cecelia | hotforbooks

Dino DNA 🧬

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

Jurassic Park does for genetic engineering what The Da Vinci Code does for art and museums.

Don’t judge a book by its movie. What Spielberg did with the movie is fantastical, though a separate entity entirely. You cannot compare the movie to the book. Period. Both are deserving and they each have their rightful place.

I first read this book 18 years ago, and have reread it once a year since. I have gifted to any and all book loving friends and family. This book was relevant when it was published in 1990, and it remains relevant still. Perhaps more so now. That burning question of morality and scientific advancements. It’s a compelling one. Crichton does not leave any stone unturned. He shows you the real brilliance, and more importantly, dangers of genetic engineering. The scope. It’s terrifying.

Crichton is one of my most treasured voices in writing. The research and attention to detail. His expertise really lends itself to his voice in every story he tells. The science. The characters that you can never forget. Of course I’m talking about Ian Malcolm. Some of the best lines, not just from this book, but ANY book!

“The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.”

“Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.”

“They're both technicians. They have what I call 'thintelligence'. They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused'. They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.”

Jurassic Park should be labeled a classic and revered for the gift that it is. Thank you, Michael Crichton. Your words, ideas, and voice are forever immortalized in your writing.

8 people found this helpful

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LM Cerny

Gripping

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 9, 2023

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The movie was a favorite as a kid, and done very well. However, I never got around to reading the book until now. Holy ****! I couldn’t put it down. I knew it would have more depth and details than the movie, but there is no comparison. The characters are so interesting and 3 dimensional. The dialogue fantastic and the way the author jumps from scene to scene is nothing short of complete storytelling mastery. All I can say is I can’t wait to read Lost World!

3 people found this helpful

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Leah

Love this Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 11, 2023

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This is my second read through Jurassic Park, and I’ve watched the films numerous times. Every time I find a new glimmer of humor from Crichton, something dry I’d hear in my own field. I love his writing style and the world he creates with his books. The second book is just as good if not better!

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Great for escapism

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 9, 2020

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The first time I read this book was somewhere around 1993-1995, when I was a teenager and well before I had taken any biochemistry or genetics classes. That was a very long time ago, and my memory of this book was probably warped by seeing the movie quite a few times in the years in between.

Reading it through for the second time, as an adult, I find this book immensely fun, but there are some problems.

The dinosaurs are genetically engineered to need L-lysine, so that if they leave the island, they won’t die. For them, it is an essential amino acid, so it is added to their foods. Guess who also must consume L-lysine because we can’t make it ourselves! That’s right, humans. All essential amino acids are readily available in meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. Lysine is available in soy, black beans, quinoa, and pumpkin seeds, and chances are many more plants available to dinosaurs that made it off island. But, for the meat eaters, all meat has lysine in it… so I’m not really sure why this was ever thought to be a “good idea”. Michael Crichton with his medical school background surely must have known that lysine was an essential amino acid for humans, and while difficult, it isn’t top of the list for vegans to supplement like Vitamin B12.

How DNA is talked about…. as a piece of DNA. Presumably, dinosaur genomes comprised a certain number of chromosomes, each species may have had different numbers, such as humans have 46, chimpanzees have 48, it is mostly the same stuff but split up on the different chromosomes. In order to “make a dinosaur”, or anything from a starting genome, you must have a way for that genetic material to replicate once you inject a genome into an egg that has had the original genetic material blasted out. You can’t just put in one long piece of DNA, you need sites to initiate chromosome replication, you need centrosomes and telomeres. A lot of times, these are very similar on different chromosomes, and assembling a whole genome takes a lot more effort than what was described here.

Ugh... the thriller trope with a very young, attractive female scientist (24?) who is an expert in her field, while the male scientists are all mid to late 30s or 40s. And… she is given absolutely nothing to do. She is the only adult woman for almost the entire book (there are some adult women at the beginning). I know this was written at a different time, but geez this could have been better.

“When you compared the DNA of man to the DNA of a lowly bacterium, you found that only about 10 percent of the strands were different.” Um nope. This isn’t true now, this wasn’t true in 1990 when this book was published, this has never been true. Some genes overlap, some DNA bounces back and forth between human (or animals) and bacteria, but the genetic material is VERY DIFFERENT in prokaryotes versus eukaryotes. Humans have close to 50% genes in common with a banana, last common ancestor 2 Billion years ago. Humans share around 80% of DNA with fish (last common ancestor 375 Million years ago), and humans share 98% DNA with chimpanzees (last common ancestor ). So… this 10 percent “different strands” is way out there, even if we were living in a world where dinosaur DNA could be obtained and then used to make some dinos. (This stuff erks me, just like typos in books.)

All the computer charts and navigating menus… which makes up a big part of the book and hasn’t aged well. Velociraptors are attacking and a kid is trying to figure out what buttons to push to turn on the electric fences. I know this was supposed to be riveting climactic stuff, but pushing buttons on a computer just doesn’t get me on the edge of my seat these days.

Anyway, I’ve decided to rate it 5 stars, because I read this during the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when I was feeling very nervous about an upcoming surgery, so I needed some escapism and this was a great book for that.

8 people found this helpful

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Rachel

Great condition, great read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 7, 2023

Verified Purchase

Came in brand new, and GREAT read! I also bought the 2nd book but just haven't read it yet. Of course I loved the movies, but it was actually tiktok that made me buy the book lol. Highly recommend, and this is not my usual read.

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Joe

PUT PROTECTION IN BOXES

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 17, 2023

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great book, BUT IF AMAZON SENDS ME ANOTHER BOOK IN A BOX WITHOUT SOME PROTECTIVE BUBBLE WRAP OR SOMETHING, IM GONNA LOSE IT.

One person found this helpful

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CoralFang

Well written, excellent pace - a great read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

I am a huge fan of the movie - who doesn't love a Steven Spielberg flick? Yet weirdly, I have only just got round to reading the book that inspired the dino quadrilogy.

Surprisingly I feel the movie did a great justice to this novel - they pruned what was necessary and nothing was really lost. I particularly like the following adjustments (which aren't spoilers, not really I promise!):

1) They made Hammond a decent human being in the movie - in the book he's a right ruthless bastard (he doesn't care for his grandkids and it's him who wants to charge thousands for tickets to the park, not the lawyer!).

2) They gave the main female roles - Ellie and Lex - proactive, strong roles in the film - in the book they are much more secondary characters, although Ellie is still a precocious, confident individual who holds her own. However, Lex is really 8 years old - not nearly 15 - and is much more of a drag, relying heavily on her brother to bring her safely through the park (understandable but still, annoying and whiney!).

I loved the dinosaurs - they had great, individual personalities and interesting, justifiable behaviour -, the park was much more realistic and there was a lot more background information and world building than I expected. I can see they pruned a lot of the ideas for the second and third movie from this original book, which lets you know how packed it is with cracking plot lines.

I cannot wait to grab a copy of The Lost World.

26 people found this helpful

Blew1

A great standalone novel and an excellent read for fans of the franchise!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 1, 2019

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for 25 or so years, you’ve probably already seen or at least heard of the original Jurassic Park film which was based on this novel, so, I’ll start with the inevitable question...is it better than the film? I don’t really have an answer, you can’t really have a definitive answer. Both film and novel are two entirely different mediums with pros and cons. A film has the advantage of being a visual medium and is generally more accessible, but is more or less limited to a couple of hours in length and therefore loses a lot of depth and detail. This is exactly why I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, despite having seen the film dozens of times ever since it first came out and although the book follows the same milestone plot points of the film, there is a lot more fat to chew on here and it’s all very tasty!
I won’t spoil it for anyone, but there is a lot more background to the story here than the film. The opening chapters (of which there are many) follow a few loose ends and covers the background, plot and some characters that don’t really figure in the main story, but show the overreaching effects of the park’s development. Unlike the film, this novel doesn’t really have to depend on the dinosaurs and action set pieces to intrigue. There’s hardly any dinosaur action in the opening 200 or so pages easily, it is quite the slow burner, but when it hits the fan, it hits harder than an angry T Rex! It really does go through the gears fast, so strap in!
The characters are vastly different from the the film too, Genaro is almost the total polar opposite of the cowardly, snivelling, greedy lawyer in the film and that characters’ fate is reserved for another character. Lex is a total airhead brat, Dr. Satler hardly features at all and a certain disgruntled Park employee is even somewhat of a sympathetic character...who still does a terrible thing. Dr. Malcolm’s chaos theory goodness is expanded upon greatly and Alan Grant is more macho than Sam Neill’s portrayal. Everyone’s backstory and the reasons they do the thing they do appear more logical. There are other characters that don’t get more than a background cameo in the film that are significantly more fleshed out here, oh, and don’t assume that just because someone survived the film that they’ll get through the novel...I’ll leave it at that!
The dinosaur rogues’ gallery is more or less identical, barring a slight different in species in some of the lesser characters and there is one action set piece in particular that is lifted to one of the original films’ sequels. Another watery set piece is somehow even more thrilling than seeing it ever could be.
Overall, this book is exactly what I’d hoped it would be. Similar enough to the film that I am nostalgically happy and satisfied and different enough that I’m learning something knew of the Jurassic Park lore. Michael Crichton was an excellent novelist and this book still stands as his Magnum Opus.

11 people found this helpful

Matthew G

Incredible book, different to the film but both equally fantastic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 5, 2022

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The Jurassic Park novel is a wonderful read, encapsulating the joys of dinosaurs, with Michael Crichton's science fact blurred with fictitious 'what if' scenarios. So what happens when a series of young children are being attacked by a strange new species of Lizard? Well, read it and find out!

If you've watched the film, there are plenty of similarities including characters, but it's significantly different to enjoy them both separately without deja vu. Michael Crichton helped to write the screenplay too. Get the taste of Jurassic World out of your mouth and enjoy this book.

2 people found this helpful

Megan King

Fantastic read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

I have been fascinated by dinosaurs since I was a wee child, and Jurassic Park is easily one of my all-time favourite movies. That being said, I was a little hesitant when I picked up the book it was all based on - I mean, how could it possibly invoke the wonder I had seen on the big screen?!

It certainly didn't disappoint!
The book better explained the Mary-Shelley-style creation of the dinosaurs. It is quite heavy in scientific descriptions - having studied genetics, I found this to be an easy read. The language wasn't too technical, and there wasn't much jargon, so even if you don't have a background in genetics, I think it would still be reasonably easy to grasp.
There are a few differences that I think the movie did a little better. The strong women we know from Spielberg's movie weren't as notable in the book. Though Ellie is present and strong, albeit a watered-down version of the Ellie we know from the movie, Lex is a lot different. In the book, she isn't the smart, capable, teenage hacker who grows in strength - she's a frightened 8-year-old. And while her youth certainly explains her meekness, it was nice to see that the movie had created stronger female roles.

The description of the dinosaurs was fantastic, and I found myself hungrily devouring this book!

It's a 4.5/5 for me!

4 people found this helpful

Gemma

5 stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 3, 2020

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The construction worker's injuries are not consistent with a 'mechanical trauma'.....'it really did look like a maul'. Babies and small children are being attacked by lizard-like creatures in Costa Rica. Concerns about John Hammond's work on Isla Nublar are mounting. Enter Jurassic Park.

I never thought I would read this book. I'm not a huge fan of movies and whilst I like the Jurassic Park film, I loved the book. I was surprised that a relatively long book was so packed full of action from start to finish. Characters die who don't die in the film, there is no T-Rex vs raptor face off, Hammond is pure evil, the scenes are darker and more graffic and Lex is younger and extremely irritating! Crichton makes you think about the issues raised, making the book much more than an entertaining thriller.

Would definitely recommend.

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Jurassic Park: A Novel Mass Market Paperback – September 25, 2012

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Jurassic Park: A Novel Mass Market Paperback – September 25, 2012

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From the Publisher

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About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

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Videos for this product

Authors We Love: Blake Crouch on Michael Crichton

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Book Trailer for 'A Fistful of Dinosaurs'

About the author

Michael Crichton

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