Today, September 8th 2024 will mark 29 years since the novel The Lost World: Jurassic Park was published back in 1995. By this point in the middle of the nineties, Michael Crichton had already become a household name from the massive success of his original Jurassic Park novel (1990), as well as the iconic movie adaptation directed by Stephen Spielberg also titled Jurassic Park (1993).

Though perhaps not quite as successful as the original, The Lost World still held down an impressive 8 weeks on the best seller list (vs the original novel’s 12 weeks), and was subsequently turned into another iconic film.

Great. But by Now, Isn’t it Just Some Old Fossil?

Obviously, a lot has happened in almost 30 years since this book hit the shelves. We’ve experienced a third ‘Jurassic Park‘ film, as well a series reboot, Jurassic World, which also had a sequel, and a third movie which purportedly closed out the Jurassic franchise with Jurassic World Dominion.

(Spoiler: A fourth movie Jurassic World: Rebirth will release July 2nd 2025. Check Variety for the deets on what we know so far about the new JW film .

Of course much has changed in our understanding of paleontology as well. For example, Prehistoric Planet: Freshwater shows crowd favorite, the terrifying Velociraptor, as a more accurate chicken-sized pack hunter with feathers as opposed to the six-foot scaled and tiger-striped monstrosities we read about in this sequel (which are probably more accurate to the Utah Raptor, written about in Robert Bakker’s Raptor Red.

There is perhaps a legitimate argument to be made that, given all that has passed since this book came out — both in the fictive world of the franchise, and the real world of paleontology. Is this old fossil even relevant in 2024?

“The essence of verification is multiple lines of reasoning that converge at a single point”

To answer that, perhaps it would be good to discuss a few things, some good, others bad, which I experienced while reading this classic.

The Good

Despite any arguments of this book having ‘aged’, Crichton is still an incredibly engaging story teller. His approach is similar to what I noted in the original novel, with a kind of slow build in which the main characters solve a mystery, the solution to which sets the real action of the story in motion (this seems to be a common trope for Crichton). Perhaps this mode is too slow for modern readers, but I hardly noticed it myself.

Then of course there are the dinosaurs themselves. Accurate or not, they are COMPELLING. We see many favorites through the course of this novel like Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Velociraptor; Compsognathus (compy) and Triceratops . Pachycephalosaurus was (I think) a new comer that was not in the first novel. So was Carnotaurus.

The Interesting

The inclusion of Carnotaurus was especially interesting as it was given some adaptations which I believe there is probably zero scientific basis for, in 1995 or today. If you’ve watched the Indominus Rex become essentially transparent in Jurassic World, it seems that was an idea for which the foundations were laid in this book (though interestingly not in The Lost World movie).

This poetic license stands out even more considering Crichton appears to have tried to correct some of the imagination he displayed in his original novel surrounding T-Rex visual acuity. There is a scene in which the more villainous characters in the novel visit a T-Rex nest and are discovered by the tyrant lizards. The characters stand still, attempting the trick Alan Grant accomplished at the park. One is eaten almost immediately and the rest must flee for their lives. Of course Malcom has a quip about reading bad science, but still the entire thing seemed odd.

Another interesting part of this book was Dr. Levine, a sort of impatient rich/arrogant scientist who they embark on their journey to rescue in the first place. He’s a pretty large part of the story, and to my knowledge, just not in the movie at all. I was not expecting this.

Also, there is a scene in which a group of velociraptors hunt some triceratops and in particular, there is a briefly described fight between an individual of each species. It has me thinking about the Fighting Dinosaurs Fossil found in the Djadokhta Formation in Mongolia. That prehistoric battle took place between a velociraptor, and a Protoceratops, but its discovery in 1971 would have meant that it was probably a pretty well known fossil by the time Crichton’s book was written. The scene functions on a practical level to advance certain points of the plot, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the way it unfolds was a small homage to this famous fossil.

The Bad

Despite what I’ve written above, and my ability to look aside when almost any egregious portion of the text rears its head — due to my love of the subject matter and firmly framed rose-colored glasses — a couple pills in this book were still a bit hard to swallow.

First up, I didn’t really feel like Malcom’s survival from book one was explained satisfactorily. It’s essentially: News of Malcom’s treatment was so suppressed and kept quiet that many assumed, and reported, that he was dead . . . and that’s pretty much all there is to say about it. Felt a bit cheap.

My second quibble is equally subjective. Reading Easy Go, and even the first JP novel, you get the sense that Crichton’s female characters, and modern expectations of female characters, don’t really align. The Lost World felt like Crichton was trying to close that gap all at once.

Sarah Harding is ultra- strong, attractive, independent, and feminist. In some scenes she literally carries Malcom around like a rag doll. It’s all very “Action Girl” and while Mary Sue type characters like this are not inherently bad, Harding’s characterization in TLW generally left me feeling like Crichton still did not understand the assignment.

In Easy Go, the MC named Pierce judges the love interest, Lisa, as competent because she lights a cigarette “like a man.” In TWL it felt to me like Crichton was attempting to write a woman of importance into his story, but (still) only qualifying that importance by what she could do “like a man.”

Give ‘The Lost World’ a read?

Ultimately, I would say yes. There may be some inaccuracies in paleontology, and the pacing and characterization of his female lead may present some problems for modern readers, but the thrill of the being on an island in the presence of dinosaurs (even if some are trying to eat you), still feels quite potent in this novel.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a quote from Malcom (always Malcom) which stood out to me as being incredibly relevant to today despite having been written nearly 30 years ago:

“. . . if the notion of life at the edge of chaos is true, then major change pushes animals closer to the edge. It destabilizes all sorts of behavior. And when the environment goes back to normal, it’s not really a return to normal. In evolutionary terms, it’s another big change, and it’s just too much to keep up with . . .” pg 193.

Ooof. If that isn’t the most post-covid mood, then I don’t know what is hahah.

That’s all I have today. Has anyone read this one before? What’s your favorite dinosaur!? Please let me know in the comments. I’m looking forward to talking about this one!