The Lost World (Michael Crichton)

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Title The Lost World

Original hardcover of The Lost World
Author	Michael Crichton
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science Fiction, Techno-thriller Novel
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Released	September 1995
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback) Audio
Pages	416 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-679-41946-2 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by	Jurassic Park

The Lost World is a techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, published in 1995 by Ballantine Books. A paperback edition (ISBN 0-345-40288-X) was issued in New York in 1996. It is a sequel to his earlier novel Jurassic Park.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name, Crichton's novel concerns an expedition to an isolated Central American location where dinosaurs roam - though in this case, the dinosaurs were recreated by genetic engineering, rather than surviving from antiquity.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Differences between the movie and the novel 3 Dinosaurs Featured in the Novel 4 Trivia 5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The eccentric mathematician Ian Malcolm and the egocentric paleontologist Richard Levine head to Isla Sorna to investigate extinction theories in the "Lost World" left by InGen's cloning program. They are joined by material engineer Jack 'Doc' Thorne, his chief mechanic Eddie Carr, field biologist Sarah Harding, and two stowaway kids: R.B. "Arby" Benton and Kelly Curtis. Also on the island is Biosyn geneticist and the book's antagonist Lewis Dodgson and his two henchmen, Howard King and George Baselton.

As with the first book, the characters have to fend off attacks from T. rexes and Velociraptors, as well as carnotaurs, which are described as having chameleon-like abilities. Between the action scenes Malcolm and Levine talk about various evolutionary and extinction theories, as well as the nature of modern science and the homogenizing and destructive nature of humanity. The book also discusses the role of prions in brain diseases, which has been at the root of concerns over Mad Cow Disease.

[edit] Differences between the movie and the novel

The 1997 film's plot differs significantly from the novel.

• Ian Malcolm still suffers greatly from his wound in the first book and film, though in The Lost World film adaptation, he suffers little pain from the wound. Malcolm died at the end of the first novel, but in Michael Crichton's TLW he states that news of his death had been released before he had been revived.
• In the movie there is no burning of the dinosaur carcass on the beach
• The characters of Richard Levine, Jack Thorne, Lewis Dodgson, Howard King, George Baselton, and R.B. Benton do not appear in the film. The main antagonist of Dodgson is replaced with Peter Ludlow, the 'know-it-all' figure of Baselton is replaced by Robert Burke, and the henchman of King is overtaken by Dieter Stark.
• The "Great White Hunter" figure of Roland Tembo from the film has no real equivalent in the novel.
• Five people arrive on the island along with the trailer and Ford Explorer: Malcolm, Thorne, Carr, Kelly, and Arby. Harding arrives later with Dodgson, King, and Baselton. In the film, Malcolm, Harding, Carr, Nick Van Owen, and Kelly arrive. The second team consists of Tembo, Ajay Sidhu, Ludlow, Burke, Stark, and the rest of a rather extensive InGen team.
• In the novel, Levine is the first person on Isla Sorna that Malcom's team goes to rescue - in the movie it is Harding.
• In the novel, the character of Carr was much younger than that in the film.
• In the novel, the characters of Tembo, Ludlow, and the rest of the InGen team do not appear.
• In the novel, InGen has gone bankrupt and does not play a pivotal role, whereas in the film, it does.
• In the novel, John Hammond is dead, having died in the previous novel, Jurassic Park.
• In the novel, there were three infant Tyrannosaurs, as well as a clutch of unhatched rex eggs.
• In the novel, only one of two of the trailers fall over the cliff, but doesn't explode.
• The novel does not feature an adult Tyrannosaurus rex rampaging in San Diego.
• Malcolm has no children in the novel.
• Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Dennis Nedry, Donald Gennaro and Robert Muldoon are mentioned in the novel, but not the film (however, Gennaro and Muldoon are referred to along with John Arnold in one of deleted scenes).
• The novel also mentions that Jurassic Park was destroyed along with all of the dinosaurs, though in the film, the park's fate is never mentioned (in a deleted scene on the DVD it was briefly explained that the Jurassic Park facility was dismantled and that the dinosaurs were destroyed in a hurricane).
• In the novel, Site B's location took several days to discover, whereas in the film, it is already known.
• In the novel, the team investigates InGen's main research facility containing a vast laboratory and offices. The film only features InGen's Operations Center, however, the laboratory is featured in Jurassic Park III.
• In the novel, Carr is not killed by two Tyrannosaurs, instead by a group of Velociraptors.
• At the conclusion of the novel, all of the dinosaurs are fated to die off due to the uncontrolled spread of prions (the result of using ground-up lamb as dinosaur feed). In the movie, Hammond turns the island into a preserve so that the dinosaurs can live free of human interference.

[edit] Dinosaurs Featured in the Novel

• Apatosaurus
• Carnotaurus
• Gallimimus
• Hypsilophodon
• Maiasaura
• Mussaurus
• Pachycephalosaurus
• Parasaurolophus
• Procompsognathus
• Stegosaurus
• Triceratops
• Tyrannosaurus Rex
• Velociraptor
• Unknown Tree Herbivore: Possibly Othnielia or Microceratops
• Levine examined a beached specimen, his best guess was a Ornitholestes. He was not able to make a precise identification, but the lab discovered chromatophores in the tissue sample he sent to Malcolm, possibly suggesting the Carnotaurus.

[edit] Trivia

• George Baselton suggests publishing the 'discovery' of Isla Sorna in Nature, a reference to Rodolfo Coria's way of publicising his discovery of Giganotosaurus in 1993.
• A palaeontologist called John Roxton is mentioned in the book, a possible reference to a man of the same name in Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World.
• The Tyrannosaurus rex is depicted as running at up to 65km/h (40m/h), which is impossible due to the amount of muscle that would be required around the legs for this speed. A more reasonable estimate, if a tyrannosaur could run at all, would be around 40km/h (25m/h).
• Biosyn employee and main antagonist Lewis Dodgson is described as being in his mid forties. However, in Jurassic Park, he is described as being thirty-four years old. Between the Lost World and Jurassic Park, there's a gap of six years - which means Dodgson should really be forty.

[edit] External links

• The Lost Worldpage at the Official Michael Crichton Website
• ISBN 0-345-40288-X
• Gary Hoppenstand, "Dinosaur Doctors and Jurassic Geniuses: The Changing Image of the Scientist in the Lost World Adventure", Studies in Popular Culture