They're flocking this way!
Review by Emma Short on July 27th, 2011
I think I can write a review better than Rob's.
This book has the same idea as the film (which you have all seen, I hope) with dinosaurs being created by taking their dna from amber and mixing with frog's etc... But the book has a much heavier emphasis on the science. There are times when it feels Crichton has thrown in a paragraph of research, just to prove his knowledge. This breaks your attention when reading but luckily doesn't affect the overall book too much.
The concept of Jurassic Park is very obviously doomed from the start, partly because of the general stupidity and arrogance of the people setting it up, and partly because of the nature of life itself - there is plenty of opportunity in this book to learn all Michael Crichton has researched on chaos theory, and some nice diagram-fractal things that you might be able to thinly relate to the plot.
The velociraptors also play a fairly minor part for most of the book, but are still definitely the most intelligent creature there. More is found out about them towards the end, and it turns out they're pretty cool guys. Their story sets up pretty well for a sequel, which I will be reading in the near future.