Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Crichton, Michael (Vol. 90) - Publishers Weekly (review date 21 August 1995)

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Publishers Weekly (review date 21 August 1995)

SOURCE: A review of The Lost World, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 242, No. 34, August 21, 1995, p. 48.

[In the following review of The Lost World, the critic applauds Crichton's grasp of science but faults the characterizations and the originality of the story.]

One fact about [The Lost World, which is the] sequel to Jurassic Park stands out above all: it follows a book that, with spinoffs, including the movie, proved to be the most profitable literary venture ever. So where does the author of a near billion-dollar novel sit? Squarely on the shoulders of his own past work—and Arthur Conan Doyle's. Crichton has borrowed from Conan Doyle before—Rising Sun was Holmes and Watson in Japan—but never so brazenly. The title itself here, the same as that of Conan Doyle's yarn about an equatorial plateau rife with dinos, acknowledges the debt. More...

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1. Introduction
2. ∗Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Pauline Kael (review date 9 November 1981)
   2. David Denby (review date 16 November 1981)
   3. Gary Jennings (review date 11 November 1990)
   4. Ronald Preston (review date 21 November 1990)
   5. J. P. Telotte (essay date 1990)
   6. Robert Nathan (review date 9 February 1992)
   7. Ian Buruma (review date 23 April 1992)
   8. Karl Taro Greenfeld (review date 11 May 1992)
   9. Julian Loose (review date 22 October 1992)
   10. Stephen Jay Gould (review date 12 August 1993)
   11. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 6 January 1994)
   12. John Schulian (review date 16 January 1994)
   13. Patt Morrison (review date 16 January 1994)
   14. Julie Burchill (review date 22 January 1994)
   15. Geraldine Brennan (review date 30 January 1994)
   16. Douglas Kennedy (review date 4 February 1994)
   17. Michael Coren (review date 21 February 1994)
   18. Francine Prose (review date October 1994)
   19. Publishers Weekly (review date 21 August 1995)
   20. Mark Annichiarico (review date 15 September 1995)
   21. Mim Udovitch (review date 1 October 1995)
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