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

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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