We all know the dangers of sequels. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place too often, and I think you’ve got to move beyond it, go the extra mile and have the courage not to just repeat the first one. - Colin Firth
No, this quote is not from this book, but it kind of provides a gist of my review here.
Plot:
The story of The Lost World begins 4 years after the adventurous theme destination ‘Jurassic Park’ was set to flames. Rumors of never-seen-before animals are heard on an island – Isla Sorna . Professor Richard Levine is a new entry here who is immensely intelligent. The rich professor is enticed by the reports of weird animals around the island and is willing to pace sky heights to find out the facts of these wondrous creatures. He teams up with the mathematician Ian Malcomm who was a part of the analysis team in Jurassic park.
Sarah Harding, the wild life observer and environmentalist is Ian’s love interest and is a part of this team. They make a queer couple since Malcomm preaches and believes in theories. On the other hand, Sarah believes only in getting the facts straight. Theories are like fantasies for her.
The team is equipped with carefully manufactured machines like a silent battery operated vehicle, a bike, rifles, cages, a portable room to be placed atop a tree. All they want to do is study extinction.
Predictably, there are 2 children Kelly and Arby who were geniuses just as in JP. They slip into the aircraft unnoticed by all till they reach their destination. The wiz kids are elementary in getting the team out of the mess!
Levine and his little team of technical experts heads forward to the site and realizes that the dinos are not extinct yet! Velociraptors, Tyrannosauruses, Compys and Stegosauruses are moving around in herds. He barges ahead in his mission without any fear of the unknown or the realization that in his quest for knowledge on extinction, he himself might become extinct. Insanely curious and dangerously enthusiastic, Levine is on the peak of vanity for having discovered all this. But will he be able to retain his sanity and his life at the end of his life-threatening journey?
My opinion:
As the common belief tells us, the sequels don’t possess the same magic. An erudite author like Chichton must have gauged the same. But due to pressure from his fans and from Spielberg, he came up with an extension of a story that had already gracefully ended. I usually buy books after scrutinizing recommendations on various sites, but reviews proved to be misleading this time with everyone praising the sequel to the skies.
Purging my strong desire to see the movie first and read the book later, I went through the strenuous task of reading the entire tale of 430 pages amidst war cries from the little toddler-osaur at home(resonating with the dinosaurs in the book).
Coming back to the J park, Chichton reminded me of K serials I must say. The great mathematician Ian Malcomm who was grievously injured and was dead towards the very end of the first book was left at the ‘Jurassic Park’. BUT he made a glorious comeback in sequel ‘The Lost World’ as if reincarnated. But there was no information on how he escaped unscathed from the clutches of the dinosaurs and also survived the blazing flames on the island. I was irked by Malcomm as confessed in my review on Jurassic Park. The reincarnated guy was even more irksome. He had conveniently managed to hide all the facts of the Isla Nublar island for 4 years. The place where hundreds of people / personnel were involved in security or government petitions or veterinarians for dinosaurs or environmentalists is shown as easily hushed as a rumour. This seems highly impractical.
The experts wriggle out of excruciating situations so easily that Rajnikant would also raise an eyebrow. There are jargons that dampen the enthusiasm of the reader. An engrossed reader who does not like to skim through several pages may feel he is being pushed into the skimming territory to practice the technique!
However, the good part is that the narrative is nail-biting and spine-chilling at most places. The last 50 to 75 pages are engrossing. I felt I was in their midst trying to find out ways to get out of there.
A 2.5 rating strictly for the narrative and in-depth research on dinos!