** spoiler alert ** WOW, this was disappointing.

I remembered going into this book that I had enjoyed the film version of the original Jurrasic Park far more than the book -- a rather unusual situation for me. I had a slight feeling of apprehension, but I ignored it. Even if I hadn't, though, it wouldn't have prepared me for the frustration and disappointment of this story.

Let me get this point out right from the start: The plot resolves itself WAY too quickly, as though something that is suddenly obvious, easy to think of, and even easier to find was completely hidden from consciousness since the characters' first opportunity to think of it from about a fifth of the way into the book.

Additionally, the characters pose some very interesting questions during their experiences that would be fodder for quite interesting discussions or even intriguing scientific theory/discovery in the book. (For instance, why are there so many predators on the island? Why do they see so few carcasses? What went wrong on the island? Why does the raptor nest look the way it does?) That last was the only one I thought was halfway decently answered; all the rest seemed like cop-outs. Hell, the way the characters started to get out of their last little fix was complete B.S. that came from a bogus thought process from one of the kids.

One random compliment that (unfortunately) has nothing to do with the author's writing ability: He took the Carnotaurus that I'm familiar with from the simulator ride Dinosaur! at Disney's Animal Kingdom and gave it a rather unique twist: the ability to change colors with astonishing detail. I'll have to admit, after being scared by that dino on the ride many years ago, the thought of it being a chameleon made me sympathize with the terror felt by the characters. But really only for one scene. Then it was right back to the frustration.

My biggest complaint was the author's blatant activation of dramatic suspense. A character's thoughts would be either articulated through dialogue or explained through narration right up to the next-to-the-last word, and then something would distract the person from completing the thought, and the author would move on. That, in my book, is cheating. If the character thinks about something but can't figure it out, of if he's unsure why something just came to mind, fine. That's character development, in a way. (Levine's thoughts on daylight in the final scene fall into this category. I actually accepted that he couldn't remember what the big deal was. Granted, when he finally *did* figure it out, and he went back into his holier-than-thou attitude, even saying, "Well, isn't it obvious?", I wasn't sure if I wanted to smack Crichton or Levine more.)

A couple of conversations between characters -- usually involving Levine, now that I think of it -- were so full of these interruptions that I almost threw down the book. I was being played with, and I didn't appreciate it. It was something like this:

"So I got this completely figured out. The only way we can avoid getting eaten in the next twenty seconds is if we.... Oh, look! A leaf just fell in the breeze!"

or

"I wonder why these dinos are acting like this. It might have something to do with the environment they're in. Okay, if we factor in what they had for breakfast last year, and consider the death rate among dinos living 65 million years ago... Oh, this makes sense. They're all dying because....ACK! An attacking dino!"

and then

"Levine reaches the place he's been trying to reach for the last sixty pages. There's a dino in his way. He looks around for a tool to use to beat the beast to smithereens, getting more and more anxiously panicked, trying desperately to think of anything, when suddenly he sees....And the dino roared and started charging."

Whether the reader is supposed to feel exhilaration from the suspense, offense from being insulted, or just frustration with the irrational and incomplete descriptions, I won't pretend to know. Personally, though, a combination of the latter two was able to fester and boil and brood quite effectively throughout the course of the novel. I was completely put off by the writing style and the predictability of his archetypes -- I could easily make a matching quiz to list the names of characters from this book and its predecessor, and there's a direct correlation for each one, with the same role being filled by each and the same outcome happening to each. Oh, and Malcomb gets hurt. Again. What the heck is this guy's role, really? Token chaos-theory expert to make the reader believe that when everything goes to hell, it's supposed to? Bubcus.

I hereby swear to never again read another Michael Crichton novel. Yep, it was that disappointing.