Plot or Premise

A rich industrialist with a vision creates a safari park on a secluded island for tourists, where the main attraction will be dinosaurs brought back to life through advanced DNA sequencing.

What I Liked

It’s a bit hard to read the book without comparing it to the successful movie franchise that was built on the book. But the imagination to not only conceive of a dinosaur park for tourists and to conceive of a realistic way to make the science sound feasible even in 1990 (pulling dinosaur DNA from a long-dead mosquito trapped in amber) was simply fabulous to see.

Not surprisingly, the book is different from the movie (or more accurately, the movie diverges from the book), but a lot of the core elements are the same. An underappreciated computer nerd, a worried security chief, the storm that turns the island into a death trap, etc.

What I Didn’t Like

Overall, I didn’t feel any sense of wonder in the book. In the movie, for example, you could see the sense of “OMG these are dinosaurs” and the characters are wowed out of their socks. In the book, it is more like, “Cool, but let’s talk about using night-vision goggles to see them, that’s really interesting.” I didn’t feel the wonder of any of them.

In addition, some parts were a bit odd — Grant is a loner bachelor but loves children (hates them in the movie, a better choice); Grant and the kids drift on the river with nothing much happening and tend to get back way too safely; the kids have Wesley-Crusher-syndrome and are able to get the computers working again; Hammond is almost a buffoon more than a visionary; and the ending is more about strange relations with Costa Rica, and a “final solution” than getting away from the raptors. Overall, I saw lots of edits that were done to the story from the book in order to put it on screen, and most of what they cut were good edits. I didn’t feel like the book was so much “more” than the movie, perhaps even a bit less.

The Bottom Line

Great book but some of the movie edits made the story better

Plot or Premise

A private investigator in L.A. investigates the death of her uncle, an old stand-up comic.

What I Liked

The main character, Mary Cooper, is an unfiltered voice in a world of serious investigators. Every line out of her mouth is practically a one-liner, and while that SHOULD grate on the nerves, it doesn’t. Just about everyone in the book is a comic, and the lines come fast and furious at different points. Once you buy into the premise, it’s quite enjoyable. I originally tripped over this story when it was shared online in a newsgroup, and I had no way of knowing at the time it was actually a nom de plume for Dan Ames.

What I Didn’t Like

There is a scene right in the middle where a bunch of guys basically go to rape Mary while wearing masks. Except their identity is relatively obvious to everyone except Mary, before and after the attempt, and the reason for their behaviour doesn’t even make any sense, at least not towards Mary. No to mention some stupid interactions with a police sergeant that keeps escalating, even though the cop is really ambitious and it’s going to blow up in her face, more Keystone Kops than by the book.

The Bottom Line

Funny dialogue, a couple of plot holes

Plot or Premise

The story is set in an unspecified future world where most diseases and disabilities are eliminated or “fixed” at birth. A high-functioning autistic man who was born too late to benefit from the advances is navigating life and challenges at work and with friends until he is presented with a unique opportunity to potentially fix his autism as an adult.

What I Liked

Living inside his mind is awesome, seeing all the rituals he performs to get through his day, and seeing shades of everyone in some of the behaviour. Lots of relatable behaviour where if I was just 10% more anal, maybe I would act the same way. I’m an analytical introvert, and watching the way he learns to evade some of the questions that his therapist throws at him is quite entertaining. I mentioned the book to a friend who was a fantasy/sci-fi lover, and when I mentioned the base premise was hard to classify, she said it was clearly sci-fi. Then she read it and said, “Okay, you’re right, it’s NOT sci-fi, but I don’t know what else to call it”. It wasn’t a dystopian setting or anything, just a future “what if” scenario.

What I Didn’t Like

The book is unique in that as you follow the character, and see his strengths and weaknesses, you see him get to the point where he’s debating whether or not to take the “cure”, so to speak. And the question itself is quite polarizing as it is presented — regardless of which way you think the character should go, the choice is guaranteed to be unsatisfying. This may be an argument in favour of reading it, but it does mean the ending leaves a bit of a gap in terms of closure.

The Bottom Line

Fantastic journey with a polarizing ending