By Alanna McAuliffe, Audible Editor

LIFE FINDS A WAY IN SCI-FI STANDOUT JURASSIC PARK

I, like every other millennial, spent my youth equal parts enamored with and petrified by 1993's big screen adaptation of Jurassic Park. It was a cinematic marvel the likes of which I’d never seen before, brilliant story work bolstered by state-of-the-art animatronics and an impeccable cast. And yet, despite the raptors running rampant on Isla Nublar, there was a stark realism to the story, underpinned by a scientific premise that felt distressingly plausible.

Over the years, I’d watch it again and again and again, until I had memorized every line and singular moment, every bleat of the ill-fated goat, every water glass tremor. There was just one problem—now that I knew the film inside and out, I wanted more. And so, the instant I was old enough to get my preteen hands on a copy of the film’s source material, I did just that. (Spoiler alert: I loved it so, so much that I’d later name my own pet dino—okay, fine, bearded dragon, but close enough—"Crichton" in honor of the late author.)

Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton’s groundbreaking sci-fi standout that had inspired that film is speculative fiction as its very best—whip-smart, taut, and unflinching. Not once does the novel lack for something to say, whether it’s on the ethics of science, technology, and ambition or the resultant disaster from unleashing that which we do not fully comprehend into the world. Upon reading it for the first time, I was instantly struck by the effectiveness of the novel’s blend of minute high-tech, cerebral detail and flashes of graphic body horror, all strung together with a tight, suspenseful narrative. Throughout, there is an urgency to the story, conveying a warning about mankind’s hubris that, even three decades after the novel’s initial publication, we perhaps still fail to heed.

Impressively, what remains sharpest about Crichton’s masterwork aren't the teeth of an apex predator or claws sinking into prey. Instead, it’s the author's incisive musing on unfettered capitalism, the inescapable push-and-pull between chaos and control, and the impact of both on the natural world that cuts right to the bone. John Hammond, the founder of the fictional park, is not naïve about the misgivings—he simply does not care about the risks if they yield significant reward. Motivated only by the potential of profit, he is arguably a more effective antagonist than any of the carnivores lurking in the long grass. After all, the escaped dinosaurs are merely acting on instinct—the real destruction is wreaked by man’s attempts to commodify the natural world.

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