Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton · first published 1990
33% recommend60% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sci-fi thriller readers reread yearly, praised for its world-building and for being better than the movie. Its early-90s take on genetics and complexity looks prescient; suits fans of science-driven fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. A cautionary tale about genetic engineering, it presents the collapse of an amusement park showcasing genetically re-created dinosaurs to illustrate the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its real-world implications. A sequel titled The Lost World, also written by Crichton, was published in 1995. In 1997, both novels were re-published as a single book titled Michael Crichton's Jurassic World. In 1996 it was awarded the Secondary BILBY Award. Also contained in: [Congo/Jurassic Park](https://openlibrary.org/work
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Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton The movie cut out a lot. The book is awesome. Read it 5 times already and I might repeat it again soon.
on “Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?” ↗Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge of Order And Chaos was a good read. I strongly recommend reading Jurassic Park at the same time, as the two were both influenced by the recognization of complexity as a "thing" in the late 80's/early 90's. The two are really about the same thing, but JP tells it through dinosaurs.…
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗I am going to list two books. Fiction: Jurassic Park by M Crichton. Just for the world build up and writing Non-Fiction: The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell. I fell in love with biology again after reading this book. The wonderful illustrations make…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗Ah yes, the first Michael Crichton novel I read - and also the book that first introduced me to binary code (https://imgur.com/N4IjIYq)! And after watching (and then reading) Jurassic Park some 10 years later, it took a while until I realized that it was from the same author...
on “NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth” ↗I stick mostly to fiction these days. Best books I've read this year: - The Women by Kristin Hannah - Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton - Platform Decay by Martha Wells - The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the End of the World by Eric Jay Dolin - All the Sinners…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton Really, anything by Michael Crichton.
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite Science Fiction book?” ↗Jurassic Park
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗Interesting - I greatly enjoyed Crichton's earlish work (e.g. Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain), but found his later stuff to be terrible in its scientific basis and _Prey_ was when I stopped reading because I found it too terrible to just enjoy. Glad someone enjoyed it, I may…
on “Michael Crichton and Computers” ↗…least twice more since, but it has to have been nearly 20 years. Have you happened to read the recent sequel, and if so how was it? I was kind of put off of Crichton by his later works after the original Jurassic Park (as usual, better than the movie) I know the sequel was not completely Crighton's own work, but I did mostly enjoy Robopocalypse, so I'm wondering if it's worth my time ( and money: I mostly do audiobooks…
on “New carnivorous plant discovered in Pacific Northwest” ↗It’s amazing what an incredibly prescient work of science fiction Jurassic Park (the novel) really was. Before CRISPR, before Dolly, before the Human Genome, Crichton called it.
on “A lab pursuing de-extinction of the thylacine partners with a genetics company” ↗…"background noise". I read the books as a kid. I use the audio-books to tune out the world when working on stuff that does not require my full attention (Listening Goblet of Fire as I type this)... 5. Jurassic Park || The Lost world (Michael Crichton) - Read the books as a kid. I usually listen to it while I am traveling. Still gets me as excited as it did when I first read the book. (The movies are nothing compared…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗In the case of Jurassic Park, I think Crichton's book was a lot better than the movie. One major difference between the two was the John Hammond character. In the movie he's a lovable naive dinosaur-loving manchild who meant well,…
on “Postmortem: DreamWorks Interactive's Trespasser (1999)” ↗I reread Jurassic Park on a yearly basis. I like to think that if Crichton lived longer he'd have grown out of being a climate denier.
on “The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside” ↗Siddhartha, Hesse Foundation, Asimov 1984, Orwell Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky Enders Game, Card Jurassic Park, Crichton Still waking up, so not going justify beyond saying these all changed how I see the world in some way at the time I read them.
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗I read Jurassic Park at around that age, and most other books by Crichton. Skip the one about global warming, thought (it’s onspiracy bullshit that was a decade out of date even when it first came out).
on “Ask HN: How to get 9-12 years old interested into Science domains through books?” ↗