Congo

Congo
by Michael Crichton

List Price: ~~$7.99~~
Our Price: $0.12
You Save: $7.87 (98%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Compare Prices for Congo

Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Michael Crichton
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-10-28
ISBN: 0060541830
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Avon

Book Reviews of Congo

Book Review: One of his first and one of his best, this adventure is sure to stay with you...
Summary: 5 Stars

`Congo' is one the most fulfilling of Crichton's novels, giving the reader quite a bit to look forward to. It opens brilliantly with a savage Gorilla attack that leaves members of a research team dead. It's in these first few pages that the reader is hooked, and that continues to work throughout the novel, Michael never giving the reader a reason to put the book down. For those of your who have seen the critically panned film adaptation and have thus decided to steer clear of the novel as a result, I urge you to reconsider. As I have said before, Hollywood just doesn't seem to be able to do Crichton justice. His writing in general screams for the big screen but other than a few golden nuggets (the first Jurassic Park film for starters) Hollywood in general has done nothing but botch Crichton's brilliant work.

That said, the book does a much grander job of fleshing out its characters as well as its surroundings. I've come to believe that Crichton can, with a few pen strokes, paint me a much more vivid picture than supplied by the Universal Studios. The plot revolves around a research group sent into the Congo with the purpose of finding diamonds that can help with advancing technology. Yes, Crichton slips in and out of describing in great detail what this all means, and that does mean that we are not only getting grade A science fiction but a science lesson atop it, but it's all good.

The action is brilliantly paced, as is the balance of the novel, and it delivers every bit of the mastery we've come to expect from this famed writer. While it's dated, being written in 1980, and the technology may seem a bit, oh I don't know, lame to our current standards of advancement, Crichton still writes with such insistence and determination that it's all forgivable and even entertaining to gage what was considered advanced not to many years ago.

Michael Crichton will probably never stop writing, he's just too good at it, but I find with each book that I read (I will admit that I have some catching up to do) that it's his earliest work that entices me the most. `Congo' was the third novel I read by Crichton and it's one of the few that I remember often. I encourage any fan of science fiction who hasn't yet to give it a try, and any fan of Crichton's latest work who wants to see where it all began, take a wonderful trip back in time with this brilliantly framed jungle adventure that is sure to be an expedition to remember.

Write your own review

More Congo reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Summary of Congo

Deep in the African rain forest, near the legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, an expedition of eight American geologists is mysteriously and brutally killed in a matter of minutes.

Ten thousand miles away, Karen Ross, the Congo Project Supervisor, watches a gruesome video transmission of the aftermath: a camp destroyed, tents crushed and torn, equipment scattered in the mud alongside dead bodies -- all motionless except for one moving image -- a grainy, dark, man-shaped blur.

In San Francisco, primatologist Peter Elliot works with Amy, a gorilla with an extraordinary vocabulary of 620 "signs," the most ever learned by a primate, and she likes to fingerpaint. But recently, her behavior has been erratic and her drawings match, with stunning accuracy, the brittle pages of a Portuguese print dating back to 1642 . . . a drawing of an ancient lost city. A new expedition -- along with Amy -- is sent into the Congo where they enter a secret world, and the only way out may be through a horrifying death . . .

If you saw the 1995 film adaptation of this Crichton thriller, somebody owes you an apology. While you're waiting for that to happen, try reading the vastly more intelligent novel on which the movie was based. The broad lines of the plot remain the same: A research team deep in the jungle disappears after a mysterious and grisly gorilla attack. A subsequent team, including a sign-language-speaking simian named Amy, follows the original team's tracks only to be subjected to more mysterious and grisly gorilla attacks. If you can look past the breathless treatment of '80s technology, like voice-recognition software and 256K RAM modules (the book was written in 1980), you'll find the same smart use of science and edge-of-your-seat suspense shared by Crichton's other work. --Paul Hughes

United States Books

Book Subjects

Most talked about in United States Books

Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor
by Michael J. Rosen
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2000-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: ~~$15.95~~

The Gifts of the Body
by Rebecca Brown
Harper Perennial; Published: 1995-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops: ~~$12.00~~

Love and Lies
by Kimberla Lawson Roby
William Morrow; Published: 2007-01-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.96
Price in other shops: ~~$23.95~~

Blues Dancing: A Novel
by Diane Mckinney-Whetstone
HarperTorch; Published: 2005-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00

Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong
by Alan Colmes
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Hunger Point: A Novel
by Jillian Medoff
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops: ~~$24.00~~

The Price of Blood
by Chuck Logan
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.99

Blue Hour: Poems
by Carolyn Forche
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops: ~~$13.99~~

Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir
by Laurie Albanese
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: ~~$12.99~~

The Kindness of Strangers: A Novel
by Katrina Kittle
William Morrow; Published: 2006-01-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.64
Price in other shops: ~~$24.95~~

Similar Books and other products

Airframe: A Novel
by Michael Crichton
Ballantine Books; Published: 2011-03-22; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

Disclosure
by Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton; Ballantine Books; Published: 1994-08-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops: ~~$7.99~~

Prey
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2008-10-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.64
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

The Great Train Robbery
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2008-10-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.43
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

Sphere
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2011-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.88

Eaters of the Dead
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2009-04-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.62
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

Timeline
by Michael Crichton
Ballantine Books; Published: 2003-11-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.87
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2008-10-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.59
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

The Lost World
by Michael Crichton
Ballantine Books; Published: 1996-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.94
Price in other shops: ~~$7.99~~

Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton
Ballantine Books; Published: 1991-11-13; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops: ~~$7.99~~