Congo
by Michael Crichton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael CrichtonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-28
ISBN: 0061782556
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of Congo
Book Review: A Classic Thriller By Crichton
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Crichton had a unique style of storytelling that, at certain times throughout the book, made "Congo" sound more like a work of nonfiction than a sci-fi thriller. It has an interesting story that's filled with action and suspense, and it's scattered with a wide variety of informative bits about the advanced technology that's used in the story (some of which is now sorely outdated, but it's still kind of interesting to read about). A group of researchers, with the help of an ape named Amy who's trained to communicate to humans in sign language, go on a long journey into the Congo jungle in search of the lost city of Zinj. This is a very dangerous mission, not just because the group is in a violently unstable country but because of the savage apes living near the ruins of Zinj that viciously killed a recent expedition and destroyed all of their equipment. Congo is an unpredictable novel that has some solid character development as well as an engaging plot. It's filled with action and suspense as the characters strive to find answers to the many questions that arise in regards to Zinj and the apes living in that area.
If there's one problem I had with the story, it seemed like there were a little too many coincidences in how the main characters were able to protect themselves from some of the gorilla attacks despite all the issues they were encountering and also how they were able to escape the jungle in the end. It seemed almost as if Crichton wrote himself into a few corners while trying to make the story as suspenseful as possible and ended up struggling to find realistic ways to rescue his characters. It's good enough though that if you don't think too much about it those moments won't bother you. With that in mind, I felt like a more accurate rating for this book should be 4.5 stars, but since that isn't an option I decided to round up because overall this is a very fun and suspenseful book. It's also a quick, easy read, not just because of the story's semi-short length but because of its progressively fast pace. The book becomes so suspenseful while bringing up so many questions that you won't want to stop reading until you find out what happens to the characters in the end and until all those questions have been answered. This is a classic page-turner by Crichton.
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 are 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 finger paint. 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
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