Reportedly, the movie rights for this were sold before the book was even published and if you have seen the 1993 movie version you have the basic plot.
Billionaire John Hammond, owner of genetics company InGen, has found a way to source dinosaur DNA to "clone" dinosaurs and is making a zoo/tourist resort. Things go wrong.
You really don't need more than that.
I'd read the novel in the late 90s from memory and a lot of the details had been forgotten between now and my recent reread.
I'd forgotten that there was a lot of background to the genetic engineering industry and detail of Alan Grant and Ellie Satler's dig and a subplot involving dinosaurs escaping the island before we get to the more familiar parts of the movie. (although a dinosaur attack was modified and later appears at the Lost World movie)
It makes sense that things had to be cut from a 400 page novel to fit a 2 hour movie - Crichton himself worked on the screenplay as well. The novel also has several additional dinsaur chases that weren't in the movie and a raid on a raptor nest. Characters who survive in the novel - die in the movie and vice versa, although 1 death in the novel is reversed in the sequel novel The Lost World.
Crichton had a lengthy career as a writer and movie maker writing thrillers in med school as John Lange, under his own name he wrote The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, he wrote the screenplay for Westworld, Twister and co-created ER but this was probably the first time he had come to my attention.
If you enjoyed the movie, check out the novel there are some differences but it enriches the experience of the movie.
I now have a desire to reread the Lost World.
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