Dinosaurs have been my passion in life since before I could even form complete sentences. For as far back as I can remember, I have been enthralled by these magnificent creatures and have been obsessed with their ability to ensnare the human imagination in a way few other topics can. As a child, I would go to the school library and read dinosaur books every day after school. I would also spend my summers planning trips to museums to see their bones for myself. The amount of dinosaur movies, books, video games, and television shows I have consumed cannot be understated.
I believe this is one of the earliest examples of dinosaurs truly influencing pop culture, as Doyle was one of the most popular authors of his day, and even now, his reputation precedes him.
I have always loved what this book represents as this was a time when people were first learning that dinosaurs even existed, an entire new frontier and storytelling was opening up, but this time, it wouldn’t center around mythical creatures of folklore but would be centered around beasts that once roamed our own earth.
This book is a charming time capsule that takes me back to the dawn of a new era of fiction where ancient creatures such as dinosaurs were considered new in the public consciousness.
Originally published serially in 1912, “The Lost World” is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale of discovery and adventure. The story begins with the narrator, the curious and intrepid reporter Edward Malone, meeting Professor Challenger, a strange and brilliant paleontologist who insists that he has found dinosaurs still alive deep in the Amazon. Malone agrees to accompany Challenger, as well as Challenger’s unconvinced colleague Professor Summerlee, and the adventurer Lord John Roxton, into the wilds of South America and the Amazon in search of Challenger’s fantastical beasts. There, cut off from the rest of civilization and high atop an isolated…
What is there to say about this book that has not already been said? While the Lost World gave dinosaurs their place in the public consciousness, Jurassic Park gave them their place in modern pop culture. I have always loved this book for its many original ideas and concepts.
While it was inspired by earlier works such as The Island of Dr. Moreau and the aforementioned Lost World, it managed to combine the ideas of man manipulating nature and an untamed wilderness of prehistoric beasts seamlessly. I also appreciate how unapologetically dark and macabre the original novel was compared to the much more family-friendly movie adaptation.
This novel is an outright bloodbath and does not shy away from the absolute brutality that dinosaurs would bring to the modern age if they were somehow revived. An icon of dinosaur fiction and science fiction as a whole, this book is well deserving of its reputation as the king of dinosaurs in fiction.
'Crichton's most compulsive novel' Sunday Telegraph 'Crichton's dinosaurs are genuinely frightening' Chicago Sun-Times 'Breathtaking adventure. . . a book that is as hard to put down as it is to forget' Time Out
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The international bestseller that inspired the Jurassic Park film franchise.
On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park.
An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now one of mankind's most thrilling fantasies has come true and the first dinosaurs that the Earth has seen in the time of man emerge.
Why did I love this book? Am I allowed to just say “dinosaurs ghosts?” In all seriousness, this story uses dinosaurs in a way that very few stories have ever dared to try, that being in a supernatural horror story.
I cannot help but admire the author's commitment to this premise. The author’s impressive knowledge of actual paleontology cannot be understated. As a mental health worker myself, I also love the story’s realistic depiction of a main character working through grief and trauma.
Add all of this to a story about the ancient spirits of dinosaurs haunting a museum, and I found myself enthralled by this book from start to finish.
USA TODAY BESTSELLER 2024 ITW Thriller Award Winner Esquire “Best Horror Books of 2023” Pick
A haunted paleontologist returns to the museum where his sister was abducted years earlier and is faced with a terrifying and murderous spirit in this chilling novel.
Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt…
This story has gained a large following in the online dinosaur fan community. I admire it for its unapologetic brutality, which is not only reminiscent of the original Jurassic Park novel but also the horror/action films of the 1980s, such as Aliens and Predator.
The authors also clearly have a passion for military history, as the setting of the Vietnam War is well-researched and accurately represented. Despite the story not shying away from the sobering brutality of war, it does not shy away from the sci-fi angle, as the plot of Soviet scientists using time travel to bring dinosaurs to Vietnam is very much front and center as well.
This book will be adapted into a movie next year, which recently finished filming. I will likely revisit the book prior to the film’s release.
A search and rescue team known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. As they hunt through the primordial depths of the valley, they discover ancient horrors that not only threaten to unravel their minds, but to end their lives as well. When the casualties mount, the men of Vulture Squad must abandon their human nature and give in to their savage instincts in order to survive...the Primitive War.DISCLAIMER - This novel is set in the Vietnam War, and as such, it isn't suitable for children. There…
A commonly discussed debate among dinosaur fans is whether or not Jurassic Park was influenced in any way by this book. Not only did the Carnosaur novel predate Jurassic Park but the film adaptations of both were released only weeks apart in 1993.
Regardless, this book did many of the same things in Jurassic Park several years before Jurassic Park’s release. The novel also features an eccentric billionaire cloning dinosaurs, but what I believe truly separates both stories is the fact that while Jurassic Park is set on a remote island, Carnosaur follows a sleepy little town where the primal creatures escape to and wreak havoc.
What follows is a gruesome series of attacks and mauling that send shivers down my spine each time I revisit this story. While this book is not as highly regarded as Jurassic Park, I believe it deserves to be remembered as a piece of dinosaur history.
Nothing much ever happens in the sleepy English town of Warchester. So when a farmer is found savagely killed in some sort of animal attack, it’s a big story for local reporter David Pascal. The rich and eccentric Sir Darren Penward tells the police an escaped Siberian tiger from his private zoo is to blame, but Pascal isn’t so sure. Especially when one witness describes something impossible: an enormous and deadly creature that has been extinct for sixty million years. What exactly is Penward hiding behind the walls of his massive estate? And can Pascal uncover the truth before Penward’s…
On an island where people live alongside resurrected dinosaurs, the tourist mecca of New Archos City has been under siege from attacks by genetically mutated monsters. Fed up with her nine-to-five job and desperately wanting to protect her home, Mara Brown becomes the vigilante known as the White Death and fights back against the beasts by night.
After a chance encounter with a wounded Tyrannosaurus rex, Mara forms a bond with the creature, and the unlikely duo sets out to uncover the origins of the mutants attacking the city and protect all who live on the island.
A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself.
"A fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.”—Kirkus Reviews.
“A breathtaking, deeply dark alternate-history Earth with complex characters, layered worldbuilding, and twist after twist after twist.”—Julianna Caro, Reedsy Discovery.
Broken Mirror is the first volume in a queer psychological science fiction saga that looks at the stigma of mental illness and the hellish distrust and alienation that goes with it.
Broken Mirror: the start of a smart, complex, and imaginative cyberpunk alternate history saga. Literary science fiction from a fresh, young voice.
In a skewed mirror universe, a mentally ill young man searches for his grandfather’s killer.
Someone killed Jefferson Eastmore. His grandson Victor is sure of it, but no one believes him.
Diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome and shunned by Semiautonomous California society, Victor suffers from hyperempathy, blank outs, and sensory overload. Jefferson devoted his life to researching mental illness and curing Broken Mirrors like Victor through genetic engineering, but now that he’s gone, Victor must walk a narrow…
