Welcome to week two of the discussion of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton! Our characters get to see a bit more of the park and a bunch more dinosaurs, but it soon becomes clear that there is more going on behind the scenes than anyone realised. We’re also now in the sections where the chapter names start repeating (my nerves!)

I talked a bit about spoilers in last week’s discussion, so this week I’ll make it shorter and link to r/bookclub’s spoiler policy. Please don’t discuss the movie as not everybody has seen it; we’ll have a specific discussion about the book vs film on 23rd July (the full schedule is here)

Section summary

Third iteration: “Details emerge more clearly as the fractal curve is re-drawn” – Ian Malcolm

Jurassic Park

Alan Grant cannot wait to see the dinosaurs up close and inspect everything about them. He realises it can answer a lot of questions still being debated in palaeontology, such as whether dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded, and also completely change his field of study. He wonders where InGen got the dinosaur DNA, as the process of fossilisation destroys the majority of DNA.

At the swimming pool, Ed Regis points out huge ferns which are authentic to the Jurassic period. Ellie notes that Serenna veriformans (a fictional plant made up for the book) is found in Brazil and Colombia, but whoever chose it as a poolside plant must not know that it is super toxic. In his room at the Safari Lodge, Alan notices that there are extra bars on the windows that were not in the construction plans he and Ellie saw. Ellie says they’ve turned the Safari Lodge into a fortress.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Before starting a tour of Jurassic Park, Gennaro tells Grant, Sattler and Malcolm that the main question he wants answered is whether or not the island is safe. He mentions Alan’s identification of the live procompsognathus specimen from the Cabo Blanco beach, as well as data from Costa Rica’s medical system showing an increase in lizards attacking children and the elderly. Malcolm says it’s obvious that dinosaurs have gotten off the island, and that it would be impossible to re-create a natural environment and keep the animals isolated from the rest of the world. Hammond gets pissed off about this and leaves the room. They hear a helicopter approach.

Outside, Gennaro is furious to find out that Hammond has invited his two grandchildren to the island, as this visit is an inspection rather than a social outing. Hammond retorts that it’s his island and he can invite whoever he wants. Gennaro insists that they go back on the helicopter, but it has already left. The children are an eleven-year-old boy called Tim and an eight-year-old girl called Alexis or Lex.

The Tour

Tim notices immediately that there is tension in the group of adults. He is really interested in dinosaurs and recognises Alan Grant, as he has his book ’Lost World of the Dinosaurs’. Lex states that their father thinks dinosaurs are stupid and that Tim should play more sports. Their parents are getting divorced, which is why their grandfather invited them to the island for the weekend.

Ed Regis is really annoyed that he has been ordered to babysit these kids all weekend, despite being head of public relations and having a lot of work to do before the park opens. He leads the group to the control room, noting that the entire park can be run with just 20 people. They see John Arnold, the chief engineer, and Robert Muldoon, the park warden who is a famous white hunter from Nairobi.

In the laboratory, they meet Dr Henry Wu, the chief geneticist. He tells them that they have got some dinosaur DNA directly from bones, but this is just a backup and the majority comes from amber containing insects that had bitten dinosaurs before being trapped in tree sap. In fact, dinosaur DNA is easier to extract this way compared to mammalian DNA as dinosaurs had nucleated red cells, similar to modern birds; this is one of many indications that dinosaurs are related to birds.

In the next room, powerful computers are used to identify the extracted DNA and cut any fragmented or incomplete parts of the DNA sequence, then insert replacement fragments. They only look at the sections of the DNA strand that vary between animals. Alan asks how the scientists know which animal’s DNA they have, and Wu tells them they just grow it and find out what it is.

Denis Nedry had suspected that InGen was doing something like this. He was contracted to create the ambitious computer systems for the park without being given any details, and now that the system is running it is full of bugs, and he was brought to the island to fix them.

The group visits the fertilisation room, then the hatchery, which currently has 150 eggs representing new DNA extractions. The survival rate of the hatched animals is around 0.4%. He says there are around 300 genera of dinosaurs known so far (these days, there are more like 1,300). Next, they visit the nursery, where they see a Velociraptor mongoliensis that’s about six weeks old. It leaps over Alan’s head into Tim’s arms (the forked tongue is probably not correct btw). Dr Wu tells them there are two precautions taken so the dinosaurs can’t breed; they are irradiated with X-rays to make them sterile, and all the animals are bred to be female. Alan examines the baby velociraptor but upsets the animal, and Ed tells him that the dinosaurs are delicate and often die of stress in infancy. Tim comforts the velociraptor.

Control

Malcolm asks Wu about how many species they have created at Jurassic Park, and whether procompsognathus was one of them. Wu affirms that they have made a large number of them, which he calls compys. Apparently there are no insects in the island ecosystem to eat the sauropod faeces, but the compys will eat it and redigest it. Malcolm asks if a compy could have escaped the island, but Wu says it’s not possible due to the park’s control systems – they are counted by computer every five minutes, the mainland is over 100 miles away by sea, and the animals are engineered to be unable to manufacture the amino acid lysine, meaning if they aren’t given special tablets they will go into a coma and die within 12 hours (note – no animals, including humans, synthesise lysine; we actually get it from our diets. It is also commonly added to animal feed as it is important for growth).

They go back to the control room, but it coincides with the period every two weeks when the supply ship is docking, so they have to wait. In the meantime, Alan, Ellie, Malcolm and Tim go to see the adult velociraptors in their holding pen. Alan notes that they are pack hunters and probably more intelligent than most dinosaurs. They pass a huge generator/power plant, and an enclosure full of goats to be fed to the dinosaurs.

At the velociraptor pen, they see one of the raptors standing eerily still in the ferns, watching and stalking them. Suddenly, two more raptors appear to the right and left, clearing the distance to the fence unbelievably quickly and leaping high into the air before hitting the electric fence. The animals fall backwards, and then the first one attacks the fence at chest height. Tim screams. The velociraptors retreat, and watch them from the foliage. A park worker runs up to them to check if they’re ok, as all the alarms had gone off. He tells them to be glad for that fence. The incredible, cheetah-like speed of the velociraptors reminds Alan of a cassowary, a flightless bird from New Guinea. Malcolm asks if this coordinated attack behaviour was expected, and if they would have killed and eaten the group. He notes that animals like lions and tigers aren’t born man-eaters, but learn it, which may suggest that the velociraptors have learned that humans are easy to kill.

Version 4.4

Wu visits Hammond at his bungalow and tells him that the group accepted his explanations. He suggests that they create a new version of the dinosaurs, designated version 4.4, to replace the ones currently in the park. He thinks the dinosaurs are faster than they are prepared to handle, and that visitors may not like the dinosaurs being so quick, so it could be better to breed slowed-down versions. Hammond dismisses this, saying he wants the real thing, but Wu thinks they’re not real dinosaurs anyway because they are re-created and genetically engineered. Hammond will not consider the idea though, and no longer listens to Wu as he has the dinosaurs he wants.

Control

Back in the control room, John Arnold tells them about the control mechanisms in place at the park, such as animal tracking overlaid on a map, which is accurate to within five feet and updates every 30 seconds. Motion sensors and video recognition, which cover 92% of the park, keep visual tabs on the dinosaurs. A category tally counts the animals in all categories every 15 minutes, which is a separate counting procedure to the tracking data. Arnold claims the computer cannot make a mistake, because there are two ways they account for every dinosaur on the island. A few dinosaurs have died and each time the computer alerted them within five minutes. Alan feels irritated by the computers and their very existence, and hates the idea of dinosaurs being numbered like software releases.

There are also physical containment barriers, such as moats and electric fences, to keep the dinosaurs where they are supposed to be. Malcolm asks, hypothetically, what would happen if a dinosaur did get out, and Muldoon tells them that they have nonlethal methods such as tasers, electrified nets and tranquilizers. If one got off the island, it would die as they can’t survive in the real world. Nobody can hack the control system via modem either, as it is not connected to any outside networks. Arnold admits they have problems, but they’re all to do with the dinosaurs being fragile and nobody having experience in caring for them. He mentions the vets cleaning the Tyrannosaurus rex’s teeth and I want to know more about that, but we get sidetracked into talking about mechanical systems. Arnold says the whole park can be run from the control room, and the computer can look after the animals without supervision for up to 48 hours. Denis Nedry is working at a computer terminal, eating chocolate again because Michael Crichton doesn’t want us to forget that Nedry is fat.

Malcolm asks about population data, and Arnold shows him a graph of procompsognathid height which seems to be normal. However, Malcolm says the normality of the graph proves that the population is NOT normal, and that animals have escaped from the island, and it’s a matter of everyone’s assumptions.

The Tour

Ed Regis shepherds the group to electric Toyota Land Cruisers for the park tour, and they each receive a Jurassic Park branded safari hat. The cars are connected by intercom, and Ed and the kids can hear Gennaro complaining about Malcolm’s cryptic comments and the fact the children are there at all. The guided tour in the cars is voiced by Richard Kiley, and Ed tells them they “spared no expense”. (Richard Kiley is the voice of the vehicle tour in the book, the film and the Universal Studios ride)

The first dinosaur habitat they visit is the hypsilophodonts, but the dinosaur is not visible. However, they see othnielias in the trees. A pre-recorded mating call finally gets the attention of the hypsilophodontids.

Control

In the control room, Arnold and Muldoon express concerns to Hammond about problems in the park. Arnold is nervous about the first visitor tour, and knows it can take years to work out bugs in park rides, but Hammond dismisses him as a worrier. Arnold points out that this park is unique in having all the problems of a major amusement park, a major zoo and in caring for new animals that nobody has tried to maintain before. He notes several unexpected problems, like tyrannosaurs getting sick from drinking lagoon water, triceratops females fighting for dominance, stegosaurs getting blisters on their tongues, hypsilophodonts getting rashes, and the velociraptors being vicious. Muldoon thinks the velociraptors should all be destroyed. Arnold adds that the Jungle River Ride was delayed by dilophosaurs, and the pterodactyls are unpredictable. Hammond thinks that once the engineering works, the animals will fall into place because they’re trainable.

Hammond tells Nedry he should have got the computer system right in the first place, but Arnold knows there’s no point in antagonising Nedry when he’s working. The bug list is extensive; Nedry had thought he could fix it all himself in a weekend, but when he saw the list he went pale, and called his full team to say they needed to work overtime all weekend to sort it out. He is also using all the phone links to the mainland for the transfer of program data. Arnold has a window on his own monitor so he can see what Nedry is doing.

Back to the tour, the group see the aviary in the distance, which is still under construction. Passing over a river, they see a group of dilophosaurs, which the tour says they now know to be poisonous. Tim wishes he could stop the car, but everything is automatic. The group sees triceratops, which is my favourite, and Lex is annoyed that they’re not doing anything interesting. The next stop is Tyrannosaurus rex.

Big Rex

The vehicles stop at the rise of a hill, looking down into a forested area as they wait to see the tyrannosaurus. Ed mentions that the dinosaur is shy, and that you rarely see her in the open as she sunburns easily. A cage containing a live goat rises from the ground to draw the T-rex out.

Muldoon is still concerned about how dangerous the park is; he finds the work interesting, but he has an unromantic view of the animals, unlike Jurassic Park management. He thinks some of them are too dangerous to be kept in a park. Nobody knew the dilophosaurs could spit venom up to 50 feet until one of the handlers was nearly blinded, and the vets had no luck in removing the poison sacs as they couldn’t figure out where it was secreted; park management wouldn’t allow them to kill a valuable dinosaur to find out. The velociraptors are also a major concern; they are strong runners, astonishing jumpers, highly intelligent and are natural cage-breakers. One had escaped and killed two construction workers and maimed a third (I guess the patient we saw in the prologue) before they managed to capture it. Following this, the bars were added to the visitor lodge windows, along with barred gates and high perimeter fence.

Muldoon had requested guns, but park management didn’t want any on the island. As a compromise, they agreed to have two specially built laser-guided missile launchers, but they would be kept in a locked room in the basement and only Muldoon has keys. He goes downstairs to get the missile launchers, and Nedry asks him to get him a Coke, in case we have forgotten that he’s fat.

At the tyrannosaurus habitat, the goat bleats and tugs at its tether. The tour group smell a scent of decay, and see the enormous dinosaur in the trees. It springs forward silently, kills the goat and looks at the cars. She eats the goat in front of them, instead of dragging it into the cover of the trees. Gennaro wipes his forehead, looking pale.

Control

Hammond hears the tour group discussing the potential consequences of the tyrannosaurus escaping, and complains that they are all too negative. Wu is also confused as to why they keep asking about animal escape, as they have seen the control systems they have in place at the park. He believes the park is fundamentally sound, as his palaeo-DNA is fundamentally sound, and is offended that anyone would think such a thing could happen. Hammond thinks Malcolm is behind all the negativity, and will frighten the investors.

Muldoon puts a rocket launcher and canisters into a jeep, one of two vehicles on the island that runs on gasoline. Some thunder rumbles in the distance.

Near the sauropod swamp, the recorded tour notes that despite what the books say, brontosaurs avoid swamps and prefer dry land (younger readers may not know this, but for a long time people thought that sauropods needed to be submerged in water to support their weight). Ed tells Lex that brontosaurus is the biggest dinosaur, and Tim thinks to himself that it’s actually the seismosaurus. The tour recording tells them again that dinosaurs at Jurassic Park can’t breed; the young animals were introduced already hatched, and the adults take care of them anyway.

The thunder intensifies, and the tour resumes. Tim sees a pale yellow animal with brown stripes moving quickly, and shouts to stop the car as he saw a raptor. The car cannot go back, however, as it’s an automated tour. Ed tells him he couldn’t have seen a raptor, but Malcolm asks how old it looked. Tim says it was medium sized, bigger than the baby in the nursery but about half the size of the adults. Ed says it must have been an othnielia as they’re always jumping the fences (… I thought the fences were supposed to be foolproof?) Lex starts whining that she’s hungry.

In the control room, Arnold and Wu discuss what Tim said, and also conclude it was an othnielia. Hammond is upset that the first visitors to the park are going through it like accountants, looking for problems, but isn’t that why they’re actually there? They get a call from the supply ship at the dock, requesting permission to leave before the storm hits even though they haven’t finished unloading the supplies. Hammond says they need the equipment, but Arnold points out that he wouldn’t build a proper storm barrier to protect the pier, so there is no good harbour, and it would be expensive to pay for the ship if it gets wrecked. Hammond dismissively gives permission for the ship to leave.

Stegosaur

In the south fields, which has more volcanic activity, they see a sick stegosaurus being treated by Dr Harding, the park vet. The dinosaur has vertical armour plates on its back and its tail has dangerous-looking spikes (these tail spikes are called thagomizers; the name comes from a Far Side cartoon, and because they did not previously have a name it was gradually adopted by palaeontologists). The tour group leaves the cars, and the vet tells them that the stegosaurs get sick every six weeks. Ellie notices a toxic plant called West Indian lilac, but the vet says the dinosaurs definitely don’t eat it. However, she finds some small piles of smooth pebbles nearby and realises the stegosaurs are swallowing stones to use as gizzard stones, and are inadvertently swallowing berries at the same time which are making them sick.

Malcolm says the sick dinosaur is also predicted by chaos theory, and also points out that the environment is unsuitable for the dinosaurs as the air, solar radiation, land, insects and vegetation are all different the time period they are adapted to. He adds that the park cannot contain the animals, as the history of evolution shows that life escapes all barriers.

Alan examines the gizzard stones, and finds the shell of a velociraptor egg; he recognises the pattern of the shell from his palaeontological dig in Montana.

Bookclub Bingo 2023 categories: Sci-fi (grey), Discovery Read, A Book Written in the 1990s, Horror

Trigger warnings: Storygraph users have marked the book with the following trigger warnings: Death, gore, blood, animal death, fatphobia, sexism

Other potentially useful links:

• Discussion schedule
• Marginalia
• The first discussion
• Michael Crichton on Wikipedia
• Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
• The Atlantic: The Scientist Who Stumbled Upon a Tick Full of 20-Million-Year-Old Blood
• Scientific American: How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds

The discussion questions are in the comments below.

Join us for the next discussion on Sunday 2nd July, when we talk about Third Iteration: Control (The chapter beginning with “Absolutely absurd,” Hammond said in the control room) to Fourth Iteration: Control (The chapter ending with Get him off this island)