It’s probably more like 3.5* but I liked enough things that I decided to round up! It’s less interesting and tight than Jurassic Park but still quite a fun book. I especially liked the dynamics between Harding and Kelly, which was surprisingly refreshing.

What made Jurassic Park so effective was in the build up in the first 40% it was using the info dump of science it was actually introducing the variables of failure for how the park would fail and the problems the characters experience during the thriller aspects.

In this book, there’s even more setup and it doesn’t do that. It puts forth an interesting question focusing on the gaps in our understanding regarding evolution, sure. But that doesn’t build the same sense of anticipation and satisfaction when the variables become pertinent to survival in the first one. Especially since the question put forth about evolution is unanswerable.

Still. It’s fun when it gets going and I liked some of the new characters. Some twists and the scientific underpinnings are still interesting, just falls short of how fantastic the original was (imo).