eBook The Lost World ePub

Was expecting some relation between this book and the movie, but I was wrong. The book could be concidered a completely different situation and story from the movie. Sure some characters are the same and equipment might be the same but everything else is different in a good way. The book makes it seem if you've watched the movie you'll know what to expect in the book. Not here! The author keeps it interesting till the end. Glad I read the book after seeing the movie or I would not have liked the movie. I only knocked one star off because of the over explaining of certain things that don't contribute to much.

This classic by Arthur Conan Doyle was a favorite of mine growing up, and I wanted to buy a nice paperback copy for my daughter who likes both science and fantasy novels. I did not pay much attention to which of several available editions to pick, liked the cover photo of this one because it does not spoil the reader's discovery of what sort of creatures the "lost world" contains, and figured that there was little any publisher could do to mar the text of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Doyle's text is indeed intact and despite being written over a hundred years ago will, I think, still appeal to a young reader today. But, I nonetheless feel swindled. SaltHeartPublishers (whose website says it is based in the "beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia" and that it aims "to provide the public with quality reading material and bring attention to literary works relevant to our times") seems to have little notion of what a normal book looks like. I am not a lawyer, and there are evidently legal issues relevant here, but I have difficulty understanding why a book might have to be printed without the slightest explanation of prior publication (all it says in the inside cover is "This work resides in the public domain," though there is a rather cryptic and unexplained year printed beneath the author's name on the title page), and the publisher's location is not mentioned anywhere in the book. An odd note on the inside back cover says it was "Made in the USA, San Bernardino, CA").

It took me scarcely a minute on-line to figure out why this "book" appears in the form it does. They have copy-pasted exactly what is available for free on Project Gutenberg. For my extra $8 plus shipping I got that free text in a paperback book form. It otherwise resembles no self-respecting book I have ever seen. The Project Gutenberg formatted table of contents looks ghastly in a book. There are no spaces between the chapter names, which are capitalized, in quotes, underlined, and in exactly the same Gutenberg typewriter font. The paragraphs in the book text itself are set apart not by indentation but by spaces, "business letter" style. It looks very weird. I would gladly have paid double the price I did to get a real book. I am not even sure I want to give this to my daughter now, but living in Central Europe it is hard to find English language books, and summer vacation looms.

I have been a satisfied Amazon customer since the company began in the late 1990s, but have learned an important lesson with this experience. This not the first instance I have encountered here what you see being NOT what you get, only the most disappointing. Amazon evidently does not vet what it sells. In the future, I will be more wary of buying a book on Amazon from an unknown publisher that does not offer the "look inside" function. Amazon offers services that few bookstores could hope to match, and my regard for the company's overall book sales function remains high, but it is clear to me now that continued competition from bookstores serves a very valuable quality control purpose.

For no apparent reason I had overlooked reading this book, written by one of my favorite authors. I have only read his Sherlock Holmes series (over and over, I might add) and was pleasantly surprised by The Lost World.

Professor Challenger is a ridiculed scientist with a tenacious narcissistic streak a mile wide. A young newsman trying to make a mark for himself by casting in his lot with the professor. Together with a big game hunter and a skeptical scientist (a foil to Challenger) they travel to South America to find a Jurassic plateu hidden in the Amazon. Adventure, dinosaurs, ape men, and a petulant girlfriend all appear in due order. Well worth the read, and holds up well despite the various movie treatments.

Now to the illustrations. These are not worth the additional cost. I'm not even sure what they are supposed to be, as most of them seem to have zero relevance to the text and are NOT Doyle's original drawings. They appear to be stylized (read: software manipulated) stock photos as far as I can tell, but the quality is so poor that it is impossible to be certain. On the other hand, the text formatting of this illustrated version is quite good.

Very enjoyable read, from a fascinating period of history when adventure could still be found in far away places.

This was a real grabber! The characters were beautifully crafted and believable. Any age group would be into this. I saw the movie first and unfortunately it didn't do the book justice. I know that they always change the characters but in the end, it Lost the World. There is so much more to the story, I'm glad I got around to reading it. Very enjoyable!
Thanks Michael Crichton

I had seem the movie, somehow did not realize who the author was. Decided to investigate, and the book was much better than the screen version.

Having watched the movie and not read the book I found the book to be so much better than the movie adaptation which really isn't even similar. Crichton's books are so fun, but make you feel like you are reading something education that will make you smarter. Malcolm is a much more satisfying character in the books.

Aside from the length, (I wished it were longer), any fan of adventure and storytelling would enjoy this tale. The characters and their experience in a lost prehistoric amazon jungle invite the reader into a dangerously wild yet often comedic experience. Written in narrative form, this story presents itself as though you are reading a diary however it's easy to imagine hearing it being told around a campfire. The Lost World has every aspect of an excellent story, omitting the fluff and sticking to the meat and potatoes, with plenty of excitement and comic relief to keep the pages turning. I am a novice reader however I couldn't help but sit back and enjoy, always awaiting the impending doom that I was sure would befall the extravagant and memorable characters. Would recommend to anyone.

It's sad to know that preserved DNA can not be used to bring back real dinosaurs. These were made real enough for me, though, and maybe we'll reverse engineer them using birds. Either way, this was just the right blend of realism and fantasy that I needed as a 7th grader to captivate my interest and love of dinosaurs. Now as an adult, things make more and less sense, but I am still amazed about how vividly I can experience this lost world.