Vimal Thiagarajan's Reviews > Congo

A seriously good techno-thriller which had me wondering for the most part. Of course, it being written in the eighties not all of the technology that Crichton uses to construct the story are still relevant, but their canny placement in the narrative to resolve tangles or deliver surprise twists was simply too neat. The characters where typical thriller material - not sufficiently developed, but not boring either. Amy the talking Gorilla simply stood out, and I learned a good deal about the tropical rain forests of the Congo.

My only gripes with the book were to do with a few logical loopholes - (view spoiler)[the logistics devised for landing the second team in Congo without anyone noticing wasn't convincing, Elliot's reason to take Amy to the Congo wasn't sound enough, the Gorilla trance during the final attack on listening to the recording was simply laughable (hide spoiler)]

The 5-page reference section at the end of the book linking his hundreds of references to particular paragraphs in the book simply flattened me. A bonus stunner came when I read in the internet that (view spoiler)[in 2004, scientists discovered a new freakin ape species in the Congo for real as Crichton had postulated! (hide spoiler)] If this is one of his least popular thrillers, I just can't wait to pick up his other ones.