Sud666's Reviews > Congo

Congo was written in 1980 by Michael Crichton. With a few, very minor details (such as gushing over how awesome it is to have a comuter with 256K memory) this is a tale that reads very well to this day.

In 1979, due to the increasing demands of the computer industry there were a large number of companies that were seeking to find industrial grade diamonds, as opposed to the jewelry type of diamonds. Specifically they were looking for Type IIb boron-coated blue diamonds used to build a variety of chips and circuit boards. Unfortunately, the place to find these diamonds is in the Congo. Specifically in the drainage basin of the Congo River, close to Zaire.

The company in the story (ERTS) sends in a site team that records some success in possibly finding a good mining source for these diamonds. This could potentially be worth billions. But, the last transmission from the team was very strange. It showed a destroyed camp and a grainy, unfocused image of what seemed like either a man or a primate of some sort. But no one is sure what it is exactly, until someone clears up the image and finds what looks like a gray furred gorilla. The problem is no gorilla has ever exhibited the behavior of the one in the image and there are no gray furred gorillas. So the second ERTS field team is put in touch with Dr. Elliott of U.C. Berkeley, a leading Primatologist. Dr. Elliot works with a juvenile female gorilla named Amy. Amy is able to communicate through Sign Language. Dr. Elliott, Amy and Dr. Ross (the ERTS lead) travel to Africa to first recruit their guide- a skilled guide/mercenary known as Capt. Munro.
As the story develops, we go through a variety of trouble from competing firms, civil wars, rebels, cannibals and hostile tribes. Yet, as the story develops we find that there might be something to these rumors of "something" in the deep jungle. It seems that a long time ago there was a fabled lost city-Zinj. Yet something or someone killed the last 8 man team sent in. Now the ERTS team must use Amy and Dr. Elliott's expertise to try to figure out what was on that video tape and what killed the last team. I will not spoil the story for you and this is one that is worth reading yourself to find out what is going on.

As usual, Crichton is able to seamlessly blend in science and action and great characters to create a wonderfully engrossing story. Full of fascinating information such as a a historical background of exploration in the Congo region, to the variety of primates and tribes that abound in the region, as well as fascinating details about how Primate Research, especially focusing on gorillas, works. I had no idea about some of the ways in which Primatologists interpreted and communicated with gorillas. The story is fast paced and the characters of Capt Munro, Amy and Dr. Elliott steal the show.

While this isn't quite the novel that Jurassic Park or Lost World was, this is still a great read. Crichton is engaging and as always-he knows his stuff. From biology and ecology to primatology and geology. This is science presented in easy to understand terms, but is no less fascinating for that reason. If you are looking for a book that's 1 part action adventure, 1 part science information and 1 part murder mystery-then this is for you. Of course, if you are a Crichton fan you will enjoy this one quite a bit. Just ignore the computer terms used-this is from 1980 and it is safe to say that numbers like 128k and 256K do not engender gasps of astonishment anymore. If they do, it is for the opposite reason than what was expressed in 1980.