Terrifying Chaos

This was my first Crichton novel and it spellbound me. The whole plot was like a constant roller coaster of chaos. The characters--all a part of a gigantic complicated and

genetically harmful web--are briefly identified for the most part, but Crichton's goal is to inform, to shock, to create a dizzying effect that makes the reader feel troubled. Genetic mutations and animal-hybrids culminate into one thing--power; this is what drives most of the characters. Similar to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the lesson here is cautionary: Do Not Play God. I don't agree with Crichton's take on evolution or that the world is millions of years old, but thankfully his focus was more on the upset of what can happen when we disregard nature in its original form and try to manipulate it according to our desires, resembling a terrifying Hitler-eugenics world.