Safety in a corporate setting is a complex topic. Is the product safe? Are workers safe? How is safety defined? At what cost have we removed too much risk and the product cannot be produced at a reasonable price? In what scenarios can a business rep and warrant a product can be safely used?

Safety is an ever present conversation in corporate culture, meetings, and reports – but it is a unique topic in literature. It is a unique segue chosen by Crichton to broach this plot. The group has been assembled to evaluate the safety of an inherently unsafe idea. The idea is so unsafe that the Ian Malcolm character seems to exist to repeat to the reader over and over, “there is no way this can ever be safe.” Malcolm may use sophisticated mathematics as his language, but he was a one professor Greek chorus repeating about the risks the group is about to encounter.

Gennaro (the character who is killed on a toilet by a Tyrannasaurus rex in the movie) talks to the group assembled in the ‘visitor building’ on the island. Picture a room that should be found at Disney’s EPCOT – but the topic is instead the children attacked by dinosaurs in the pages of First Iteration.

Best Writing, Quotes

“Is it safe for visitors, and is it safely containing the dinosaurs?”

Gennaro to the group, Page 103

This is a sincere question that anyone who has encountered a corporate board meeting can picture being asked. The best lawyers retain other lawyers who go on a fact-finding mission, with an expectation of a ‘Findings Memo’ to be written after the fact. Crichton is piling deadlines on top of deadlines, and intrigue on top of intrigue. Hammond must launch the park, Grant must secure more funding for his digs. InGen is crazy, but Biosyn is crazier. Nobody should trust big IT projects, but a crooked IT consultant will break any project.

How can anything ever be safe in a world with this much confusion and chaos?

Page by Page Highlights, Quotes

“There was a small auditorium dominated by a robot Tyrannosaurus rex, poised mancingly by the entrance to an exhibit area labeled WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH.” – Page 102

“Is it safe for visitors, and is it safely containing the dinosaurs?” Gennaro to the group, Page 103

“I direct your attention to two features of this graph,” Gennaro said. – Page 104. Crichton uses graphs and visuals in his story telling.

“That is characteristic of many complex systems.” Malcolm to Gennaro on Page 105 as he interprets the graph.

“Such isolation is impossible,” Malcolm said flatly. “It simply cannot be done.” Page 106 – Malcolm points out that the park is more akin to a ‘spaceship on Earth’ than it is to a zoo.

“This is a safe place,” Hammond said, “no matter what that damn mathematician is saying -” Page 107, Gennaro gets upset as he realizes Hammond’s grandchildren have come to join them on their safety audit.

“Their parents are getting a divorce and I want them to have a fun weekend here.” Page 108 – Hammond justifies the children joining them.