Crichton doesn’t formally call his chapters ‘chapters’ in the same way he calls his ‘sections’ ‘iterations’ – Chapter 20 is the first of eleven chapters that have the word ‘Control’ as the title, ten of them have the title solely as ‘Control’. Crichton uses every word to immerse his reader in the book and to help them follow the action.

Just as in ‘West World’ this theme park has a central area to observe the park, and its only logical that this be a great set piece for the reader to experience the story as it unravels. Crichton uses the word ‘control’ in several contexts:

• “The control room is built to do exactly that.” Page 131
• “First, the control procedures, our animals are counted by computer every few minutes.” Page 131 – this foreshadows one of the bigger reversals of this ‘computer counting approach’ in a later chapter.

Best Writing, Quotes

“He finally decided that children liked dinosaurs because these giant creatures personified the uncontrollable force of looming authority.”

Jurassic Park, Page 134, Dr. Grant

Crichton’s writing is satisfyingly stuffed with facts, data, and insight – this chapter is full of it. We get more examples of the Famous, Famous, Fictional trope. Tim, the grandson, has read Alan Grant’s book – this is an intra-literary epistle read by a character to establish credibility. In a flashback we see Nedry deduce that his software specs must be written around DNA, as that is the only field with such great demand for data.

The facts always arrive right on time to save the day, which is why Ian Malcolm’s skeptical world view works so well. All it takes is for one fact to not arrive and all the plans for the park will collapse. If the dinosaurs can’t breed, then it is clear they can be contained – if they can breed, then there is a much greater security requirement.

Page by Page Highlights, Quotes

“He smiled, “at one time, I thought I had more than twenty species. But now only fifteen.” – Page 129, Dr. Wu responds to Ian Malcolm’s questions

“And in the sixty million years since dinosaurs disappeared, apparently the bacteria that specialize in breaking down their feces disappeared, too.” – Page 130, Dr. Wu

“First, the control procedures: our animals are counted by computer every few minutes.” – Dr. Wu, Page 131

“One of the things the island doesn’t have is a good harbor, or even a good dock.” Page 132, Ed Regis

• Regis, despite being a key character in the novel, is not in the movie.
• A Reddit thread highlights that he was given many of Gennaro’s traits from the book.

“The velociraptors haven’t been integrated into the park setting just yet.” – page 133, Ed Regis

“He finally decided that children liked dinosaurs because these giant creatures personified the uncontrollable force of looming authority.” Page 134, Dr. Grant

“They can’t need all this just for a resort,” Malcolm said.” – Page 135 – More foreshadowing as the power is needed to keep the electric fences running to contain the dinosaurs.

“Only then did the animal attack, leaping up to strike the fence at chest level.” Page 136 – One raptor created a distraction, two attacked, then a third attacker waited for the rebound to test the strength of the electric fence.

“From beginning to end the entire attack could not have taken more than six seconds.” – Page 137

“It’s actually rather close to what paleontologists believed a long time ago.” – Page 138, Dr. Grant

“So I wonder: have they learned, somewhere along the line, that humans are easy to kill?” – Page 139, Malcolm to Grant.

• Here the reader knows something that the Jurassic Park evaluators do not yet know.
• In ‘Prologue: The Bite of the Raptor” we saw a man die.

“In any case,” Malcolm said, “I shall be extremely interested to see the control room now.” – Page 140, Ian Malcolm