Congo

By: Michael Crichton

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Deep in the African rain forest, near the legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, an expedition of eight American geologists are mysteriously and brutally killed in a matter of minutes.

Ten thousand miles away, Karen Ross, the Congo Project Supervisor, watches a gruesome video transmission of the aftermath: a camp destroyed, tents crushed and torn, equipment scattered in the mud alongside dead bodies - all motionless except for one moving image - a grainy, dark, man-shaped blur.

In San Francisco, primatologist Peter Elliot works with Amy, a gorilla with an extraordinary vocabulary of 620 "signs," the most ever learned by a primate, and she likes to finger paint. But recently her behavior has been erratic and her drawings match, with stunning accuracy, the brittle pages of a Portuguese print dating back to 1642…a drawing of an ancient lost city. A new expedition - along with Amy - is sent into the Congo, where they enter a secret world, and the only way out may be through a horrifying death.....

Congo was adapted to the screen and directed by Frank Marshall.

©1980 CrichtonSun LLC (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Worth reading.

It was good just not great, I can't quite put my finger on it but it was missing something.

Narrator

I enjoyed this book a lot, the performance was actually quite good. My problem is that for me, it's difficult to hear a female narrator performing as a male, it just doesn't sound right. I compare it to my wife trying to sound like a man, she just can't do it - no matter how hard she tries. This was the same for me. I was able to finish it, and really loved it overall.

Entertaining read.

This is another case of me having watched the movie before reading the book. I loved the movie of this when I was younger and particularly loved Amy, so went into the audio hopeful!

While I thoroughly enjoyed this, I forgot how technical and bogged down in jargon Crichtons writing can be. When you get down to the story, it's fast paced and gripping, but add in all the jargon and we get a good story instead of a great one!

Julia Whelan was as good as always! I find I always enjoy her narration and this is no different. She made a great Amy and is just effortless with her storytelling.

Future technology

I really enjoyed this book. It's classic Crichton!
Something I noticed and thought was absolutely fascinating is how Crichton knew exactly where the winds of technology were blowing. Back in the late 70's most of the technology described in this book was quite futuristic, and yet some of it exists on a device in your pocket right now.

No Jurassic Park but....

Here we have a classic Micheal Crichton novel. Some very logical, reasonable sounding, revolutionary discovery has been made and something terrible goes wrong. I'm not knockin it. If it aint broke dont fix it right? I love his style of writing, very intellectual yet mysterious and intriguing. Keeps you glued to the pages (or headphones in this case) and wraps it up nice and tidy with a lil bow on top. I liked this story, I love Julia Whelan and was pleasantly surprised when i started listening that it was her narrating, i had jus gotten this book cus there was a sale and hadn't noticed who read it. She can do no wrong. But as far as the story goes like i said its a lil generic, nothing really special enough about it to earn a 5 star review but it was an enjoyable listen from start to finish and i wouldn't turn anyone away from buying. BUT if you want some good books by him and haven't read Jurassic Park or Sphere yet i would definitely recommend those 2 books before this one, in my humble opinion.

Conceptually interesting, kinda dull story telling

Crichton always delivers interesting ideas, but his scientifically intensive writing sometimes makes for a bit of a dull narrative and I think this is a classic example. It’s well worth it, just don’t expect to be riveted minute by minute.

Michael Crichton's Congo

Loved the movie as a kid, always wanted to read it, just never had the time. I'm glad I could listen to this. Julia Whelan did a great job narrating, I will keep my eyes out for other book narrated by her.

Did not age well

While the book was published in 1980, the constant focus on acronyms and technology was very boring and unneeded. The audio performance was lacking and it took me awhile to get over it. I found myself purposely ignoring several characteristics of the story so I could finish it.

Not what I expected

Too much “data.” There were parts of the book that went on and on about scientific data that bored me and almost put me to sleep while driving. When it would get back to the actual meat of the story, I was very interested. Just not what I expected. The actual storyline was good but the data giving tangents were tiresome.

A decent story

I enjoyed listening to this one. The story was simple enough but still enjoyable. Very well researched and excellent writing definitely contributed to my enjoyment.