Book Review | Dragon Teeth

 

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books of all-time. I can't even count the number of times I read it from middle school on up. I can't count the number of times we played Jurassic Park as kids in the neighborhood (I was ALWAYS Ellie), re-enacting the movie over and over and over.

Crichton's passing saddened me greatly, because we lost a fantastic writer who always kept me on the edge of my seat. I have yet to meet a Crichton book I haven't liked. This was no exception.

Dragon Teeth was published in 2017, nearly a decade after Crichton's death. Compared to other books I have read by authors who passed during the writing, editing, or revising process, this felt 100% Crichton, 100% of the time.

It is really weird to think about the heyday of dinosaur fossil discoveries happening in the Wild West, two things that seem incredibly incompatible. Crichton has blended fact and fiction together so perfectly and it absolutely wonderful. I would even say comforting, because to be able to read one of his novels years after he passed away was just that, comforting. Luckily, it was also a fast-paced and entertaining read that had be hooked from start to finish.

The story takes place in 1876. Everything that comes to mind when one thinks of the time and the place, complete with goldrush towns and Native American tribes at war with one another. There are cameos by Western figures we know so well, gunfights and the like. This is a western novel through and through. But in the midst of all of that, two paleontologists are also at war - with one another. The rivalry between the two men takes center stage as they race to collect as many specimens as possible.

Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were real men, real paleontologists who battled one another for scientific supremacy. The men spent years and fortunes spying and sabotaging  in order to come out on top.

The only character who seems to be completely a product of Crichton's imagination is William Johnson. He is a rich, spoiled, lazy young man attending Yale and ends up out West on a bet that he can't survive the summer on an expedition with Marsh. In terms of survival, this is initially simply a nod to whether or not he will last out West of if he comes home early. As the adventure deepens, it becomes a literal fight for survival as Johnson has to contend with all the dangers surrounding him in addition to the dangers that Marsh and Cope's men are to one another. It certainly doesn't help Johnson when Marsh becomes convinced that Cope sent Johnson to spy on his own activities, and all kinds of intrigue ensues.

I picked this one up for a couple reasons. First, of course, dinosaurs. Secondly, I knew the history between Marsh and Cope and was excited to see what Crichton could do with such fantastic material. As I read, I found myself forgetting this was, in fact, very very true in so much of the story. The two men were larger than life and HATED one another. They did whatever they could to sabotage one another, and their plots often worked. Crichton packs so much into the story here, and even then one must remember that the rivalry was so intense and there is so much left out, simply because Crichton could easily have doubled the length of the book in recounting all the ways in which the rivalry was incredibly intense and downright dangerous.

All in all, this is absolutely brilliant. Crichton at his finest. Highly recommended.