Congo, cover may vary

I've been a fan of Congo since I was a kid, and even though the movie gets a lot of hate I find it very entertaining. I admire Michael Crichton as a writer, his high-concept ideas often make for an entertaining read, even if he lacks the finesse to give his work more literary merit. Congo is absolutely no exception to this rule. With large chunks of text seemingly lifted from his various sources and pasted into the novel it does confuse the narrative flow at regular intervals. I suppose this is typical of Crichton's style but he really goes overboard here.Herkermer Homolka, the character brought to life by a spirited Tim Curry, is not a creation of Crichton and his lesser qualities are a part of Karen Ross here in the novel. I guess they split the attributes to give us a justifiable kill and make Laura Linney's character more sympathetic. Ernie Hudson's character is also written as a white man ("I am your great white hunter, though I happen to be black", has an in-joke meaning within the movie) by the name of Charles Munro instead of Munro Kelly. Hudson's interpretation is better, and I chose to imagine him in my head instead of Crichton's description. I have to give the screenplay adaptation credit for streamlining a lot of the excessive detail and plot baggage though. This novel knows its final destination but spends a lot of meandering journey time getting there only to fudge the ending. Crichton writes the climax as taking place over several days! Sorry, this is an ending that should have been written to fit into an hour time span. It gets so boring toward the end that I put off reading it. I knew nothing exciting was happening and nothing would bring me back to finish it until I felt like filling up some free time between household chores and work.Congo runs at about 117,000 words when it really should have been about 80,000. Crichton pads out so much that it stops being a page-turner.

Now over 40 years old, most of the impressive-sounding technical gizmos are either laughably pathetic (who's going to drool over a computer with 128K of RAM?) or still unfeasible (translating ape noises into words - with or without the cutting-edge, ex-military software running on the aforementioned computer).Very linear and rather silly story, which rather galloped to a conclusion, as though he was under pressure to get the copy to the publisher.That said, it kept me amused for a few hours. Not as good as (the first half of) his Jurassic Park, though.

The book was in perfect condition, exactly the kind of service and quality you come to expect when buying new books on Amazon.

A great book that arrived on time and in good condition.

An enjoyable read. Not his best but still a griping and intriguing story.

I did enjoy the book, but I don't think it was anywhere close to the standard of some of the others he has written. For goodness sake don't watch the film as its really dreadful, but the book is mostly entertaining, just not quite Jurassic Park, sorry

This was for my Son who said it was an enjoyable book and had a good story line, he would recommend it. I haven't read it myself so this is all I can say.

Quick delivery and exactly as described, thank you