Better than Jurassic Park!

Don't be put off by the average at best 1995 movie, the book has plenty of story lines not included in the film, plus an excellent presentation. 5*

4 people found this helpful

Stop Eating My Sesame Cake!

Early '80s reboot of the Boy's Own adventure yarn from that giant of the Top Gear blockbuster, Michael Crichton. Here, competing consortiums race to secure a priceless source of blue diamonds in the steaming jungle heart of Africa. Mercenaries, cannibals and witch-doctors lurk behind every baobab tree. Amy the signing gorilla paints the fabled City of Zinj and struggles with heights. There is a volcano; it does erupt.
I have a genuine fondness for the dopey, good-natured film adaptation of this novel: an unabashed z-movie piece of nonsense that is elevated by one of the most moving scenes in cinematic history ("Stop. Eating. My Sesame. Kek!"). Sadly, neither Delroy Lindo nor Tim Curry's devious Romanian "philanthropist," Herkemer Homolka, feature in the actual novel and it is much the poorer for it.
In fact, for all the action-adventure tropes, 'Congo' is surprisingly dry. Crichton appears to have been a writer who did not believe in the footnote, instead padding out his word count with large, undigested tracts of research. At one point I suddenly realised that I had been listening to a potted history of the home computer for the previous ten years! It made me genuinely angry. Despite this sort of thing, Crichton was an enormously successful novelist, so his brand of buccaneering didacticism must have resonated with a lot of people; to me, however, it just felt like there was a straight-ahead romp struggling to breathe beneath the excess of man-facts (and, of course, there was: it was 'King Solomon's Mines').
Happily, Julia Whelan's narration is excellent throughout and kept me onboard with the signifying monkey, all the way to the rather perfunctory conclusion.

3 people found this helpful

Sci-fi greatness considering it's from 1980

I enjoyed this book, I have always loved Michael Crichton and this book is very much like his other novels.
As others mention there is A LOT of science and technological jargon in this book (too much perhaps?) but reading this in 2020, with the book being 40 years old, its staggering how much of the predictions in the book have come true and for that reason alone I also (mostly) enjoyed the science bits too, though the action and wildlife bits were by far my favorite part of the book.
I, however, did not enjoy the narration all the time, when she is narrating the storyline and the female character it's perfectly fine, but for some reason she gives all the male characters a drawling, stupid voice, almost like they are high or half asleep or just unintelligent, which doesn't match the storyline, and most male characters have same voice, which means I lost track of who was talking sometimes. ,
Overall good and I enjoyed it..

2 people found this helpful

Classic Crichton

A very good novel excellently read by Julia Whelan. Whilst this is certainly not among Crichton's best novel it is by no means the worst, and a must for Crichton's fans.

1 person found this helpful

Silly but fun

One has to suspend a lot of disbelief, but it's worth it for the fun story. I'd give this 3.5 stars if possible. Certainly one of Crichton's weaker books, but he still writes well.

The narration was top notch.

Amazing loved every second

Absolutely loved this book. A fantastic mix of action, natural science and technology! Would recommend to anyone.

I loved it 😻 fav book

I loved it fav book 🤣📚
could not stop listening 🎧😅
it was soo good. , 💯 persent recommend.

Enjoyed the film wanted to hear the book

The film was fun so thought the audio book would be too, I think I prefer the book version. The person reading it is a bit of a boring robot but the story makes up for it.

I will still listen to it again some day

Very good

Really enjoyable. I wanted to read this as I enjoyed the film and although the basis for the film is here, there do seem to be quite a number of differences. Still fun though.

Great fun

Having worked my way, rather slowly, through Michael Crichton's works, Congo was one I've been eyeing up as a potential 'home run'. With that in mind, I put myself off reading it for a while and am wishing I'd gotten to it sooner. 

Congo is utterly charming as a novel. The level of connection the reader gets with Amy, the gorilla capable of speech (through American Sign Language), and the bond she shares with the human (Peter) responsible for her training is a wonderful one. Crichton does an excellent job of getting across just how intelligent not only Amy is, but how intelligent all apes are and can aspire to be.

The plot itself features a trek through the African Congo to discover the reason behind the brutal deaths of a previous research team for the first part, and for a yearning to get their hands on 'blue diamonds' for the most part. Aided by native guides and other experts in various fields, Amy and Peter are along for the ride and, as both Amy and Peter soon learn, it is not a ride they will enjoy. 

The novel is a good look into how an animal raised in captivity amongst humans and all of their modern conveniences we enjoy (tv, fast food, make-up etc ...) deals when it is led back into the wild. A wild with which it has next to no memory of. 

The storytelling is done at an excellent pace and the characters are built in such a way that they are all very believable and easy to assimilate into the story. Nobody feels forced or shoe-horned in and they all have their own little quirks that go the extra mile towards making them feel 'real'.

I can't comment on how the book lines up with the movie as, not being a huge film fan, I have never watched it. It's certainly one I would look to in the future as the book was enjoyable from start to finish and I can only hope the movie does it justice.

My only real negative about Congo is that Crichton has a habit of running off on lengthy anecdotal tangents that last so long that I often forget what part of the novel I'm up to. For instance, a character could make an off-hand comment about blue diamonds and Crichton takes that opportunity to impart every shred of knowledge he has managed to research on the subject. The information is always pretty cool and I love the stuff I learn from it, but it takes me away from the story for far too long and sometimes it feels a bit jarring rather than seamless.

On the whole, Congo was a wonderful novel and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Sometimes a stand alone is just what you need in this world of ten-book series and Congo was a great palette cleanser.

Julia Whelan's narration is great and she brings each character to life in just the right way. It's always tricky when one narrator has to cater for both male and female characters, but she did this remarkably well. Top marks as far as narration is concerned.