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Congo

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Congo

By: Michael Crichton
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
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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. Action & Adventure Fantasy Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Science Fiction Thriller & Suspense
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I liked the story a lot. Some have complained about the technical language, but it seems clear to me that the contrast of an ill fated expedition to the Congo, and the technical and totally unbelievable for the time (and even today) way of going about it was kind of the point. High tech in the jungle. The narrator is very good, clear voice, EXCEPT for whatever reason she chose to read all the male characters in the same old man style voice. Pretty terrible, especially for a protagonist who is barely 30. Apparently this raspy old man voice is all she could think of for men. There would have been other methods - even reading them like all the rest of the story would have been good.

Good story, narration at times questionable

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Michael Crichton is a good read - normally.
In this special case the setting of the book is placed in the US / Congo / Africa during the late 1970s. Crichton speaks about loads of technical stuff (which is his usual way) that still does not exist in 2017.
So basically it might have been a good science fiction at the time but nowadays you cannot help but laugh at some of his ideas.
Nevertheless: Should you like to know all of Crichton's books, you should read it.

Interesting but a bit outdated nowadays

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I liked the zoological part of the story about how primates are smarter than people think and are able to learn language and be trained and discovering more about the gorillas in the lost city. However the lengthy technical descriptions and explanations about electronics, equipment etc. literally almost put me to sleep while listening to the audiobook and this level of detail wasn’t really necessary for understanding or moving the story forward.

Interesting story idea but too many technical descriptions

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