SOURCE: "Pterrified by Pterodactyls," in The New York Times Book Review, November 11, 1990, pp. 4, 15.

Jennings is an American novelist, nonfiction writer, author of children's literature, and critic; his novels include Aztec (1980) and Spangle (1987). In the following review of Jurassic Park, he applauds Crichton's ability to make scientific information understandable and interesting but laments the predictability of the plot and characters.

With his 1969 novel, The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton invented the "techno-thriller" fully two decades before that term became the fad description for every book by Tom Clancy, Dean R. Koontz and W. E. B. Griffin. However, whereas those writers deal mainly with arcane military hardware, Dr. Crichton dares to contrive even more craftily credible plots by writing about the basic, infinitesimal building blocks of life and the universe.

Since the title of this new novel pretty well indicates what is inside it, I am not giving anything away by...