Crichton's novel follows a very old literary tradition, seen across long stretches of time and culture. People have always been intrigued by stirring tales of adventure in far-off places in which small bands of travelers test themselves against the menace of strange beasts, unknown tribes, and physical barriers of many kinds. The reception of such stories varied with how believable the storyteller could make the narrative to his audience.

The fantastic or outlandish had to be balanced with truth as it was known to the listeners, adults, on the average, being more demanding of the latter. In the classical world, stories of Jason and the Argonauts and Odysseus' roundabout journey home from the Trojan War were repeated throughout the sea-faring Greek civilization. Their successors, the Romans, inherited these tales and added The Aeneid, an epic about the founding of their civilization, ostensibly by the surviving Trojans...