I was actually looking for “Jurassic park” when I came across this iPhone Book freebie. It’s a book I have intended to read many times and never gotten around to.

Cantankerous professor returns from South America with some wild story about a lost world, where extinct animals are not extinct. The hero of the story, a journalist on the quest to prove himself to a woman, ends up joining in a new expedition. The adventures are less about dinosaurs and more about missing links. Quaint and mildly entertaining.

3.5 stars. Fun story, but could have done without the racism.

It was an enjoyable read. It was in the same line as "King Solomon's Mines". The descriptions and pacing of story was great. It's one of those classic reads.

Man travels to South America to impress a girl, discovers dinosaurs; phrenology.

For it being the sort of trope codifier, there are shockingly few dinosaurs, or prehistoric beasts of any sort, in the book. They show up primarily as background to the core conflict of the story, which I will not spoil, but the climax is the arrival of artisanal colonialism.

The framing device of the journalist's reports is fun, other than its occasional "you will need to buy the next article to read that part of the story" which is Doyle's way of hedging something interesting he does not want to actually write. It is super-racist, in kinds of racism that you do not even imagine, but you knew this.

I think that it has persisted as a book first because the premise is one that you are sold on immediately, like the idea of the lost world remains in our hearts as a thing that is just cool to find, and can never be disproved, but also on the character of Professor Challenger. Challenger is so amusingly over the top so much of the time that he ceases to be the stereotype of the arrogant academic or Holmes knock-off. Effectively, he is an anti-hero, but one in a different sort of cast than usual, more out of his unlikability that starts to become something you want to keep reading about to hear about the next more outrageous thing.

This was a real struggle to get through. The pace was super slow, and I kept telling myself, "Will, they're about to find dinosaurs, stick with it!" Eventually they do, and somehow it's also slow and anti-climactic.

Audio Narrator was excellent. The story itself I struggled to be interested in or appreciate. Would be a great book for those that love jungle adventure stories and movies like Jurassic Park and King Kong. The book is more about the adventure and the journey than it is about the dinosaurs and other discoveries.

Mr. Malone, a journalist, decides to pursue danger after the woman he desires says she won't marry a man who hasn't risked his life. Malone connects with the violent and cocky Professor Challenger who has been criticized in science for his claims at discovering a land of living dinosaurs. Challenger offers to take Malone as a reporter and a group of disbelieving scientists to the land. The men take a long journey through a South American rain forest. They meet a variety of natives and make camp and various points until they reach The Plateau, the volcanic land that is home to dinosaurs and other Jurassic period beings. The men go through a series of dangerous trials before making their way back home to share their findings.

There were only 2 female characters in this whole book and they were absolutely intolerable. Poor representations for women. The men were just as bad in their patriarchal and academic self-absorption. It was an interesting and depressing insight into the culture of the time. Overall I did not enjoy this book and found it very underwhelming. There were very few scenes that were riveting or had me wanting to know more.

This one aged really badly but the ending pushed it to three stars in the end - also good to know our good boy ACD is unable to write a story that doesn't have an accidental mile-long homoerotic streak.