Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is — I believe — my fourth Crichton book, having read Jurassic Park, Lost World and Congo, previously. And the one thing that occurred to be immediately is that Crichton has a certain attention to detail that makes every word on the page 100% believable.
Dragon Teeth is historical fiction. It follows the fictitious William Johnson, a Yale student who finds himself on a hunt for dinosaur bones in the United States Wild West, first with world-renowned palaeontologist Othniel Charles Marsh and then with Marsh’s sworn enemy, Edwin Drinker Cope, both of whom betray him. While Johnson is a figment of Crichton’s imagination, Marsh and Cope were very real and their “Bone Wars” is the stuff of legend.
The inclusion of a few well-known Wild West names (Calamity Jane and Wyatt Earp to name a couple) was both intriguing and alarming. At times I wondered if the stories were true. At other times, the book felt like fan fic rather than historical fic. But I didn’t hate that aspect.
This, from what I understand, was one of Crichton’s earlier works, which lay in a dormant manuscript form from 1974 until after his death. It was dusted off and published in 2017. So some of the character development wasn’t as polished as he was able to do in his later works.
BUT … the book itself was very enjoyable to read. At about 10 hours long, it flew by. And frankly, I wanted more of it. So I’ll probably have to read another Crichton book soon. I do have a few more in my library.
Elevating the enjoyment was the expert narration of Scott Brick, who was able to take Crichton’s words and paint a picture with them. Add him to my list of preferred narrators.
If you enjoy historical fiction and/or Michael Crichton, definitely give this a read.
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