The Lost World
by Michael Crichton
In 1993, four years after the disaster at Jurassic Park, chaos theorist and mathematician Ian Malcolm – who is revealed to have survived the events of the previous novel, despite being declared dead in the epilogue – teams up with paleontologist Richard Levine to search for a "lost world" of dinosaurs following rumors of strange animal corpses washing up on the shores of Costa Rica. In 1995, they learn of Site B on Isla Sorna, the "production facility" where the now-defunct company InGen hatched and grew the dinosaurs for their Jurassic Park theme park on nearby Isla Nublar.
Afraid that the Costa Rican government will find Isla Sorna and destroy the dinosaurs, Levine hastily embarks on an expedition to the island without Malcolm. He arrives with a Costa Rican guide named Diego, but shortly after arriving, the two are attacked by mysterious creatures, later identified as Carnotaurus, who kill Diego. Malcolm eventually learns that Levine has gone missing there. Malcolm goes to the island with a rescue team consisting of Jack "Doc" Thorne, an engineer and retired university professor; Eddie Carr, Thorne's assistant; and two stowaway children, R.B. "Arby" Benton and Kelly Curtis, who were working as Levine's research assistants as part of a school project. Dr. Sarah Harding, an animal behaviorist and former lover of Malcolm's, is also approached to join the expedition. Though she initially refuses, she ultimately decides to meet them there.
The group arrives on the island with weapons and a conjoined pair of heavily modified, and specially equipped RV trailers that serve as a mobile laboratory. They find a geothermal-powered complex of abandoned InGen buildings, including a worker village, and a laboratory that the group explores. They eventually find Levine, who is overjoyed at the trove of information he can glean from this "lost world". Simultaneously, another group—geneticists Lewis Dodgson, Howard King, and "celebrity" biologist George Baselton—learns of Levine's expedition and go to Isla Sorna with plans to steal dinosaur eggs for Biosyn, the rival company of InGen responsible for the sabotage that led to the Jurassic Park disaster. As they are about to leave, they encounter Harding, and offer to give her a ride to Isla Sorna. However, just as they approach the island, Dodgson attempts to kill her by shoving her off the boat, but she survives and meets up with Malcolm's group.
Levine and Malcolm make many observations of the dinosaurs' behavior from the "high hide", an enclosed blind that is set above the ground on scaffolding. They soon learn that Dodgson's group has arrived on the island. Dodgson's group is attacked by a pair of Tyrannosaurus as they try to steal eggs from the animals' nest, resulting in Baselton's death. Dodgson and King become separated after the attack.
While inspecting the T. rex nest, Malcolm finds that one of the infants had been injured and has a broken leg. He instructs Eddie to kill it because it has no chance of surviving in the wild. Unbeknownst to the group, Eddie refuses to kill the injured animal and brings it back to the trailers. When the group discovers the animal, Malcolm and Harding begrudgingly agree to set and cast its leg while the rest of the group returns to the high hide. As night approaches, the nocturnal Velociraptors emerge from the jungle and kill King. As Malcolm and Harding finish setting the T. rex's leg, the parents come looking for their infant and attack the trailers, pushing one of them over a cliff and injuring Malcolm. Thorne rescues Malcolm and Harding, while the raptors attack the high hide and kill Eddie. Malcolm is injected with a high dosage of morphine which makes him relaxed, though not without hallucinating once again. Arby, trapped in a survival cage, is taken hostage by the raptors but is rescued. The group later takes refuge from the raptors in the general store of the InGen worker village. The group attempts to formulate a plan to reach the landing site where the helicopter is set to meet them in the morning. When Thorne ventures out into the village to search for fuel, he survives an encounter with a pair of chameleon-like Carnotaurus.
The next morning, Harding heads out to recover one of the team's vehicles that Thorne had left behind while saving her and Malcolm from the trailer earlier, as it may be the only vehicle large enough to carry everyone to the rendezvous point. However, upon finding it, she encounters Dodgson, attempting to steal the vehicle for himself. Suddenly, a T. rex approaches them, and they both hide under the car. However, Harding pushes Dodgson back out, and the T. rex picks him up and feeds him to her offspring. Harding sets out to reach the helicopter before it can take off without the group, but she is too late. The group then discovers a boat docked on the island and manage to reach it just as the raptors finally break into the general store. As the group sails away, Malcolm reveals information that he discovered in the laboratory: during Site B's active years, InGen fed the young carnivorous dinosaurs sheep extract infected with prions, which causes a disease that shortens the dinosaurs' life spans. Although the scientists contained the disease, it began to spread once again after they abandoned the island. Malcolm suspects that the disease will lead to the eventual extinction of the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna.