I last read this sometime around 1993 or 1994, as far as I can remember, when I was much younger, I didn't understand many of the concepts in the book. At the time, the book seemed a thriller that was a result of human hubris. And it still stands, but the hubris really stands out, now that I understand what Ian Malcom is talking about when he discusses the expected population curves on the island.

I was most interested that while Crichton captured the hubris of Palo Alto and companies nearby very well, that the valley developed toward advertising, social networks, and tracking each person's preferences over genetically engineering pets and consumer goods. I'm not sure which I'd rather have – both are a result of doing something because we can, not because we should. Perhaps that is our doom, we tend to want to push the big red button to see what it does, before understanding what it is for.

Given the technology mentioned in the book, overall the story still stands well for the time it was written. In many ways, it is a little scary, knowing just how large we've build data centers, and what generally they're capable of doing. If the folks in Silicon Valley, or that own any of these large data centers, ever decided to try to bend genetics to their will, I'm afraid that something similar to Jurassic Park could occur.

That all aside, I enjoyed Jurassic Park as a quick-paced read, that is hard to put down once the action starts. He may not have written literature, Crichton certainly could write a well-paced thriller. I don't know that I'll revisit this book again (maybe in another 24 or 25 years), but if I do, I hope it won't be similar to today's events and folks reading The Handmaid's Tale or 1984.