Michael Crichton's novel Congo he is 27 years old now but the style and quality of the story is basically as good as his later novels: the ones that he is, perhaps, the most famous for. There are two basic aspects to this story: a gorilla and the Congo.

The story begins in the United States of America and the story develops in the form of a diary or a dated narrative. For example, day one, Houston, 13th June 1979 ... nothing wrong with that as it works quite well. The beginning he is the American headquarters of an organisation that is prospecting for diamonds for commercial gain. Again, nothing wrong with that necessarily. At the heart of the beginning is the attack on this company's expedition in the Congo by a mysterious being. The transmission of video image of part of the attack reveals a sound which could be speech and a face which could be humanoid to some extent. Very vague.

We are introduced immediately to Karen Ross: of very smart young Lady. Smart in terms mathematics, logic, and development ... she is at the heart of the story.

Because of the investment in and commercial potential of this Congo project, we learn very quickly and that a rescue mission needs to be assembled. Ross is at the centre of that development.

The humanoid face is identified as potentially being a gorilla. The problem, however, is that gorillas don't usually behave in the way that is seen in the video. this leads the team to look for a gorilla expert who can help them to answer the questions they have. That takes us to San Francisco and Peter Elliott.

Peter Elliott he is leaning a research project into the language and potential language development of primates. Amy is a mountain gorilla and Elliott hasn't taught her to speak but he has taught her to understand human speech and to use sign language herself. Amy is building a vocabulary at a relatively rapid rate better understanding is very high.

To cut a long story short Ross, Elliott and Amy all make their way to the Congo. Along the way they meet up with Munro, then guide and mentor for the journey. They also engage the services of some Kenyan and guides and off they go.

The essence of the next part of the story is that they make their way to where they want to be and find murder and mayhem, as expected. Their immediate concern is that they cannot see and understand what has really happened. Very quickly, however, there know the truth. That night they are attacked by gorillas. Firstly, they are surprised because gorillas don't normally do that. secondly, it appears that these guerrillas have been trained to attack and they have some kind of communication strategy suggesting a very high level of development.

At some stage before the attacks Amy goes missing although she returns with stories of the gorillas and she provides some useful insights into their behaviour. One of the key things she reveals fears that while the gorillas do communicate they don't understand Amy!

Men are killed, gorillas are killed and they get to the stage potentially of abandoning the mission. However, they use technology to confuse the gorillas during one of their attacks and they are saved.

At this stage Ross, task oriented to a fault, he is more than keen to explore the area for the benefit of the company and to begin an analysis of the diamond mining potential of the area. They find kimberlite pipe and between them pocketed a few diamonds. Not just any diamond but blue diamonds that have become useful for such applications as computer chips. At this stage and the whole thing turns into a disaster: in order to get out the pipe Ross uses some explosive. given that the pipe is part of a volcano maybe you can guess what happened next!

The area are is overwhelmed and the party managers to escape. Where there are the diamonds can be recovered in the future not you have to read for yourself.

I didn't feel this to be Crichton's best book. I really liked state of fear and airframe because they combine and truth and fiction. Whilst there is some research built into this book I didn't like it is much as in the other two. I also didn't like the way they described Elliott's treatment of Amy: they gave her sugar and beer and other nonsense things. I realise this is only a story but people do do that kind of thing, pampering animals by giving them things that even humans shouldn't consume.

I am not sure whether I found Elliott and Amy to be fully credible but I am sure a lot of it is and I have seen television programmes during which researchers are teaching primates to communicate with humans. This book has been turned into a film and obviously I haven't seen it and although it was made in 1994 it might provide a further insight into some aspect of this story.

Old story, reasonably good, not his best.

Duncan Williamson
12^th October 2007