Dragon Teeth

by Michael Crichton

From Michael Crichton, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Jurassic Park, comes a thrilling adventure set in the Wild West that will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first page to the last!

The year is 1876. Warring Indian tribes still populate America’s western territories even as lawless gold-rush towns begin to mark the landscape. Against this backdrop two paleontologists pillage the Wild West for dinosaur fossils, while deceiving and sabotaging each other in a rivalry that will come to be known as the Bone Wars.

Into this treacherous territory plunges William Johnson, a Yale student with more privilege than sense. Determined to win a bet against his arch-rival, William has joined world-renowned paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh on his latest expedition. But Marsh becomes convinced that William is spying for his nemesis, Edwin Drinker Cope, and abandons him in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a locus of crime and vice.

Soon William joins forces with Cope and stumbles upon a discovery of historic proportions. The struggle to protect this extraordinary treasure, however, will test William’s newfound resilience and pit him against some of the West’s most dangerous and notorious characters…

• ISBN13: 9780008173067
• Publish Date: 1 June 2017 (first published 23 May 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 15 October 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I desperately wanted this book to be Jurassic Park, despite absolutely everything about it flailing and telling me that it would not, in fact, be Jurassic Park. Rather, Dragon Teeth is western. Do then uncover dinosaur bones? Sure. Do the dinosaur bones present a constant problem for protagonist William Johnson? Ayup.

Ultimately, this was a shoot-em-up western that leaned heavily toward an historical fiction action story and lacked the fascination of Crichton’s science fiction thrillers. Additionally, it’s worth knowing that Native American racial stereotypes are definitely perpetuated and the rep is TERRIBLE. I assume that the intention was to remain true to the western genre of the first half of the 20th century, but we are better enlightened of our racism now and this all could have been easily prevented? It bothers me.

As far as storytelling goes, I wasn’t inspired to DNF this at any point. The Native American rep is unacceptable, but otherwise the storytelling is solid and intriguing. It’s not Crichton usual fare, but it’s not a bad story. It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I think it’s quite readable.