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In
June of 1979, ERTS (Earth Resources
Technology Services Inc out of Houston, Texas) sends an expedition deep
into the Congo looking for the lost city of Zinj. After
finding the city, the expedition team is
slaughtered one morning by what looks like gray gorillas, this much the
people back in Houston witnessed on the satellite link before the camera
is smashed. But since this is the only supposed locale of the precious
blue diamonds, a second expedition team is quickly put together and lead
by Karen Ross, the ERTS Congo Project Supervisor. They are accompanied
by Dr. Peter Elliott, a Primatologist who studies primate
communications, and a female gorilla named Amy, who Peter has taught
sign language. Lately, Amy has been wracked with nightmares that deal
with images of Zinj. Dr. Elliott feels that this may be the evidence of
Genetic Memory, not realizing that Amy was in the Congo before she was
abducted. When Karen Ross approached Dr. Elliott with the news that an
expedition to Zinj is underway, he jumps at the chance for he and Amy to
go along. Dr. Elliott is also excited at the prospect of the discovery
of a new species of gorilla, a possible violent species with gray hair
instead of the normal black. The Japanese/German Consortium is also
looking for the forbidden city of Zinj. The first one there will have
the claim to all of the industrial grade diamonds, and therefore corner
the technology market. When the ERTS team is forced to jump out of the
plane, they realize that they are now 70 hours behind The Consortium.
What they don't know is that this is the least of their worries...
This is an
audio version of the book Congo by Michael Crichton.
The story is read by actress Judith Ivey. This audio book is in
cassette format, consisting of 2 cassettes, each about 1½ hours, and
plays for 3 hours. This is an abridged version of the novel.
Congo is a fiction story about two expeditions in to the Congo
looking for blue industrial-grade diamonds. After the first expedition
is massacred, a second follows a few weeks later. But trouble stalks
the new group as the gray gorilla-like creatures that guard Zinj will stop at nothing to protects its secrets.
Unfortunately,
I saw this movie before I listened to this audio book. The movie was not
good and very disappointing. But the book surprised me and I quite
enjoyed it. Judith Ivey reads wonderfully and has a different accent for
each character. I quite enjoyed her rendition of the characters and
often times forgot that a woman was performing the voice of a man...she
was that convincing. The story is exciting and made me quite tense,
especially the scenes where the gray gorillas were getting ready to
attack. Often times my heartbeat increased as the situations became
quite dire for the ERTS team. After all, how do you stop something that
is so incredibly strong that has been trained to squash heads between
two stone paddles. Overall, I found that I really liked this reading of Congo
and look forward to either listening to another Michael Crichton audio
book, or finding one that Judith Ivey reads. Listening to this book
while on a long drive just made those three hours fly by.
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