[2][3][4] In August 1993,[a] chaos theorist and mathematician Ian Malcolm — who is revealed to have survived the events of the disaster at Jurassic Park four years before — encounters and reluctantly agrees to team up with wealthy paleontologist Richard Levine.

The two men attempt to search for a "lost world" of dinosaurs, following rumors of strange animal corpses washing up on the shores of Costa Rica.

Eighteen months later, afraid that the Costa Rican government will find Isla Sorna and destroy the dinosaurs, Levine embarks on an expedition to the island without Malcolm.

The group arrives on the island with weapons and a conjoined pair of specially equipped RV trailers that serve as a mobile laboratory.

Simultaneously, another group – consisting of geneticist Lewis Dodgson and his assistant Howard King, and "celebrity" biologist George Baselton – learns of Levine's expedition and travels to Isla Sorna.

This second group plans to steal dinosaur eggs for Biosyn, the rival company of InGen indirectly responsible for the sabotage that led to the Jurassic Park disaster.

While venturing out into the village to search for fuel, Thorne encounters a pair of Carnotaurus, which Levine and Harding drive away by shining their lights on them and making them change their skin patterns too fast.

Eventually, Kelly discovers a boat docked on the island and finds a tunnel, allowing the group to reach it just as the raptors break into the general store.

[5] An early draft of the novel included a lengthy tirade by Malcolm regarding God and evolution, but Crichton removed it "because it just didn't seem to fit".

[12][13][14] People wrote: "Action-packed and camera-ready, The Lost World is to its predecessor what microwave dinners are to home-cooked meals: hardly authentic, but in a pinch fully satisfying".

The magazine wrote that "the odd reappearance of Ian Malcolm, when other key characters from the original have been dropped, makes one wonder if only Jeff Goldblum was available to appear in the movie sequel.

Characteristically clever, fast-paced and engaging, Michael Crichton's latest work accomplishes what he set out to do: offer the still-harrowing thrills of a by-now-familiar ride".

[15] Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times gave the novel a negative review and called it a "tired rehash" of Jurassic Park.

Kakutani wrote that the novel lacked the "surprise or ingenuity" of its predecessor, calling it "so predictable and unimaginative that it seems to have been intended to save special-effects technicians the hassle of doing new work on the movie sequel".

[16] Tom De Haven of Entertainment Weekly gave the novel a "B−" rating and wrote that it "is like a videogame in prose—a few hundred frantic pages of run, hide, kill, and die.

But if there's a lack of freshness to the novel (even the title isn't new; it's borrowed from the granddaddy of all dinosaur tales, by Arthur Conan Doyle), it is still a very scary read".

For clarity, terror, and sheer grisliness, the action far surpasses anything in the original book; even better, the suspense is masterfully stretched out, then released all of a sudden—just when you least expect it".

Karlen noted that, "Once again, the dinosaurs seem the real stars", while writing that the human characters "are introduced as if in shorthand screenplay form".

Elliot originally served as a scientist in his own right before taking on the role of caretaker of the island in the aftermath of the disaster at Jurassic Park and the dissolution of employer InGen.