Dragon Teeth Review

Review of “Dragon Teeth”

By: Michael Crichton, Narrated by: Scott Brick, Sherri Crichton

            Arrogant Yale student William Johnson made a bet he could convince Paleontologist Professor Othniel Charles Marsh to take him on his expedition west to find fossils and be his photographer.  Though, Marsh did take Johnson, he was paranoid about Johnson being a spy for his rival Professor Edwin Drinker Cope.  Johnson was abandoned in Cheyanne Wyoming, and he had coincidentally met Cope who took him on his own exhibition.  Johnson experienced the dangers on the terrain through the deadly environment, Native Americans who don’t appreciate the invasion of the white settlers, and lawless cowboys.  Johson soon became the sole caretaker of half the bones they dug up and had to survive getting them back to Cope before the dangers of the west could kill him first.

            “Dragon Teeth” took me on a wild into the west of the Civil War era and the struggle of being a Paleontologist during this time.  No one cared about these fossils and saw them as just bones, and this was an environment that was untamed and had no law.  There were no vehicles that made travel easier, the technology was far less advanced, and you had to live off the land.  Dangers were real and there was no guarantee you’d survive; if the environment didn’t kill you the Native peoples would.  

            William Johnson was arrogant, proud, and entitled but this experience humbled him.  He irritated me at the beginning, but I felt sympathy for him as he was caught in the middle of this rivalry between the two megalomanic Paleontologists, watched friends get brutally killed, and had to survive such a dangerous environment.  He did care about others, though he didn’t always understand them like their Native American guide Little Wind.

            Marsh and Cope were obsessive and didn’t care about who got dragged along on there quest and suffered the consequences of their actions. Marsh was more standoffish while Cope was more personable.  Marsh’s paranoia cost him the chance of having real friends and caused to live a lonely existence. While Cope had wife, friends, and people who respected him, but his temper got him in trouble.  Cope being a Paleontologist and Quaker created a complicated relationship between him and religion. His profession challenged the beliefs of Quakerism and created a built up resentment between Quakers and himself.

            Sprinkled throughout were discussions of religion versus science, and there’s a scene where Cope got into physical fight with a Godly man who told Cope his scientific knowledge was wrong.  We also got scenes of people reacting to the fossils with disappoint, because at this time they didn’t realize the value of them. When Johnson got to this one particular town and had to stay there for a few days as well as get a job, people assumed that Johnson was protecting gold instead of bones.  

            One of my favorite aspects was Johnson encountering historical figures such as Wyatt Earp and Calamity Jane.  Even Marsh and Cope were real people who had a real rivalry.  Unlike, Crichton’s most famous novel “Jurassic Park”, this was focused on the history and hardship of being a Paleontologist in this setting and time in history.  “Timeline” was probably a better comparison than “Jurassic Park”.  “Dragon Teeth” wasn’t as action packed and Crichton spent a lot of time having the characters sitting down at campfires having philosophical discussions and showing the grueling aspects of digging up fossils. The novel spent a lot of time exploring the territories of the old west and how dangerous it was rather than the Paleontology aspects, which were in there but only a part of the larger story.

            The story was enjoyable but could be a slow read and I’m grateful I found it on the Libby app making it easier to consume the story.  I was content with the Narrator, Scott Brick, and I appreciated they had Crichton’s wife narrate the “afterward” explaining the publication of this novel after Crichton’s death.