Spare No Expense With These Dinosaur Books Like Jurassic Park

This Locus, Hugo, and Nebula Award-nominated novel marries time travel and paleontological adventure. 

When an unexpected visitor brings the head of a recently-killed dinosaur to the office of Dr. Leyster, the paleontologist agrees to join an impossible expedition to the Cretaceous. 

When the Lothar Gluck Circus goes bankrupt, it offers a unique opportunity for Peter Belzomi. He’ll get a summer job, a byline for National Geographic, and a trip to South America. All he has to do is help the circus trainer return a dozen dinosaurs to the wild. 

Getting the dinosaurs out of the Lost World was nearly impossible, and no one ever dreamed they’d have to bring them back. The logistics alone are a nightmare, and along the way the team is besieged by robbers and soldiers looking for their one shot at glory. But when they face being stranded in the middle of the dangerous land, it’s going to take everything Lothar has to make it back alive.

While facing a gigantic dinosaur with a mouth full of teeth would not be our idea of a good time, let’s face it—humans are always the scarier species. Get ready to “hold onto your butts” as this action-packed thriller rockets to the end.

An Arthur Conan Doyle classic that inspired other books on this list, The Lost World follows an expedition into the Amazon Basin. 

The team of explorers and paleontologists were ridiculed before departure for their mission to find the dinosaurs rumored to still exist in the remote locale. But what they discover in the lush jungle will change the world forever. 

After a massive earthquake triggers a series of animal attacks, the small town of Lawless, British Columbia is on edge. 

Conservation Officer Christine Moon is new to the area, and calming the residents is her top priority. But as much as she wants to dismiss their fears, it’s obvious something is stalking the town. As Christine tries to track the animal, she exposes corruption leading all the way to the highest levels of her agency. Alone with a target on her back, Christine has to find the creature hunting them before it kills everyone in town, and the truth dies with them.

Dr. Ian Malcolm warned everyone that “life finds a way," and sometimes that includes seismic events waking up creatures who should have stayed asleep.

Raise your hand if the velociraptors were your favorite part of Jurassic Park! These “clever girls," with their terrifying intelligence and cunning problem-solving skills, are far more frightening than the gigantic T-Rex.

In this novel, paleontologist Bakker takes readers 120 million years into the past and onto the plains of prehistoric Utah. Raptor Red, a female velociraptor, is the heroine and protagonist. The book follows Red as she struggles to survive when she's pushed lower down the food chain. 

This story is a stunning combination of scientific fact and imaginative fiction that Robert Muldoon would likely dub required reading for anyone interested in working with these intelligent creatures.

In Jurassic Park, Crichton made the science of cloning, genetics, and chaos theory accessible to readers. Similarly, John Varley's Mammoth marries gripping action and adventure with real-life science. 

When a full, frozen mammoth is found in the tundra, wealthy eccentric Howard Christian becomes obsessed with cloning it. But Howard and the scientists he hires get more than they bargain for in this novel that's “H. G. Wells meets Jurassic Park” (The Best Reviews).

Megan is trying to mend her broken heart after a family tragedy, and joins a local church group's annual camping trip. 

But a navigation accident takes the group to an unknown canyon deep in a West Virginia National Park. As members of their party disappear, seemingly snatched by an invisible creature stalking through the trees, the campers make a terrifying discovery: a species of prehistoric arachnids lives in this area. They’re calculating. They’re cunning. And they’re hungry.

Megan Forrester may not be an expert in paleontology, but she would make Dr. Alan Grant proud with her survival skills. A tense, fast-paced showdown between human and spider, Don’t Move is a creep-tastic thriller that just might give you arachnophobia.

When an accident blurs the line between prehistory and modernity, ancient forests sprout in cities and humans are no longer at the top of the food chain. 

The government has a plan to protect its citizens—but their proposal may be even more deadly than the dinos. 

Dinosaurs existed on our planet millions of years ago, so it could be argued that they might exist on a different planet right now. That’s not exactly what Kai and Varian set out to prove when they embark on a mission to explore the flora and fauna of the planet Ireta. But that’s what they find.

Then their rescue ship disappears without a trace, and some of the crew members start to act erratically. As they struggle to survive, Kai and Varian grapple with the fact that this prehistoric life might be their only future, in this fascinating duology by Anne McCaffrey. 

40 years ago, the Chinese government discovered a shocking animal. Now, they’re ready to unveil their discovery to the world. 

A select group is invited to se the magnificent zoo, including journalist and reptile expert, Dr. Cassandra Jane ‘CJ’ Cameron. What could possibly go wrong?

While the zookeepers may not be repeating how they “spared no expense," the overconfidence that nothing can go wrong gives us nonstop John Hammond vibes. It’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes and you’ll be holding your breath all the way to the end.

Oakley Laveua knows reptiles and is so close to getting the promotion of her dreams as a swamp tour guide when disaster strikes. She’s charged with murdering her best friend—a crime she can’t remember committing. 

Sentenced to life in seclusion, Oakley is taken to an island filled with genetically-modified dinosaurs and violent criminals. But deep in the rainforest, hiding from criminals and dinosaurs alike, is someone who may have all the answers Oakley needs to prove her innocence. She just has to survive until she can be absolved.

A fearless heroine and a touch of romance blends into a novel that even Ellie Sattler would stay up all night reading.

In a series-starting book that George R. R. Martin calls “a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones,” author Victor Milan takes readers to a land called Paradise. In a society that mirrors 14th-century Europe, men and women live alongside dinosaurs who roam the land, sea, and sky. 

In a world without modern-day tech, the most dangerous weapons are the dinosaurs themselves. What happens when vast armies of dinosaur-mounted knights engage each other in battle?

Best known for creating classic characters like Tarzan and John Carter, author Edgar Rice Burroughs takes on a prehistoric landscape in The Land That Time Forgot. The plot follows enemies during World War I who must work together in order to survive an island full of dinosaurs and strange tribes. 

The lost island of Caprona offers salvation from the freezing Antarctic waters and a whole host of dangers thought to be extinct. The biggest threat of all, however, might just be the in-fighting and double crosses within the group of travelers …

Author and veterinarian calls Michael Swanwick's Bones of the Earth the equivalent of “Jurassic Park set amid the paradox of time travel.” 

The novel is an ambitious work that spans hundreds of millions of years, but it starts more simply. Paleontologist Richard Leyster lives a comfortable life—in fact, he's sitting in his office when he's offered the chance to travel back in time and study living dinosaurs in their original habitats. It sounds like a generous offer, but of course, there are plenty of strings attached. Hijinx and discovery abound in this book, which was nominated for the Locus, Hugo, and Nebula awards. 

If you like the time-traveling, scholastic storyline offered by Swanwick in Bones of the Earth, be sure to check out Mastodonia by Clifford D. Simak. Paleontologist Asa Steele is on sabbatical when he encounters a cat-faced alien life form. Catface is an immortal creature stranded on Earth for 50,000 years and capable of opening time portals.

Asa can travel to this place, called “Mastodonia,” but keeping it a secret from those who seek to steal its vast resources is another problem altogether.