Next on my overdue book review list is Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton. This is one of the novels published after his passing, and, like many of those works, it feels less finished and polished than his more famous books. But it’s an interesting addition to his historical fiction and a prelude of sorts to Jurassic Park.
The story is set in 1876, during the “Bone Wars,” when two rival paleontologists competed to discover dinosaur bones in the American West. The story’s protagonist is Yale student William Johnson, who is stuck in the middle of this rivalry, having worked for both men at one time, and ending up as the custodian of the “dragon teeth” that gives rise to the book’s title.
William joins the expedition led by the first of the two paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh, after making a wager with a fellow student who dared William to venture into the Badlands. Marsh is an atrocious man who becomes one of the story’s primary antagonists, while his rival, Edward Drinker Cope, serves more as a mentor to William.
Marsh and Cope’s rivalry is a true story, and William’s adventure becomes entangled with real historical events and a quite famous historical figure. The story takes place not long after General Custer’s defeat at the hands of Sitting Bull. Fresh off their victory at Little Bighorn, the Sioux become a real danger to William, who, by this point, has joined Cope’s expedition, forcing them to divert to Montana. There, they discover fossilized remains of a complete set of Brontosaurus teeth, which Cope’s rival Marsh is willing to kill for.
After William becomes unexpectedly separated from Cope, the story takes him to the famous wild west town of Deadwood. The town is filled with outlaws, including one who thinks William’s chests containing the teeth are filled with gold (this takes place during the gold rush, after all). But William finds an unlikely savior in none other than Wyatt Earp. William also meets a flirtatious, ambitious woman whom he falls in love with. But William is young and naïve, and that’s only part of his problems.
The story features several exciting action scenes, and I liked the tie-in with Wyatt Earp and William’s adventures in Deadwood. But the story, written in 1974 but not published in Crichton’s lifetime, never approaches his more notable historical fiction, such as The Great Train Robbery and Eaters of the Dead, or his most famous works like Jurassic Park, Sphere, and The Andromeda Strain. That said, I greatly admire Michael Crichton and count him among my favorite authors. Dragon Teeth is a short, quick read, and it was fun to spend a little more time in one of his stories.