Michael Crichton"s novel, The Lost World began with the exposition of a character who is infamous to Crichton"s work, Ian Malcom. The entire introduction and prologue is about Malcom and his scientific views and theories. In a section of the book called "Hypothesis", Malcom discusses a theory of "lost worlds" - areas in which extinct beings may live, with Richard Levine, a man who"s ideas were totally different from Malcoms. Levine and Malcom discuss a possible journey to an island that is suspected to be one of the so-called "lost worlds". At first, Malcom is reluctant and thinks that the idea is stupid. After much coaxing, Malcom agrees to go. .

             Levine arrives on the island first, after a lot of useless chatter and talk and the introduction of two young characters, Arby and Kelley, who are students of Levine"s and sometimes run errands for him. Almost immediately after they arrive, Levine and his assistant, Diego, begin to search for clues to what the science community calls "aberrant forms", which many people have spotted but have been unable to identify. They come to a stream bed, where they are attacked by a group of unidentifiable animals. They capture and kill Diego, and Levine is nearly killed.

             Malcom and his team of field researchers finally make it to the island - and Arby and Kelley stow away in one of the many high-tech trailers that they had taken on their expedition. After the first day or so goes smoothly, chaos breaks out. When three men, Dodgson, King, and Basselton decide to go to the island, thinking that no one has been there. They plan on stealing the dinosaur eggs and breeding them. In doing so, they cause a ruckus on the island, and the dinosaurs begin to lose their patience. They go on a killing spree, which is graphically described by Critchton as well as nearly killing Arby.

             The climax of the story comes when Malcom and Sarah Harding (one of his associates) get trapped in a trailer that is about to tumble off the ledge of a cliff.