Congo (novel)
1980 novel by Michael Crichton
Congo is a 1980 lost world science fiction novel by Michael Crichton, the fifth under his own name and the fifteenth overall. The novel centers on an expedition searching for diamonds and investigating the mysterious deaths of a previous expedition in the dense tropical rainforest of the Congo. Crichton calls Congo a lost world novel in the tradition founded by Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, featuring the mines of that work's title.
Plot summary
ERTS, a fictional corporation, seeks a source of type IIb diamonds, which are naturally boron-doped and thus useful as semiconductors, from Zinj, a fictional lost city. In 1979, an ERTS expedition searches the rainforests of the Virunga region in the Congo for the city. The expedition is destroyed by primates resembling grey-haired eastern gorillas; a video of the event is transmitted to ERTS in Houston via satellite.
Another ERTS expedition, led by Karen Ross, is launched to investigate the death of the first team and reach Zinj. The expedition includes mercenary Charles Munro; Amy, a female mountain gorilla from Virunga who communicates with humans using sign language; and Peter Elliot, Amy's trainer. Amy is included because she has produced fingerpainted images matching the description of Zinj. A consortium of ERTS's competitors also launch an expedition.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Congo (novel)” as 1980 novel by Michael Crichton. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1980 novel by Michael Crichton. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1125771. VIAF identifies the subject as 212906665. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980 and 1979.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Congo (novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.