Call Of The Wild Trivia Quiz

Answer: Michael Crichton

This 1969 novel was the first one which Michael Crichton published under his real name - four earlier books had used the pseudonym John Lange while another was published as Jeffery Hudson. The plot involves a deadly organism brought back to Earth by a satellite. It causes clotting of the blood and instant death. As scientists work on the microorganism, it starts to mutate and destroy plastic components of the laboratory where they are carrying out their research.

The novel was filmed in 1971 with Robert Wise directing and remained reasonably true to its source.

Answer: Michael Crichton

This 1980 novel is, as the title indicates, mostly set in Africa. The plot involves a search for a lost city and its diamonds. The first attempt ends in disaster when the camp is attacked by gorilla-like animals which kill all the team members. A second team is also set upon, managing to kill some of the assailants which turn out to be a sort of hybrid. A volcanic eruption saves the day, to an extent, although it also buries the lost city and its treasures in lava.

Crichton was inspired by earlier novels about lost cities, including 'King Solomon's Mines', by Rider Haggard, which came out in 1885.

Answer: Michael Crichton

Not to be confused with the 1912 novel of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Lost World' was published by Crichton in 1995. It is a follow up to the 1990 book 'Jurassic Park', which may be the author's best known work, thanks to the film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg.

'The Lost World' is set a few years after the events of 'Jurassic Park' and is set primarily on the island where dinosaurs were being bred for the now defunct park. This island is the 'lost world' of the title. Rival groups converge on the island, in conflict with each other and the dinosaurs who now live there. Not all of them, dinosaurs and humans, survive.

Answer: Tom Clancy

Dating from 1989, this novel features Jack Ryan and is mostly described as a 'political thriller'. Ryan is in a high position in the CIA but discovers that he is being deliberately excluded from the details of clandestine action being taken against drug cartels in Colombia.

The plot becomes ever more entangled, involving the President throwing the election to hide his involvement and the suicide of a senior member of the government when his treason is discovered.

Harrison Ford played Ryan in the film adaptation of this novel, as well as in 'Patriot Games'. Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin have also portrayed the character on the big screen.

Answer: Tom Clancy

This 1987 novel is another to feature Jack Ryan. The plot of the book includes a kidnap attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales, thwarted by Ryan who just happens to be in London at the time. This makes him a target for the Ulster Liberation Army, who had planned the kidnap, and they combine with a dissident American group to kill Ryan.

As you'd expect, Ryan overcomes the attackers, with the help of the Prince of Wales, who is visiting and is again a kidnap target, and all ends well.

Answer: Tom Clancy

Published in 1991 this novel was the sequel to 'Clear and Present Danger', and also featured the character Jack Ryan. It was set during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and has a plot involving a lost nuclear bomb.

Ryan, as the Deputy Director of the CIA, is at odds with the President of the USA and is also trying to deal with his increasing dependence on alcohol. Of course, this is a thriller and Ryan is only at the start of his career, which ends with him becoming the President himself. The final Jack Ryan novel which had input from Clancy was issued in 2013. Clancy died in 2013 and his last few novels were co-authored.

Answer: Jack London

Since Jack London provided the quiz title, I felt honour bound to include him in the quiz. 'The Sea-Wolf' dates from 1904 and is about a young man, a survivor of a ferry which sinks after a collision. He is picked up by a seal hunting boat, captained by Wolf Larsen, a tyrant who rules his crew with fear and brutality. Larsen forces his new passenger to work for him although he eventually receives his just desserts.

'The Call of the Wild', about a domestic dog named Buck who ends up in Alaska before returning to nature, is possibly the best known of the author's novels. It was originally published in 1903.

Answer: Jack London

This 1908 novel is often described as a dystopian novel, and is about the rise of a socialist political movement in the USA. The party has a real chance of gaining power, so the conservative government responds by imposing a dictatorship.

London describes a world which is governed by the Oligarchy, the 'Iron Heel' of the title, run by 'robber barons' and exploiting the poor. George Orwell is said to have been inspired to write 'Ninety Eighty-Four' by reading the novel. It set the scene for later authors without being particularly well known or popular in its own right.

Answer: Jack London

The novel was published in 1906 after it had appeared in serial form earlier the same year. The plot is almost a mirror image to 'The Call of the Wild' as it tells the story of a hybrid of a wolf and dog which has been living in the wild but becomes domesticated. The story is told from the point of view of the animal from puppyhood and his eventual domestication as a pet via a Native American chief, a cruel man who forces White Fang to fight before a rich man takes him in.

The story begins in the Yukon and ends in California. The tale has been described as an allegory for man's progression and London's own life changes.

Answer: Clive Cussler

Cussler's regular hero, Dirk Pitt, make his third appearance in this 1976 novel. The title rather gives away the plot - a plan to raise the remains of the ship to find an extremely rare mineral which it was believed to be carrying. It is needed for a particular experiment being carried out at the Pentagon.

Dirk Pitt carries out his usual heroic deeds and the ship is brought to the surface, but without the mineral which, it transpires, was never on board.

The novel was made into a film in 1980, but it performed badly at the box office and Cussler himself was reported as hating the way the story was handled.

Answer: Clive Cussler

The title is also shown as 'Shockwave' in many editions, but the story remains the same. The novel, from 2002, is the thirteenth in the Dirk Pitt series and has a plot involving a British ship which foundered when transporting convicts to Australia, which links to events 140 years later. Dirk Pitt is, separately, investigating a disease which is wiping out marine life in Antarctica which he traces to the actions of a diamond miner. This ruthless man has links to the earlier shipwreck and the source of the diamond mine.

Cussler had, by this stage, established his formula where an event earlier in history is the solution to a modern day disaster which only Pitt is able to solve.

Answer: Clive Cussler

This Clive Cussler novel dates from 1992 and is another in his series starring Dirk Pitt. The story starts with two seemingly unconnected events, one from 1865 with the disappearance of a ship bearing a mystery cargo and the second from 1931 when a female pilot disappears in Africa during an attempt at an air record.

In the 1990s, Pitt is in Africa searching for a buried barge in the Nile, but gets dragged into the desperate investigation into the cause of a disease which is killing vast numbers of Africans. The old and new mysteries turn out to be linked and Pitt, as usual, defeats the villains.

Cussler has written series other than 'Dirk Pitt', such as 'Oregon', but these are often in collaboration with other authors, so I have picked only novels which he wrote alone.