Michael Crichton passes
November 7th, 2008
I have been meaning to say something about this for the past two days, ever since I found out that my favourite author passed away.
I’m sad about it.
But not simply because a human being has left us, that happens every day and I sincerely hope it was in as little pain as possible. I’m sad because I won’t selfishly get to read another one of his novels.
Not many get to leave behind such a huge mark on society but Crichton was lucky enough to.
My copy of The Lost World is very special to me simply because it was the first book that I lent to my wife to be, it helped us start up a conversation.
There are one or two of his books that I have left to read and I will savour them, The Great Train Robbery and Next. I’ve pretty much read everything else.
Some say he got a little nuts towards the end there regarding global warming, maybe but at the very least he gave us something to think about and caused us to question. I’m not entirely convinced that his arguments aren’t with some merit.
Thank you Mr Crichton.
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Categories: Books | Tags: author, Books, global warming, great train robbery, jurassic park, michael crichton, writer
Next is an awesome book, and has significance for me too, personally. It was given to me by my ex (still good friends), helped me get my last job (had to do a presentation on biotech in popular culture), which led me to my current partner!! Strange little world…
Jesss last blog post..Multi-crafting!!
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By Lee on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
Books are like music for me, they represent different slices of time through my life. I can generally remember where I was and what I was doing when I think about a book.
Life of Pi was interesting because I was really sick when I started reading it and I couldn’t get past the raft stuff when he was sick on board. It mirrored how I felt at the time to accurately and I’ve never gone back to read it. Which I will at some time.
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What is really sad is that he was only 66 - too young to leave this earth really.
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By Lee on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
I know, it was quite the shock actually as he had been keeping the illness to himself.
I was watching ER the other night and commented on something stupid they were doing by asking if Crichton was still exec producer. That explains that I guess.
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a sad passing. caught me by surprise.
Arjans last blog post..Obama won, let’s hope this won’t be necessary
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As far as authors go, Michael Crichton is in my top 10 ever..
It did not matter what he was writing about, the books were always stunning.
I was interested to hear Barbara Walters discuss interviewing Michael Crichton on The View, and apparently when he was writing he would always have the exact same lunch - unfortunately she did not expand on this and mention what it was!
I think out of all the books The Great Train Robbery is my favourite. If I gave you the book and you did not know who it was written by you would never guess it was Michael Crichton. It was so different to all the others and yet just as good as all the others.
Two other authors who remind me of Michael Crichton - Robin Cook mostly due to the biotech aspects, Cook’s books are always very indepth also. Cook was probably best known for Coma which was made into a movie with Michael Douglas.
Arthur Hailey is another though the books are a lot older, they were always amazing. He wrote Airport which was made into a movie, but there are many great books covering a lot of different topics, all of them with great stories.
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By Lee on November 9th, 2008 | Reply
I loved how in Airframe he explained the basics of why a plane doesn’t fall out of the sky, something that previously I hadn’t thought about or had any real interest - he made it interesting.
As soon as we unpack it I’m going to read Great Train Robbery.
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First: I rank Andromeda Strain and JP as two of my favorite sci-fi novels (and films). However, the thing that began to bug me about MC after a while (aside from the global warming denial), was the way the scientists were portrayed.
No, not that they may be malevolent schemers or well-meaning guys who fail to forsee the consequences of their actions. Those I can buy (for the second: I once met a guy who helped design the Hellfire missile. If you ever wondered how someone could create something whose primary function was to cause death could sleep at night, it’s because they think of it as an engineering problem).
What got me after a while was his penchant for large scientific organizations missing the absolutely glaringly obvious. For example, having a competent team of armed men on an island that has carnivorous dinosaurs might be a good idea.
After a while, it got old. I think it was when it occurred in Timeline that it stopped me. A super-secret process that costs thousands of dollars for each application and the saboteurs just waltz in.
Oh. Wait. It was the ending to Sphere that did it
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By Lee on November 9th, 2008 | Reply
I guess there is a degree of forgiveness one has to give a story for story’s sake. Sphere is one of my favourite all time novels and whilst a lot of people have trouble with the ending I was reasonably happy to leave it up in the air.
If the Death Star designers weren’t so stupid and had covered that hole or had the operators remembered that they didn’t have to wait to get to the rebel moon they could have just blown up the planet in front of it thus killing all then we wouldn’t have had Star Wars and the trench run.
So I’m happy enough to forget that InGen should have had a full security detail on the island (or at least should not have sent them home because of the cyclone) because I got to enjoy the ‘walk in the park’
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