Michael Crichton passed away this week from cancer, and I'll miss his writing the most. You can check out the movies he directed, the TV show he created (ER), and some of the movies based on his books: Jurrasic Park, The Lost World, The Andromeda Strain, Disclosure, Sphere, Timeline, Congo, and The 13th Warrior.
via TinyScreenfuls.
I've never understood the appeal of Crichton's output - I've read a few of his novels (Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, Sphere) and found the writing awkward and characterizations juvenile. And then there's State Of Fear, which gave him the reputation of a shock-value ideologue... There's plenty of far better authors to be read.
Posted by: Michael Crowley | November 08, 2008 at 07:03 AM
Well, Michael Crowley, maybe someone will show up at your funeral one day and say Michael Crowley wasn't all that great himself.
Posted by: Throttled by Netflix | November 08, 2008 at 11:06 AM
I know he wasn't on par with David Foster Wallace, etc., but I loved the way he mixed science with action. I'll never forget the first time I saw the dinosaurs in Jurrasic Park on the movie screen, and I enjoyed reading the Eaters of the Dead and Travels.
I also spent a lot of time on planes in the past 20 years, so maybe I ran out of books by good authors. ;-)
Posted by: Mike | November 08, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Michael, the only Crichton book I read was Timeline. It was fantastic. I'd like to read it again. It was a few years ago but I think about it from time to time.
Posted by: profpudwick | November 08, 2008 at 04:39 PM