Breaking news from the AP:
THE LITERARY AGENT FOR MICHAEL CRICHTON SAYS THE AUTHOR HAS DIED IN LOS ANGELES.
Wow, he was not that old, went off the deep end recently with his anti-science stuff but I liked The Andromeda Strain.
Agreed, except replace Andromeda Strain with Jurassic Park and Sphere (book only).
This kills me. He was always my second favorite “still living” author, and Sphere was the first sci-fi I ever read. Sad, sad news.
That’s too bad. I made a conscious decision not to buy any of his books after he started his anti-climate change propaganda, but until that point he was one of my favorite authors.
I’d not call Jurassic Park anti-science; I though his authorial screed against "thin-tellligence’ was dead on. In any event I am sorry to read of his passing.
I think previous posters were referring to Chricton’s dubious arguments regarding global warming as anti-science.
Jurassic Park was one of the first real adult novels that I ever read, way back in the stone-age when I was 11. My teacher scolded me for sneaking peeks under my desk when I should have been working on my geography lessons.
Upon review, you are right and I was wrong.
I saw him speak once. He struck me as very humble for someone who was so successful and obviously intelligent. It really surprised me when he came out so vehemently against AGW.
And he was a very tall man.
Is Sphere the one with the man-made AI dust swarms gone awry?
I just read it, but forgot the name and don’t have it anymore.l
Wow. That’s surprising. I just told a bunch of colleagues and they were similarly surprised.
**Dudley **-- that was Dust, I think. Sphere was about a sunken non-human intelligence.
As a huge Andromeda Strain fan, as well as of a few of his later works, I’m sorry to see a very intelligent and entertaining individual go. I’d no idea about his controversial views on AGW, but then after giving so much I suppose he’s allowed a few excesses. I’ll remember him fondly.
Sad to hear – he’s not that much older than me.
I fiound him an odd figure. I liked his book The Andromeda Strain when it first came out – its use of fake illustrations with fakle attributions was innovative, and it was well-written. although his taking such a damned long time to explain the binary code, and his over-reliance on engineering science hubris as plot elements (not looking for a piece of paper wedged in the printer alarm bell; the single-man key along with the broken key station; the whole way the satellite mission was handled) seemed hokey – they would come to be trademarks of his.
I thought The Terminal Man and the film made of it were pretty good, and I liked his non-sf The Great Train Robbery and Eaters of the Dead (and their respective movie versions).
But his other works always annoyed me. The man always retained tgose flaws from Andromeda Strain. Something always did “go worng”, and as the years went by I found it harder and harder to take him seriously. Others musta felt the same way – his stuff didn’t get SF awards. By the 1980s he seemed to be hitting a low with films like Looker and Runaway. I thought we were seeing the last of him.
Then Sphere and Jurassic Park gave him new life, especially when they filmed them. And ER really cemented it. And he started coming out with new stuff.
I never could stand Congo, or Sphere. I read Timeline because someone loaned it to me. I read Prey out of curiousity, and I haven’t been able to read anything since. I found his writing style of “dropping an unfamiliar concept on the reader and rubbing his nose in it” annoying, and I disagreed with a lot of his views. It wasn’t terribly surprising when he came out against global warming.
So, I’m sorry he’s dead. He did some genuinely good stuff that was interesting, but an awful lot of what he churned out rubbed me the wrong way and seemed quite wrong.
Part of me thinks that it’s a shame he lived long enough to witness the Rape of County General. I can only hope he was wise enough to never, ever, pretend-I-wrote-ever-198424-times, watch it after Mark Greene died.
Ah! It was Prey.
OK book. Nothing fantastic.
No, That was Prey (I just bought a hard cover copy of this book for $ 1 CDN this week-end).
Shame that, another author whose death spurs me on to read some more of his works.
Such sad, sad news. Crichton was probably the only author keeping me interested in fiction books. He managed to mix science and action quite succesfully, until his latter stuff.
I was hoping to read more good stuff from this great author, but alas, his time came. R.I.P Michael!
I knew that Crichton was married to Anne-Marie Martin (Dori on Sledge Hammer!, and hasn’t acted since), so I looked her up on IMDb. They divorced in 2002, and judging by the settlement, it sounds like he must have been doing okay.
Although not one of my favorite authors, I do own 5 or 6 FE novels of his. They were ok reads, and a couple of them were made into ok movies. I guess I won’t be wiling away any more afternoons with new Crichton books, tho. /sigh
RIP Mr. Crichton.