Fuck no man. Mimes aren’t even real. They’re just some kind of weird refraction phenomenon. Hell, they can’t even get out of the dumbass invisible box!
They should all be rounded up and put into individual dungeons filled with painfully poisionous scorpians or water filled tanks and the world’s most painful jellyfish. On the walls of these “happy-fun-rooms” shall be engraved the phrase:
Learn the words.
Mimes should be raped by pharmaceutical salesmen.
A terrible thing to waste.
I beg to differ. 
Everything I know about dinosaurs, I learned from Jurassic Park.
I mean, I hate his politics. His characters are one-dimensional. His stories are predictable - all of the bad guys die, all of the good guys live. Happy endings all around. Practically every one of his novels reads like a screenplay.
Yet, somehow, despite all of that, I find that I cannot put down a Crichton novel. I’ve read and re-read everything he’s ever written, and I’ve done each one in a single sitting.
I just don’t get it. Hell, I even enjoyed State of Fear!
Does anyone else feel this way? Is it some kind of bizarre self-loathing? Is there something wrong with me?
(And yes, I will buy a hardcover copy of Next.)
Y’know, sometimes you want a romantic weekend with the wife, wooing her with wine and poetry and making gentle sweet love to her, looking longingly in her eyes and knowing that you are her world, her rock, her mountain. You’ve earned this fabulous woman’s love, and she’s the best thing in the world to ever happen to you. You savor the scent of her perfume, and feel like the happiest man in the world.
Other times, you want to grab the slut from the bar whose name you forgot three beers ago, throw her over the hood of your Camaro and take her up the butt.
Crichton’s the second kind of book. Shallow, meaningless, good to kill a few minutes with, but forgotten in the haze of your hangover the next day.
It takes great personal courage to admit such a thing, in the face of certain scorn and derision. Thank you for sharing.
Previoius for Neut
I, for one, have experienced this phenomena. Several years ago, I bought a book containing three Crichton novels - Sphere, Eaters of the Dead, and Congo. Read all three, word for word, over a long holiday weekend. I got so into 'em that it actually pissed me off to have to stop in order to eat, sleep or even go to the bathroom. I finally ran out of steam where he’s concerned about the time of Airframe.
:dubious:
Is that the scientific name for the Andromeda strain?
Not in The Great Train Robbery.
I saw a (New Yorker?) cartoon once – there was a bookshop in an airport called “King & Crichton” selling nothing but books by . . . well, you get it.
Not really fair to King to associate him with such company . . .
That was a Simpsons episode.
Hans Moleman: Do you have anything by Robert Ludlum?
Clerk: Get out.
For the most part, it was the case in that book:
Pierce was convicted, but had the key to his handcuffs slipped to him by a kiss from his mistress, Miss Miriam. Barlow knocked out the guards and drove the getaway wagon. None of the three were ever heard from again, and the money was never recovered. The only people who suffered any harm were those who had wronged the protagonists.
I’m inclined to agree with the OP. And while Dante and Swift might have similar stunts, at least they weren’t crap writers.
In lighter news, the guiding hand responsible for OJ Simpson’s latest literary pustule, If I Did It, was set upon by a pack of wild dogs and torn to bits.
Nah, she was just fired, but still…
You’re missing the point – in TGTR, the protagonists were the bad guys.