Michael Crichton Dead at 66

[xeus]

Michael Crichton (http://www.michaelcrichton.net/)

[ATL Muskie]

I blame Obama.

[XUglow]

Back when I used to live on airplanes, his paperbacks were essential materials for surviving long flights. One of his books could pretty much get me from Detroit to Narita.

[GoMuskies]

I blame Obama.

Unbelievable that this is his first act as President-elect. See people, you wanted Obama, and now there is no chance of another sequel to Jurassic Park. Hope you're all happy.

[Snipe]

I was just on his website yesterday. I was a fan.

He will be missed by a lot of people who read his work. Still remember when I first read Jurassic Park. Boy he could put together a story and you would be living it.

Sad.

[Fred Garvin]

That's a shame. I enjoyed his appearances on Charlie Rose when he'd challenge Gore's positions on the environment.

I thought this interesting. It's frim wiki:

Crichton has admitted to having once, during his undergraduate study, plagiarized a work by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. According to Crichton the paper was received by his professor with a mark of "B−". Crichton has claimed that the plagiarism was not intended to defraud the school, but rather as an experiment. Crichton believed that the professor in question had been intentionally giving him abnormally low marks, and so as an experiment Crichton informed another professor of his idea and submitted Orwell's paper as his own work.[7]

[Raoul Duke]

I was just on his website yesterday. I was a fan.

He will be missed by a lot of people who read his work. Still remember when I first read Jurassic Park. Boy he could put together a story and you would be living it.

Sad.

Yeah, thanks for linking that article Snipe. I had read it when it came out, but completely forgot about it. I re-read it again yesterday. Good read.

I've read 5 or 6 of the guys books and for the most part thoroughly enjoyed them.

[Snipe]

He wrote a great non-fiction book that I read: The Great Train Robbery.

It was about some guys who robbed a government train car loaded with gold. It was heavily covered in the press back during the industrial revolution. He went back and went through all the articles and court documents and evidence available and put together the tale. Great story and truth is stranger than fiction.

[GuyFawkes38]

He's an extremely underrated author who deserves more attention (maybe now his work will receive more).

[American X]

Can anyone recommend State of Fear? I heard excellent things about it.

[coasterville95]

This is very sad news. Michael Crichton was one of my favorite authors too.

Perhaps he was a bit loose with the science in his books, but they were great thrillers.

I also ready and throroughly enjoyed The Great Train Robbery as was mentioned above.

Perhaps his books got a bit formulaic -

* Scientist discover some super secret invention & develop a remote lab or base
* The main character is somehow introduced to that environment usually under the cover of it being merely a routine tour, nothing out of the oridnary
* Something goes horribly wrong
* Communication with the outside world is cut off
* There is an epic battle where the scientist try to contain/eliminate the big mess they created, usually a battle for simple survival as well.
* Somehow in the end, they get rescued.

But what a great formula, even when I found myself mentally checking off each item as I came to them. I think I discovered him thanks in part to Jurassic Park. That said I have gotten the chance to read several of his books, including just about every one since Jurassic Park except Next. I really need to get back to State of Fear, I got about halfway through it when hit an unrelated roadbump in my life and never got back to it. Probably have to start from scratch now on it. I also went back, and thanks to the three story anthologies that became popular after he was discovered have gotten to read the vast majority of his work, although I could not get into Eaters of the Dead. I took a real liking to one of his erlier works, the Andromeda Strain.

He will be surely be missed, though often imitated. A novel comes to mind about a high tech office tower that turned against its occupants. Man, I forget the name or author of that one but reading it I was thinking "If this isn't Crichton, it sure sounds like him"

[Snipe]

Can anyone recommend State of Fear? I heard excellent things about it.

He got a lot of flak for State of Fear. It is fiction but it was against the Global Warming movement. And he got most of the flak because he used footnotes to document the science behind his claims. He did a good bit of research and the book is a broadside against the leftist whackos in the movement.

I would recommend it as I am against the new religion. Seeing that the Earth is now in a cooling period I think the work stands up nicely. He was not popular in the Hollywood liberal sets for putting out that book.

[xuamers]

I read Next over the summer and thought it was pretty good, too. I'd recommend it.