How do ya'll feel about Michael Crichton?

Yeah for Timeline my thought processes went: "Okay I know nothing about this quantum stuff and the whole idea seems illogical, so I'll just nod and pretend that it really just is timetravel. The proper, unexplained type."

I was more asking about the morality of the ending: y'know, the way the "bad guy" was punished. I dunno, it just seemed off somehow. Maybe it's 'cause he wasn't a particularly well done "bad guy", or wasn't unsympathetic enough. (And I can't even remember his name.)

I've read A Case Of Need, The Terminal Man, and little bits of Rising Sun. I have to say that his books have Values Dissonance and maybe even Unfortunate Implications in some cases.

A Case Of Need goes into the topic of abortion, and it was written at a time when abortion was illegal. I personally think that abortion is one of those topics where it may be justified in some cases, but not in cases like a woman who cheerfully has four abortions every time she gets pregnant, for instance. Also, the book portrays African-American as morally bankrupt scum. I grant you that some of the other characters who are not black are definitely bad people, but Michael Crichton didn't even put in African-American characters who were good people in the story.

The Terminal Man is interesting. You have a character named Dr. Ross, who is a psychiatrist and a woman. The book was written at a time when female doctors were rare. The author does make an interesting point about how people need to tell doctors and scientists what they can or cannot do, because it is not the job of doctors and scientists to determine how far they should take their discoveries, apparently.

Rising Sun attempts to explore the Values Dissonance between Japan and the West, but it ultimately takes the West's side and happily portrays Japan as a country of arrogant, racist, xenophobic, smug, murdering scum. The author says at the end of the book that the Japanese are our competitors, not our saviours, and that we would do well to remember that. Strawman Has a Point, but he wrote this book at a time when people thought the Japan Takes Over the World scenario was going to happen. He also points out that Japan thinks that it is rather childish for their competitors to beg for some time to catch up to it. Of course, when you consider that Japan's economy took a turn for the worse at one point, it sort of makes you wonder if Japan is begging their competitors for some time to catch up to it.

What's up with the sarcastic little 'apparently'? It isn't the job of doctors/scientists to determine independently how far they should take their discoveries. That's what peer-reviewing is for, to make sure the person behind the experiment isn't a fucking nut who'll be doing harm; it's quality-control.

Mind you, that is peer-review, not the personal opinions of Joe Bloggs on the street who hasn't heard of this 'science' stuff but knows he doesn't like it.

And I think that the woman who has four abortions every time she gets pregnant would be somewhat rare. One usually suffices.

edited 13th Aug '11 10:19:48 AM by Iaculus

Well, okay. When I said that the woman who has four abortions, I was being hypothetical. I can say that the Karen, the character who died from a back-alley-like abortion in A Case Of Need, definitely had problems long before her death.

I do understand that doctors and scientists are not supposed to decide how far to take an experiment. It's just that I notice how a lot of fiction tends to portray doctors and scientists as practically conscienceless. I find that a little irritating, because I would like to think that doctors and scientists have a conscience. That, and a lot fiction tends to depict scientists and doctors as having nobody to watch over them and prevent an experiment from going too far.

By the way, what do you think of Jurassic Park and its sequel? I like the movie version of Jurassic Park, but I am unable to comment on the book, since I haven't really read it. I did not like the movie version of The Lost World, but I found the book version to be much better than the movie. Really, the movie would probably have been a success had it modeled itself after the book.

edited 13th Aug '11 12:30:31 PM by TiggersAreGreat

The only major flaw in the book that I remember is the Author Filibuster.

edited 17th Aug '11 6:49:25 PM by storyyeller

I haven't read much of Crichton's work, beyond Jurassic Park/Lost World. But on the whole, I don't take an author's personal beliefs into much consideration. Unless of course they want to insert those beliefs into the storyline, and then I only care so far as they support the theory they are presenting within the realm of the plot.

One pattern I have noticed in Michael Crichton's work is that he approached stories as essays on topics that he considered controversial. That is not a bad thing in and of itself. However, in some of his works, his opinions and views on a topic can reach up to Anvilicious levels. It seems the trick in those cases is to just focus on the story and try to remember that Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.

However, "feminism is an attack on men," "the Japanese are scary," and "global warming is overblown" are decidedly not "anvils that need to be dropped". They are, in fact, untrue.

I really like Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and enjoyed Timeline, but stopped reading Disclosure after the first few chapters due to the sheer volume of anti-feminist rage radiating off the pages. (And I don't just mean the fact that it involves sexual harassment by a woman - said woman is also implied to have only gotten her position by sleeping her way to the top, and the main character's wife is portrayed as a bitch for being feminist.)

Crichton is at his worst when he strays from science fiction. NEXT was pretty bad as well, especially using it for personal attacks against people who criticized State of Fear.

edited 18th Aug '11 5:59:48 PM by WarriorEowyn

Also, it's kind of hard to focus on the story when the entire story is transparently set up with the sole purpose of facilitating more filibusters. e.g. So F.

I was bothered by the ending of Timeline. It was some major Nightmare Fuel for me. Thinking it over now I just had a moment of Fridge Brilliance. Their treatment of that guy shows that the people in the present are capable of being just as brutal as the ones in the past.

edited 22nd Aug '11 1:05:09 PM by Liisiko

I think Michael Crichton was a borderline luddite. The Terminal Man was him at his worst, likely, but even in the old JP you can see him filibuster the story.

Been a fan of his since reading The Andromeda Strain years ago. Too bad he passed away when he did.

The weird thing about State Of Fear? In the author's note at the end, Crichton said he did believe people were causing climate change and that it would have bad consequences. Which makes me think he probably meant for certain characters within the story to come off as more morally ambiguous than they actually did.

Only his works that I read are Jurassic Park and its sequel. I got to say, it was the first time I got scared to death reading a book. Then there were Techno Babble and...did anyone actually read that, you know, ones with DNA codes and all, because I skipped that part because of headaches.

I liked them, so I lingered over them, but I only really understood the data Wu and Malcolm used to explain the height-distribution, proving the animals were breeding in the wild. That's probably the only time I've ever seen a graph used as foreshadowing, and I think it worked really well.

I generally like his works, and consider him one of my favorite writers, if only for The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Prey. Also, if you don't agree with what his political views were, why does that stop you from reading his other books? For example I disagree with almost every writer, director, and coders views (many lean democratic, obviously, and I am fairly staunchly conservative) but that doesn't mean I only read twice a year, watch only movies with Ronald Reagan in them, and never play video games or use the computer or listen to music on my iPod (And if I did do this, I would have to limit myself to Rush's album 2112. Actually, that doesn't sound TOO bad, but still.)

edited 17th Dec '11 10:31:46 PM by SuperShadeyin

Because sometimes, his political views can veer towards the stupid side, and people don't like reading stupid things.

Michael Crichton annoys the hell out of me because he's Science Is Bad: the author.

I thought he simply had a more "new Romantic" perspective. Basically that science is a tool and that tool is all too easily abused by idiotic humans attempting to play god.

Maybe, but the flip side of that is that it can also be used responsibly by decent human beings and actually change things for the better. If Crichton has ever shown that, I don't recall it.

On my first readings I rarely catch deeper meanings. I've read Congo, JP, Lost World, Timeline, Andromeda Strain, and Airframe. Only JP and Lost World have been read twice, so I'm pretty sure I dodged the "Michael Chricton at his worst" bullet.

I think we have Disclosure. Thank you for telling me what to avoid. I'd hate to turn a Chricton book into John Ringo's The Last Centurion.

A week or so ago, I made the mistake of picking up Micro. The plot, in and of itself, is fascinating (and especially for me since I like insects), but it's painfully obvious that Crichton's only major contribution was the foreword and the overall plot. Richard Preston's writing is pedestrian, the character development is pitiful, and overall it's just not a good read.

The Andromeda Strain had a horrible ending. "OH NOEZ THE DISEASE IS LOOSE BUT... IT EVOLVED. BECAUSE I KNOW JACKSHIT ABOUT HOW DISEASES EVOLVE, THIS MEANS IT'S TOTALLY HARMLESS. YAY!"

edited 5th Feb '13 11:27:23 AM by Scardoll

That is actually within the realm of possibility. It is rare but it can happen.