How do ya'll feel about Michael Crichton?

I liked Eaters Of The Dead and Jurassic Park, but lost all respect for him over State Of Fear.

I find Crichton's technophobia annoying.

I loved Timeline and The Andromeda Strain.

edited 9th Oct '10 8:48:17 AM by Mapi

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I read and enjoyed Timeline. Plotwise it was a bit predictable, but not annoyingly so. The ending, however, was quite...unexpected.

My brother read Sphere and also had complaints about that ending. Can't remember why he said it sucked, but his argument sounded valid at the time.

It basically turned everything that went before into a glorified dream sequence, as I recall.

A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!

Sphere was my favorite of his books, I felt like the movie was really just incomparable to the book. I think what sold it for me was that Crichton wasn't afraid to make the only woman in the book a sexist and the only black in the book a racist. Which was really great to see some characterization.

Airplane was also pretty good. But I haven't read any other books.

My other signature is a Gundam.

He wrote State of Fear, therefore I refuse to read him.

Biophilic bookworm by day, gentleman adventurer by night.

He's not as bad as Orson Scott Card, though.

"Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse." —Mycroft Next

I don't read much science fiction but what I have read of Crichton's I thought was alright.

I had no idea there were such personal problems with his beliefs either. It's like the topic I found on Robert Heinlein elsewhere. Especailly since Crichton is accused of pedophilia just like he was in said topic.

I don't think people are serious when they accuse Crichton of pedophilia; they're just making a snarky comment about the portrayal of Mick Crowley in Next.

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

Maybe you're thinking of Piers Anthony?

Hodor

I enjoyed most of his books and then was horrified when I discovered <i>Disclosure</i> (I only got several chapters in, but long story short it's about how feminism is ruining the world and all feminists are bitches). It was completely unexpected, because the female naturalist in The Lost World is an awesome character so I had never really picked up on Crichton being such a sexist before.

State of Fear didn't bug me too much, because in some respects his argument is right (there are a lot of important issues out there besides climate change, and scientists do need to take into account potentially harmful consequences of their ideas), even though he's wrong about the larger conclusions (the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is very strong, certainly strong enough to make international action a very wise move).

Th worst I can think of against Card is that he has spoken out against same-sex marriage. I don't buy his books anymore, in any case. I've so far only contributed as far as two copies of Ender's Shadow and one anniversary edition of Ender's Game.

Biophilic bookworm by day, gentleman adventurer by night.

Card also wrote Empire (which I haven't read). But yeah, the way he's treated as a Fallen Creator is a bit of an overreaction.

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Card also wrote Empire (which I haven't read). But yeah, the way he's treated as a Fallen Creator is a bit of an overreaction.

Edit: Sorry for the double-post. And I meant Empire.

edited 22nd Oct '10 4:26:03 PM by silver2195

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

On a sort of related topic, I've really been meaning to read John C Wright as all of his premises sound really interesting. However, I've read some of the guy's blog and I find a lot of his sentiments distasteful. It's too bad when a good author/artist has really objectionable views.

Hodor

I usually  ^*

avoid learning anything about authors I like for that reason; if I don't, I'll be reading one of their books only have intrusive thoughts about the author pop up and make the book seem worse.

Card's homophobia doesn't bother me too much. He had naked boys fighting in showers in Enders Game, and he wrote a book that I forget the name of that involved gay characters that were decent people.

edited 22nd Oct '10 4:36:09 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

Oh wait. Shoot me, I forgot. I also own Empire and Treason. What was wrong with Empire? I've only read it once and I was young. Don't remember much. Treason pissed me off. I couldn't finish it.

Edit: I give up. How did you redirect the Empire tag to the literature page?

edited 22nd Oct '10 4:48:51 PM by Jace

Biophilic bookworm by day, gentleman adventurer by night.

(it's a slash for namespaces, not a colon)

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I really liked "Timeline".

The little write-up at the beginning of the book that describes how far humankind has come in terms of Science and Technology gives me goosebumps.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. ~ C. S. Lewis

Out of curiousity: did anyone else find the ending of Timeline a bit off? I mean how what's-his-face got sent back to the time of the black plague. Yeah, he was a Jerkass who caused the deaths of several people for his own personal gain, but he didn't seem like enough of a Complete Monster to warrant that ending. Plus the so-called "good guys" didn't really seem to have much of a problem with it.

I just went over JP and Lost World again a few months ago.

Favorite quote from Malcolm (who has the best quotes...probably because they're Crichton's thoughts)

"Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."

Speaking of Lost World, not a bad book. I wish we had seen more of the chameleon dinosaurs.

^^ I found the central premise off, actually. How did the prof send the note from another world? Did some long-ago (from our perspective) Professor from a parallel-but-not-simultaneous universe get sent to their world and leave the note for his team, which was found by the other professor's team instead, and so on through a web? I gotta say, that's pretty handwave-y. Even I know quantum mechanics isn't unobtainium.

A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!

Yeah, the ending of Timeline pretty much broke the technological premise. Knowing Crichton's view of technology, it might be trying to say that the universe-entanglement explanation was basically a handwave and the team was working on things they didn't really understand all along, but that seems like a stretch. More likely he just screwed up and his editors didn't catch it.

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

Nobody's mentioned Terminal Man yet; I thought that one was a fun, short thriller.

I always thought Jurassic Park was wonderful. Congo and Sphere were also fun reads.

I also liked Timeline....I guess, but I think it's kind of overrated. if anything I thought they could have picked a more interesting setting that medieval France of all places.