Sunday, November 16, 2008

Michael Crichton: 1942-2008



I meant to write this last week, but I ended up being busier than I had planned. It wasn't until last week that I found out that author Michael Crichton passed away on November 4th from throat cancer. I guess that it likely got swept aside in all of the hubbub surrounding the election. However, I was really disappointed to hear this news and was somewhat annoyed that I didn't find out about it until a week later.

While I can't say that I have read a lot of Crichton's books, I can still remember the first times reading both Jurassic Park and The Lost World and what an imparct they had on me. They are still some of my favorite fiction books and I love the way that he was able to incorporate cutting edge real-world science into his stories to make them that much more believable (which I guess was his forte). Anyways, I'd suggest checking out his website; there is a good summary of all of his work and includes a number of essays that he's written on various topics.

Michael Crichton, you will be missed.

2 comments:

M.Lane said...

I agree. How on Earth he was able to take all that high science and make it into mass market stories is amazing to me.

ML
mlanesepic.blogspot.com

Paper Clip said...

I have read just about all of his books and have really enjoyed them. He is a great storyteller with a scientific mind. His earlier works (as with many authors)are best, and The Great Train Robbery (recounting of how a group of Victorian era thieves cleverly pulled off a G-T-R) is one of my top-ten books of all time.