Stupid radio
I was listening to NPR on my way to get lunch. They were talking about Michael Chrichton, who is dead. I think he was a mostly hack writer who wrote SF adventure stories. They were playing him up as a great writer who popularized science.
One of the babblers they had on, in extolling Chrichton, said "There's a lot of bad Science Fiction out there", this being the first time they're deigned to say the words "Science Fiction" and goes on to give the examples of Volcano and The Core.
I think is says quite a bit about Crichton if that's what you have to resort to to make him look good. Also, the same babbler then said "He demonstrated how dinosaurs could be cloned from ancient DNA, though it couldn't really work that way." So Crichton is just as ridiculous as the Volcano, the biggest flaw of which according to the babbler was that it had a Volcano appear where it couldn't.
I hate when they denigrate SF and extol a "mainstream" author for poorly doing what SF authors do well and hold up movies as typical SF.
One of the babblers they had on, in extolling Chrichton, said "There's a lot of bad Science Fiction out there", this being the first time they're deigned to say the words "Science Fiction" and goes on to give the examples of Volcano and The Core.
I think is says quite a bit about Crichton if that's what you have to resort to to make him look good. Also, the same babbler then said "He demonstrated how dinosaurs could be cloned from ancient DNA, though it couldn't really work that way." So Crichton is just as ridiculous as the Volcano, the biggest flaw of which according to the babbler was that it had a Volcano appear where it couldn't.
I hate when they denigrate SF and extol a "mainstream" author for poorly doing what SF authors do well and hold up movies as typical SF.