I hate it when I'm right.
I've now read enough Michael Crichton to know that I won't be reading any more. Once I find out how Timeline ends, I'm done with him. It's not that he's outright awful. Guy knows how to pace a story, I'll give him that. Thing is, if you pace a story well and then give the reader no emotional investment in the characters or what happens to them, then the story is the same as the synopsis, only longer.
I thought maybe I was just being a cultural elitist (not like I haven't been guilty of that before), but then I see at least two instances in which he changes point-of-view within a scene, which any Fiction Writing I teacher will tell you is big fat goddamn no-no. My Fiction II teacher, may she rest in peace, dislocated her jaw and swallowed students whole for pulling that shit.
Thankfully, I bought Christopher Priest's The Prestige and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age today, so I'll be able to thoroughly clean my palate. I can see why people make movies out of Chricton books--it means they get to make someone rewrite them.
I thought maybe I was just being a cultural elitist (not like I haven't been guilty of that before), but then I see at least two instances in which he changes point-of-view within a scene, which any Fiction Writing I teacher will tell you is big fat goddamn no-no. My Fiction II teacher, may she rest in peace, dislocated her jaw and swallowed students whole for pulling that shit.
Thankfully, I bought Christopher Priest's The Prestige and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age today, so I'll be able to thoroughly clean my palate. I can see why people make movies out of Chricton books--it means they get to make someone rewrite them.