(no subject)
Author Michael Crichton Dies Unexpectedly of Cancer
This is not the post I wanted to make today, but you'll forgive me if I interrupt NaBloPoMo/Obama celebrations/etc. for a minute.
I have posted bits and pieces of this before, but please, indulge me.
Even when I was a little girl I was a big dinosaur nut--I mean wee little; like 3 or 4. I still keep up with news about paleontologists and new dinosaur discoveries and stuff like that. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a paleontologist, until I figured out that you had to take so much math and science. Well, forget that. Jurassic Park was my first "fandom," if you can call it that, being that it was 1993 and I was 12. I had no internet of course and nobody to share anything with except for my younger sister. We basically had a lot of the toys and stuff and took to writing our own really bad stories with plots basically consisting of something going wrong and all the characters having to go back to the island and getting stranded there.
Jurassic Park was the first "adult" book I ever read, and even though I didn't quite understand all of it at the time, I ate it up. It both terrified and thrilled me. I still have my original, dog-eared copy, which has utterly fallen apart. I've since replaced it, but I can't quite bear to part with my original, which looks like something a dog chewed on (and probably did). I loved those dinosaurs, those monsters, even though they scared the bejesus out of me. I think all kids love dinosaurs, and Crichton knew this. He appealed to that kid in all of us, that wide-eyed, imaginative little child, who salivated at the very idea that such a thing could happen, even if we wondered if it should happen (to paraphrase movie!Malcolm), who squealed in delight even as we screamed in terror. In fact, I would probably say that, if I hadn't read Jurassic Park and enjoyed the film so much, I probably would never have read Frankenstein, or Dracula, or become so interested in the more supernatural monsters I have now devoted so much of my life and reading interests and pleasures to, and on to Universal and Hammer films, and so on. I could extend that, and say that, without JP, I might not have such an interest in genre fiction as a whole, because it led to my discovering Ray Bradbury (somebody suggesting, "Oh, you like dinosaur stories? Have you read 'A Sound of Thunder?'"), and then on to Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, which led inevitably, of course, to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Yes, without Mr. Crichton and his dinosaur theme park, I might have a completely different taste in literature.
And it's not only the dinosaurs which captivated me. Crichton always had a talent for creating interesting, believable characters. My favorite, of course, has always been Ian Malcolm. One might even make a psychological study, and trace back my attractions in romantic relationships, and how they inevitably lead back to a type. Oh dear. At least I'm not alone: ianmalcolm. Heh.
Crichton's books aren't without their flaws. I haven't enjoyed his last few. There's a review of Next somewhere in this very journal, and honestly, I don't even remember Airframe at all. When he's good at characterization, he's really good. But when he's bad, he has a tendency to create cardboard characters and eye-rollingly bad cliches. His info-dumps can be tedious, and his technojargon is sometimes over-the-top. There's a lot of melodrama at times, and sometimes his personal agenda overshadows the plot of the novel (which I felt was a problem in State of Fear). But he knows how to tell an exciting tale. He's eminently readable, and never boring. When he's on (Sphere, Rising Sun, The Andromeda Strain), he's on. And we certainly can't forget the films he directed: Coma, Westworld, and The Great Train Robbery, to name just a couple. And, of course, there's ER. It's been all but forgotten the last few years, but who didn't watch this show when it first came on? It's a classic, and you can see Crichton's influence in the story and characters of the first few years.
Amazon.com has one more book posted for us to look forward to: http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Crichton-Thriller-Two/dp/0007241011/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225913298&sr=8-19 At least we have that consolation. I can't help feeling like I've lost another one of my childhood heroes, and it hurts, especially because this was quite unexpected, and especially after hearing the sad news this week about Forry Ackerman.
I just wanted to say thank you, though, Mr. Crichton, for your words, and for everything.
Michael Crichton 1942-2008
This is not the post I wanted to make today, but you'll forgive me if I interrupt NaBloPoMo/Obama celebrations/etc. for a minute.
I have posted bits and pieces of this before, but please, indulge me.
Even when I was a little girl I was a big dinosaur nut--I mean wee little; like 3 or 4. I still keep up with news about paleontologists and new dinosaur discoveries and stuff like that. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a paleontologist, until I figured out that you had to take so much math and science. Well, forget that. Jurassic Park was my first "fandom," if you can call it that, being that it was 1993 and I was 12. I had no internet of course and nobody to share anything with except for my younger sister. We basically had a lot of the toys and stuff and took to writing our own really bad stories with plots basically consisting of something going wrong and all the characters having to go back to the island and getting stranded there.
Jurassic Park was the first "adult" book I ever read, and even though I didn't quite understand all of it at the time, I ate it up. It both terrified and thrilled me. I still have my original, dog-eared copy, which has utterly fallen apart. I've since replaced it, but I can't quite bear to part with my original, which looks like something a dog chewed on (and probably did). I loved those dinosaurs, those monsters, even though they scared the bejesus out of me. I think all kids love dinosaurs, and Crichton knew this. He appealed to that kid in all of us, that wide-eyed, imaginative little child, who salivated at the very idea that such a thing could happen, even if we wondered if it should happen (to paraphrase movie!Malcolm), who squealed in delight even as we screamed in terror. In fact, I would probably say that, if I hadn't read Jurassic Park and enjoyed the film so much, I probably would never have read Frankenstein, or Dracula, or become so interested in the more supernatural monsters I have now devoted so much of my life and reading interests and pleasures to, and on to Universal and Hammer films, and so on. I could extend that, and say that, without JP, I might not have such an interest in genre fiction as a whole, because it led to my discovering Ray Bradbury (somebody suggesting, "Oh, you like dinosaur stories? Have you read 'A Sound of Thunder?'"), and then on to Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, which led inevitably, of course, to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Yes, without Mr. Crichton and his dinosaur theme park, I might have a completely different taste in literature.
And it's not only the dinosaurs which captivated me. Crichton always had a talent for creating interesting, believable characters. My favorite, of course, has always been Ian Malcolm. One might even make a psychological study, and trace back my attractions in romantic relationships, and how they inevitably lead back to a type. Oh dear. At least I'm not alone: ianmalcolm. Heh.
Crichton's books aren't without their flaws. I haven't enjoyed his last few. There's a review of Next somewhere in this very journal, and honestly, I don't even remember Airframe at all. When he's good at characterization, he's really good. But when he's bad, he has a tendency to create cardboard characters and eye-rollingly bad cliches. His info-dumps can be tedious, and his technojargon is sometimes over-the-top. There's a lot of melodrama at times, and sometimes his personal agenda overshadows the plot of the novel (which I felt was a problem in State of Fear). But he knows how to tell an exciting tale. He's eminently readable, and never boring. When he's on (Sphere, Rising Sun, The Andromeda Strain), he's on. And we certainly can't forget the films he directed: Coma, Westworld, and The Great Train Robbery, to name just a couple. And, of course, there's ER. It's been all but forgotten the last few years, but who didn't watch this show when it first came on? It's a classic, and you can see Crichton's influence in the story and characters of the first few years.
Amazon.com has one more book posted for us to look forward to: http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Crichton-Thriller-Two/dp/0007241011/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225913298&sr=8-19 At least we have that consolation. I can't help feeling like I've lost another one of my childhood heroes, and it hurts, especially because this was quite unexpected, and especially after hearing the sad news this week about Forry Ackerman.
I just wanted to say thank you, though, Mr. Crichton, for your words, and for everything.
Michael Crichton 1942-2008