I've spent this past week reading Michael Crichton novels. Yeah, I'm a little late to the party, but I've only recently discovered that I enjoy his writing. It started with Jurassic Park on Monday, progressed to Next on Tuesday, Andromeda Strain on Wednesday, Sphere on Thursday, and Prey today. Rather than do a review, I thought I'd offer some thoughts about his writing in general and the various books.
Jurassic Park: I've seen the movie a gazillion times. That's totally not an exaggeration. We didn't watch a lot of movies growing up, and when we did, they certainly weren't Disney. I can't remember how old I was the first time I saw Jurassic Park, but I do remember my mom chastising my dad and saying that we would be too scared of the dinosaurs. Not I. I LOVE Jurassic Park. It is up there in my top five. I love Jeff Goldblum, I love the T-Rex, I love "clever girl", I love quoting lines from it, I love noticing that Goldblum says the same line in JP as he does in Independence Day. That being said, it was with a little trepidation that I delved into the book. I am a firm believer in the book being better than the movie- always. I've never seen one to contradict that fact in my mind. However.... I loved the movie so much more. The book is chock full of details, and extra characters, and all of the thought processes that you can't possibly translate to the screen, but it lacks the fundamental thrill of the film. Would it be different if I'd read it before seeing it? Probably. But I couldn't help but see Malcolm AS Goldblum in my head, and the thrill just didn't compare. Jurassic Park is visceral. It is visual, and agressive, and LOUD, and for that, I need the film.
The rest of the books seem like standard Crichton fare. They're very fast paced, with a lot of technical detail. The guy definitely did his due diligence and researched the shit out of his topics. However, that leads to some problems- mainly the feeling that the idea is dated. You know what a timeless book is? It's one where you can still apply the same themes and tropes to a modern world and not feel it lacking. You can't do that with Crichton's work. It's hard to feel impressed when he's describing some technology that was cutting edge in 1980 but feels ancient today, when we have mini computers in our phones. It's a bit of a -yawn. So what?- type of moment. If he focused on character development more, it wouldn't be so much of an issue, or a glaring blemish in reading his works with a 2012 attitude. He relies on stock characters to fill out the spaces in between pages and pages of technical explanations. Crichton suffers (suffered?) from the same problem as Dan Brown. Both have so much knowledge, but don't seem to have much of an editor to cut down on all of the information. It's interesting to a point, and then it becomes too much for a simple novel.
The standouts for me were the Andromeda Strain and Next. The Andromeda Strain still felt very relavent today, with the threat of a new and possible alien virus being released on an unsuspecting public. If you watch the movie, skip the recent miniseries and go for the 1970's film instead. Much better and more faithful to the novel. Next was about the future of genetics, and the possibility of splicing the human genome with other animals- in this case a chimp. It was fast paced, very entertaining, and I appreciated the difference in characters. I do this every time- when I find an author I like, I tend to read a ton of their work in a row, and you obviously find common themes, characters, and motives. The familiar characters of various scientists, with the token woman thrown in, was starting to wear thin. Maybe I need to spread them out.
Have any of you read Michael Crichton's work? What was your favorite?
*if anyone is wondering, yes, I did actually read all of these in one week. I read very fast and also have a wicked long commute to work, so I have both the time and the ability :)
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