A few days from now will mark one month since science fiction and action-adventure genre superstar Michael Crichton died at age 66 of throat cancer.
As a child of the 90s, he gave me some of the greatest mental thrills imaginable and I'll forever be a fan.
Seeing as his name is certainly a household one, it's not exactly necessary to run down the list of novels and movies he worked on. Some are certainly more notable than others, but most had similar thematic qualities - those of caution regarding technology and respect regarding nature.
He also wrote suspense superbly. I don't care how great your movie dinosaurs look, nothing will ever beat the creep-factor of John Arnold being eaten alive by raptors in the novel "Jurassic Park," which won't be leaving my memory anytime soon.
Not that I don't love the movie or feel the almost unquenchable urge to watch it whenever I hear its signature score, but there is really something to be said for reading Crichton's work firsthand. "Jurassic Park" really never gets old and feels so much more authentic than its cinematic counterpart.
Crichton uses as many techniques to make his story feel as real to the reader as possible, as he does in all of his works, from citing multiple hand-crafted "sources" (such as lab reports, charts, etc.) and presenting the proceedings of his novels as fact. Also, his work is often compared to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," as a lesson to show what happens to those who don't have enough respect for powerful technology.
Not that I have to explain the plot of "Jurassic Park" to you, dear reader, but reading a more in-depth account of the utter chaos that is unleashed upon the park is delightful and is something the camera just can't capture.
It's been a while since I read this thriller, but you might see me with copy in hand at a locally owned coffee shop in the near future.
I was assigned "The Andromeda Strain" for a science project in 8th grade (I honestly don't know how the teacher got away with that one) and after about a month of putting it off, read the entire thing in one sitting because I couldn't put it down.
What's remarkable is that Crichton was still in medical school when this gem was published and he became an international superstar. And don't even bother with the 1971 movie or 2008 mini-series - they're not even mildly comparable to this tale of blood clots and microorganisms from outer space.
In 2004, "State of Fear" caused considerable controversy as it used (some might say manipulated) certain studies to portray global warming as a farce and characterizes environmentalists as villains.
Crichton in real life was also quite outspoken about this issue, going as far as to compare radical environmentalism to religious fundamentalism and dispute the notion that humans have the ability to alter nature so drastically.
All ideological issues I may have with some of Crichton's views aside, respect must be paid where respect is due.
Also, the moralistic you'd-better-not-mess-with-nature theme running throughout his novels certainly makes up for any hesitance to accept human causes of global warming.
Michael Crichton certainly influenced me as a writer-the number of amusement-park-gone-wrong stories I wrote as a kid is just embarrassing.
But more seriously, he gave some of the most poignant advice to aspiring young writers I ever encountered, and that was advising students to major in something they were interested in, and not English or writing, claiming that doing so dulled the imagination.
As a man of science who wrote science-fiction, it's glaringly obvious that his background in anthropology, biology and medicine certainly gave him a leg up in his genre and a curiosity about the world that is just exciting to read.
In my experience, the younger generations who grew up with all of the various movie adaptations of Crichton's repertoire aren't as likely to have dabbled in his writing.
To put it simply, we've got a nice long break coming up here at Towson, and if you're looking for something to kill hours in between hometown parties, making some tea and cozying up with "Sphere" or "The Andromeda Strain" certainly isn't the worst way to do so.
And if you're really too out of it to read, see the Crichton-directed "Coma."
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