Got a massive shock with the news that Michael Crichton died the other day. Only 66 years old – what’s the story? I know cancer can be vicious, but he looked in such terrific shape – tall, fit, etc. He liked hiking and scuba diving, would talk about going to the gym. He smoked when he was younger, maybe that was it. Or maybe it was just plain bad luck.
The New York Times published a slightly narky analysis of his writing career, which commented again (and again) on Crichton’s weakness in creating characters. I admit his characters weren’t the best, but for crying out loud the guy’s corpse was barely cold, there was no need to be snide about it. Besides, some of his characters were memorable – the terminal man, the gunslinger in Westworld, the genial millionaire in Jurassic Park, the detective in Rising Sun. And for the record I think it’s a lot harder to make all that scientific mumbo-jumbo readable in the way that he did than to create characters.
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