Comments on: RIP, Michael Crichton http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/ I FORGET WHAT EIGHT WAS FOR Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:57:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Leonard T. Carruthers http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-117265 Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:18:21 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-117265 One mark of an interesting life is surely that, when you die, people are glad you’re dead because they disagreed with you. For a novelist to accomplish that—that’s one helluva career.

I suppose Heinlein had a bit of that, too.

]]> By: Buck http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116850 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:16:27 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116850 I read a few of his novels, and particularly enjoyed “Jurassic Park,” as well as many of the film adaptations of his novels, especially “Andromeda Strain” and “Westworld” when I was a kid. My brother actually had (and LOST) the prop red aluminum key with the ‘radioactive’ symbol that was used in the film.

I have to say that I found a lot of his work leaning towards the misogynist, and his petty feud with a reviewer leading him to have a character in a subsequent book described as a small-penised homosexual child molester, with the same name as the reviewer, was really beneath him.

]]> By: David J. Williams http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116786 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:10:10 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116786 We can/should celebrate his amazing work, but we also can’t forget that he opted to use his monumental influence in a way that obscured rather than clarified the deadly peril to our world’s biosphere. If he’s no longer able to testify in front of Congressional committees that global warming is a bunch of BS, that’s a good thing for the planet . . .much as we might wish this had been a change of mind instead of a farewell to the body. rip.

]]> By: Chris Johnston http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116747 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:26:37 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116747 I gasped out loud when I got the email about his passing.
Crichton’s was the first science fiction I ever read.

I also have an action figure named after me because of him!
See, in Timeline, the assistant to Prof. Edward Johnston was Chris Hughes, which led to sentences like “‘Chris,’ Johnston said. …”
Got me kinda excited, ’cause I’d never seen a character in fiction with my name, so this was close enough.
Then, for the movie, they morphed the assistant into the professor’s son!
http://www.pilotwear.com/store/p/10112-Chris-Johnston-Timeline-1-6-.html

]]> By: Fred Kiesche http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116700 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:37:06 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116700 MichaelC #13: I loved those eBooks! Those were the first eBooks I bought (as opposed to downloading from Gutenberg) for my Mac laptop! Great dino sound effects!

]]> By: Percy http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116660 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:28:54 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116660 I was thinking about the books that I’ve read of Michael Crichton and realized that I’ve read a number of his books. My favorite book is a non-fiction one called Travels.

]]> By: John Scalzi http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116659 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:22:46 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116659 He was 66. It’s not that young. It’s not old, but it’s not young.

]]> By: rob http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116657 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:11:33 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116657 Wow,

He was so young and so freaking rich with his books and his movies and ER. shows you can not defeat cancer with wealth. Not amiming to be an a-hole. I think I may have read all his books or close to it. Books far better than the movies from them. Loved ER… saw the vast majorities of the episodes.

It shocks and saddens me that he is gone. Selfishly I’d love another half dozen or dozen books. Given regular health I would have them.

I already miss him. I did not know him but I weep for his family and his friends. A freaking surprise.

I truly loved his work. I buy books years after they come out at used book sales for a buck. Theylast 2 books he wrote I bought one new and the other for like $8 bucks recently used. And I am a patient customer normally. That is how much I liked and anticipated his work.

I actually feel sad for myself a little because I won’t be able to read anymore of his books. Of the truly rich massively published authors of recent memory I loved his work the most.

He was brilliant I think as an author, a scientist or at least a science fictionist and as a Screenwriter as ER is an amazing show.

]]> By: Jeff Hentosz http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116607 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:51:19 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116607 Drew: Not if they were quantum nanotech ponies!

This is sad news. Crichton was one of the first writers my wife and I bonded over, before we started dating. She gave me Congo. I think I have all but one of the novels he wrote under pseudonyms in medical school. Last year, Hard Case Crime paperbacks quietly re-released two of them — they’re by “John Lange.”

He was also one of the earlier Macintosh evangelists, along with Douglas Adams.

]]> By: John Scalzi http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/rip-michael-crichton/#comment-116601 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:46:58 +0000 http://scalzi.wordpress.com/?p=5211#comment-116601 Not if you ship them in parts, for later assembly!

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