Saturday, June 07, 2008

Describing a problem ...

... Science Fiction, literature, and the haters.

I like Michael Crichton's books better than Jake does, though I don't think they are intended as literature. Crichton is very clever in the way he sketches a character in terms of certain generalities (e.g., the Martin Sheen-like actor in State of Fear) in such a way that the reader fills in much of the detail on his own. Compare any Crichton thriller with The Da Vinci Code and it becomes immediately apparent that, whatever else you may think of Crichton and his books, he is a real pop thriller pro.

3 comments:

  1. Actually, I think Crichton has written two very good novels, amongst the others that are not so good as literature, although they often make good films because they're thrilling stories. (The parallel to Stephen King's books is obvious.)

    I think there are two Crichton novels that do deserve to be on the shelves with the rest of well-written SF of high literary value:

    Jurassic Park
    The Andromeda Strain

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  2. I would agree, Art. Those are his best books. And they're really good.

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  3. I've found some of Crichton's books start out strong with interesting science, technology and plot, but then their back half seem more like a script for a film - nothing much new is learned or presented and the characters just flail around like anyone else to get out of the fix they've gotten themselves into. Based on my reading, there is nothing unique about this in the pop thriller market - it seems to be the rule.

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