John Lange, I presume

With Michael Crichton's passing, I found myself perusing eBay looking at the signed books listings and getting interested. I stopped collecting 'things' (comic books, autographs, baseball cards, that sort of stuff) about 5 years ago and that's about the time I think I lost the old me. I wouldn't say that I got depressed, though dysthymia has been a part of how I've felt these last few years. But the interest I had in a lot of things just sort of stopped. I stopped playing video games (as I type, Metal Gear Solid 3 sits on my shelf unfinished. The old me would have finished it in the first week I got it). I sold all of my CD's after ripping them to my computer. I have a few boxes of comic books that I honestly don't know what to do with (they hold some sentimental value so I don't want to just throw them away or even sell them but they take up a lot of space also).

But Michael Crichton's passing has shaken something inside me. Despite knowing better, I had thought that I'd have a new book of his to read every 2-3 years for the rest of my life. It never occurred to me that he would pass at a relatively young age. Now I know that only one more book will be published next year and that's it. No more books from the author and person I hoped to emulate.

As I was saying, while looking at the books that he signed, I felt a stirring somewhere that I hadn't felt in years. I feel like I have goals again-- things I want to accomplish. I don't know where the desire to set and complete goals went, but it's starting to come back and I want to fan the flames and stoke the fire. I plan to get a signed copy of one of his books and put it next to my computer for inspiration (not as an 'investment'). It seems silly, but I'm to the point of not questioning why I feel it would provide inspiration so I'm just going to get one and see where it goes. In addition, I found a couple of beat-up copies of the books MC wrote as John Lange used and fairly cheap (these can be expensive if in good condition given their age and scarcity) so I ordered those. I was hoping that Hard Case Crime would re-issue all of them (as they did with Zero Cool and Grave Descend), but I read somewhere from the publisher that with John Lange's passing (they still wouldn't acknowledge that MC and JL are one and the same, though they said it was a 'co-incidence' that Mr. Lange passed at the same time as MC) the plans for releasing more of his works are in the air and may not happen. Scratch One and The Last Tomb should be here by the end of the month. The rest are going to be a lot more expensive.