Michael Crichton 1942-2008

As exhilarating as it was to have Barack Obama win the election Nov 4, it was sobering to hear that Michael Crichton died that day.

Michael Crichton was someone I long admired. He was a true Renaissance man; well educated (it often gets lost amongst his many achievements that he graduated from Harvard Medical school), a critical and independent thinker (not many people would criticize the "Global Warming" theory in our times), and of course a prolific novelist, screenwriter, director, and producer. At one point in time he had a hand in the #1 TV show, the #1 bestselling book, and #1 boxoffice movie at the same time (ER, Disclosure, and Jurassic Park respectively). Not to mention that he directed several movies. Amazing.

I've made my way through his books these past years. I slowed down my reading, intentionally delaying starting his last couple of books as I realized that I was rapidly catching up to the latest book that he wrote. I finished State of Fear last year and just have started Next. I suppose technically I still have The Great Train Robbery and Eaters of the Dead to read but those are historical fiction pieces that he experimented with and I prefer his modern day social commentary works. I'll make my way to those older works eventually (as well as the stuff he did under his John Lange pseudonym once SOMEONE gets around to republishing them-- Odds On, Scratch One, Easy Go, The Venom Business, Drug of Choice. C'mon, you can't tell me that there's no market to republish them. Zero Cool and Grave Descend were both recently republished, after all). And I read that he had a book that was to be published on December 2 but it will be understandably pushed back to May.

You'll be missed, Dr. Crichton. I don't know too many authors who can shift gears the way you did. Who else can write about genetic engineering dinosaurs to Japanese business culture to sexual harassment in consecutive books? None, I daresay.