There’s a line between our awe of science and technology, with all the possibilities they offer us, and our fear of same, that the sense of control they offer is a lethal illusion. Few authors made that line their own as skillfully — and as profitably — as Michael Crichton. The author/screenwriter/director, who died Tuesday at age 66, had a knack for finding and exploring hot-button issues in his techno-thrillers — sexual harassment (Disclosure), epidemiology (The Andromeda Strain), airline safety (Airframe), the importation of Japanese business culture to the U.S. (Rising Sun), nanotechnology (Prey), global warming (State of Fear), and of course, genetic engineering (Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Next). But he did so in a savvy, populist way by using these complex issues as MacGuffins for flashy, genre-plotted novels and movies. This was true ever since he abandoned his medical career for fiction, starting with his first book, A Case of Need (1968), a mystery novel that was really a way of addressing the issue of abortion, just a few years before Roe vs. Wade. Crichton considered himself a storyteller, not an educator or polemicist ("What I do is entertain people," he told EW in 1994, comparing himself to Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, masters of narrative only later inducted into the literary canon), but he still wanted you to learn something, and he was adept at sneaking the spinach in there with the cotton candy.
Crichton’s frequent message, that the mixture of science and arrogance will get us into trouble, is as old as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,but Crichton managed to play both sides of the street. His tales arefrequently about puzzle-solving, with his characters forced to usetheir ingenuity to get out of messes that ingenuity got them into. Hisattention to detail and verisimilitude made applied science lookdangerous but tremendously cool — think of the androids in Westworld, the virtual reality simulation in the big-screen version of Disclosure, the tornado chasers in Twister, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (awe-inspiring at first, and then terrifying), and even the 19th-century cleverness involved in pulling off The Great Train Robbery.
Crichton’s critics often complained that his lavish attention tocool toys, gleaming surfaces, and scientific detail came at the expenseof fully fleshed characters. It’s often forgotten that, in addition tohis wildly successful literary endeavors, Crichton had a long career asa Hollywood director as well (Westworld, Coma, The Great Train Robbery, Looker),and indeed, his later novels often read like he’s already been castingthe movie in his head. Which is why his greatest creation, actually,may be TV’s ER. (Sorry, Jurassic Park fans.) It startedout as a film script he wrote when he was still making the transitionfrom doctor to writer. It collected dust for a quarter century beforebeing adapted into a TV series that’s now in its 15th season. Likeother Crichton subjects, ER itself has mutated in ways itscreator probably did not anticipate. And like most Crichton works, it’sabout the limits of technology, where humanity is forced to kick inonce applied science (in this case, medicine) has done all it can. It’sabout great storytelling, sure, but it’s also about trying to solveethical dilemmas that are bound to occur when human potential runs upagainst human nature, or just plain Nature itself.
Have a Michael Crichton memory you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments below.
More on Michael Crichton:
Michael Crichton profile
Michael Crichton: EW Power Issue
Michael Crichton profile (from Jurassic Park days)
TV Review: Adaptation of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain
Book review: Airframe
Book review: Next
Book review: Prey
Book review: State of Fear
Movie review: Twister (Crichton screenplay)
RIP Michael Crichton.
Thanks for writing this post Gary. You got it just right. I thought the same things about Crichton’s writing and always looked forward to learning something while I was hugely entertained by his work. He’ll be missed.
A great author and idealist. He will be missed.
I always thought that ‘Jurassic Park’ was one of the best science fiction novels ever written with a brilliant premise of combining plausible science and fiction.
‘ER’ has also stood the test of time and was pivotal in introducing steady-cam shots to the mainstream as a way to throw the audience directly into the drama. I will never forget 1st season’s ‘Love Labor’s Lost’. On a somewhat cynical note, I’m sure his estate will be getting royalty checks for years from Warner Bros. TV.
He will be missed.
I love Michael Chrichton’s books. I wish ER were’nt finishing this season. I love that show
I credit Michael Crichton with getting me into reading. I was a kid and very much into television. My mom ordered The Lost World from some magazine, and I remember being curious about it; I had of course seen Jurassic Park the movie, so a sequel, in book form (!), was curious. I would flip through to certain parts and reads bits and pieces. I finally read the book in 6th grade for a book report, and loved it. My dad caught me up one Saturday morning reading instead of watching cartoons. I collected as many of his books as my parents could find in thrift stores (excluding Timeline, which was bought new in paperback) and I read as many as I could before other novels were introduced to me, and my reading universe expanded.
So, thank you, Michael Crichton. I’ll soon need glasses because of you, and I’m grateful for that. RIP.
A great author who in my mind ruined his legacy by writing a book bashing climate change science. History will not look kindly on this gaffe. That being said I am sorry to hear the news.
Michael, thank you for making fiction believable and well researched; and thank you for taking disparate facts, linking them together, and creating imaginative possibilities. I’ll miss your work. RIP.
Michael Crichton — global warming naysayer, the man who made terrorists out climatologists (State of Fear).
Ignorant doctors are still ignorant.
He was a man of immense intelligence and had a gift for writing books that taught you something as well as kept you turning the pages. I learned new things in all his books.
My favorite piece of writing by him was the chapter in Travels on climbing Mt Kilimanjaro.
Chrichton’s attack on “rabid environmentalists” in _State of Fear_ was a severe disappointment that launched me on an investigation of global warming denialism after I recognized his “facts” on malaria deaths as a fabrication. Chrichton interviewed climate scientists and chose to believe what he learned from a non-scientist, Steve Milloy, who had labored on behalf of the tobacco industry for many years before taking money from Exxon to “create doubt” about global warming.
Arrogance was turned on its head, and Chrichton became an unwitting tool. A sad end for a magnificent writer.
“I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”
RIP MC
From Andromeda Strain to the Great Train Robberies onward to The Terminal Man and all of this later works, Michael has me hooked on his narrative story telling. The wife hated when I pick up his books b/c I couldn’t put them down until I finish. One of his book ending, I think it might have been State of Fear, shaped my consciousness. It went something about a new life start when you just shut off the dam# television. So now, I do not watch cable television anymore (only guilty of video and youtube). How often do you get bad news from the tv tube than good news? Another moment was about Michael growing up and telling stories to his siblings and parent around the dinner table. I encourage my kids to do the same (they do) and try to learn from Michael that learning to tell stories is one of the wonderful pleasure that life can offer. I am truly sad that Michael has moved onto the after life. And only at 66 years of age. Kinda young I feel. His candle burnt bright. I will miss
Michael Crichton’s books greatly influenced my initiation into reading. Thanks for this reminiscent article. I was always interested in science & was into some of Robin Cook’s early writing along with Crichton’s. These are some stand-out sections that stay with me:
-His imagination of telepathy & mind-control in ‘Sphere’
-His vision of virtual reality in ‘Disclosure’
-His depiction of Chaos theory in ‘Jurassic Park’ & believably linking it to extreme effects of cloning/gene manipulation/artificial ecosystems
-A very vivid imagination of the Lost city of Zinj in “Congo” which was brought to life very well in the movie
Many more such snippets come to mind. Most importantly, he came across for his acute attention to scientific detail and respect for readers’ intelligence. His books were always extensively researched & he definitely had the edge over any of his contemporary authors when it came to squeezing in that “tiny bit of spinach in the cotton candy”.
RIP Michael
so politically uncorrect : Crighton helped a lot, since he used to write in a very easy way, and broke a lot of readymade ideas we are living on.
I’ll miss him