Michael Crichton, r.i.p.

Prolific novelist and "ER" creator Michael Crichton has passed away. He was 66.

Perhaps best known for being the author of Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, which were turned into a hugely successful movie franchise, his numerous books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide.

In what his family calls an unexpected death, it was revealed that he was waging a private battle against cancer.

"While the world knew him as a great storyteller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us -- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes," his family tells ET. "He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget."

Between him, Tony Hillerman, and James Crumley, it's been a bad year for genre novelists.

he was pretty nuts and pretty much everything he did after jurassic park was lame, but there was some really good stuff up to and including j.p. RIP.

Eaters of the Dead was a great riff on the Beowulf story.

i have nothing but affection for great genre dudes and he was one. RIP.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ef6fq-1qL._SS500_.jpg

RIP

He was not much of a novelist but he did have a knack for making entertaining yarns that made complex scientific and technology concepts accesible to a mass audience.

Too bad his contrarian impulses led him down the path of global warming-denying, though.

Aww, that's too bad. His novels were lots of fun, except for the later ones, and "State of Emergency" with evil enviro villain Nick Drake was just shit. RIP.

he was a huge asshole but jurassic park is 1 of the best movies ever

with evil enviro villain Nick Drake

waht? haha

nevar forget http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/14/crichton-critic/

Andromeda Strain
ER
Jurassic Park
AND Congo

RIP :(

Oh man, I was hoping this was a sick joke. RIP, dude, your novels were so much trashy fun. :-(

he was pretty nuts

I know nothing of his personal life. So I gotta ask: why nuts?

nevar forget http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/14/crichton-critic/

― and what, Wednesday, November 5, 2008 6:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum."

Ah, your prose will be missed, mr. crichton.

such a dick move, literally

also an asshole move, literally

what does ET have to do with this?

fuck this guy

NOW? Ew.

"what does ET have to do with this?"

hahah

great train robbery a+++++

The Andromeda Strain is a pretty bitchin' book and movie (the original movie, not the TV remake that aired recently).

jurassic park was the first adult book i ever read

It was one of the first ones I read, too. I think Peter Benchley's The Beast was the first.

I read The Terminal Man for an English class and was totally blown away by it. It's still my favorite of his novels (Congo comes close).

this news does not sadden me.

the only thing worse than the congo the novel is the congo the movie.

i saw him give a talk once at the field museum in chicago, he seemed like a pretty sharp dude. rip.

Wasn't Congo Peggy Hill's favorite book?

Congo the movie is A+ bad movie/good time fun.

Congo the movie is a full-on jaw-dropping massacre of the story presented in Congo the book.

Dr. Karen Ross: Name your price.
Dr. Peter Elliot: I don't have a price! I'm not a pound of sugar, I'm a primatologist!

Eddie Ventro: Wow, a talking gorilla! I can feel the money hairs on the back of my neck going "WOO-WOO-WOO".

"the book was better than the movie": congo edition

iirc congo ends with evil gorillas being cut up with lasers in the middle of an active volcano

Rising Sun (book/film) was awful.

iirc congo ends with evil gorillas being cut up with lasers in the middle of an active volcano

Sounds like a Jonah Goldberg fantasy.

Never quite understood why the movie adds a scenery-chewing role for Tim Curry as a "Romanian philanthropist"

but it does add to the lols.

iirc congo ends with evil gorillas being cut up with lasers in the middle of an active volcano

And that's just proof how awesome a movie it is!

Amy the Gorilla: Ugly gorillas. Ugly. Go away.

fuck, now that he is dead, who is going to write books for adventure movies :(

admittedly I only read the sphere and the movie sucked. the book was alright

Out there, beyond the foliage, you see herds of clichés, roaming free. You will listen in ‘stunned silence’ to an ‘unearthly cry’ or a ‘deafening roar’. Raptors are ‘rapacious’. Reptiles are ‘reptilian’. Pain is ‘searing’

His early thrillers under the name John Lange (Hard Case Crime recently reprinted them) are clever-daft fun. I enjoyed 'Andromeda Strain' and JP when I was a teenager. But really, his last couple of decades of stuff is pretty shit. And his anti-environmentalist bullshit novel winning some neocon award for "journalism" (and him accepting) still causes me amusement.

i read 'sphere' when i was 10 or so and thought it was the greatest thing ever

then i tried reading it again when i was older and couldn't even get 50 pages in

I think I read all the Crichton stuff that I did in middle school and thought it was kind of cool. The guy was definitely somewhat of a nut though, in that he'd find some almost-scientific points and fixate on them. The guy wrote thrillers, not science fiction or even stuff with good plotting. But he did it with a good deal of success, and I can't think of another modern author that was able to repeatedly do the book/movie divide over that long of a period.

In college I took a sci-fi course and we read a pretty good selection, culminating in Jurassic Park. The first day of discussion everyone was stepping around the fact that the writing kind of sucked compared to the others we'd been reading, and the professor shrugged and said, "Yeah, I know, we'll just watch the movie next week and call it done."

Rising Sun was ridiculous in book form, but the movie casting (and I've only seen it as an afternoon movie on cable tv) made it hilarious.

I watched Coma for the first time in ages. I vaguely recall it being marketed as a horror film, but it more accurately fits in with the '70s paranoia genre, from The Parallax View to The Stepford Wives to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (Was surprised by the ending--was expecting something more along the lines of the latter two.) Funny seeing Ed Harris before anyone knew who he was. Big crush on Genevieve Bujold. Film so-so.

Yup. What I mainly remember related to it is posted here: http://cdn.games.arkadiumhosted.com/washingtonpost/crossynergy/cs121117.jpz.

Genevieve Bujold is awesome in Coma.

aargh. Clipboard mishap. Have to Permalink AND C+P URL. Here: List completely forgotten, and rightfully so, movies here

She's really good and there is some OK atmosphere but I seem to remember that the plot twist is a little obvious.

"The Jefferson Institute" makes for a good trivia question. Was amused by how completely Michael Douglas's screen persona was already in place, in what was really his first big film, even before The China Syndrome (he's third-billed behind Bujold and Richard Widmark). I like Michael Douglas, but in 35 years he's moved from A to A-1.

Don't begrudge it to me, J.J.

http://cinebeats.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/gb1.jpg