In honor of Michael Crichton, I picked up Jurassic Park last week for some light reading and I began to remember why I loved reading his books.
First of all they are intelligent, whether you realize it or not. I read JP when I was in middle school, and it was a fun story about a dinosaur experiment gone wrong. As I've gotten older and reread the book a number of times, each read brings to light another aspect of Crichton's focus. Sure it's about how dinosaurs aren't meant to be constrained within a park outside of their natural time period, but there is also the discussion of bioethics and theoretical mathematics that I never really grasped until recently.
Even with all that heady subject material, the book is still incredibly well written. Crichton paints an incredibly detailed world so that you find yourself immersed within and makes it difficult to come back to reality afterword. Plus, he has a part in the book that I will remember for the rest of my life. When they are hunting the raptors, Muldoon shoots one with a rocket, and it explodes like a tomato thrown against a brick wall (or something to that effect). Needless to say, that little description has stayed with me since childhood.
Finally, the main reason I like Crichton's books is because they are so much better than the movies that are based on them. Congo, Timeline, The 13th Warrior (based on Eaters of the Dead)... even Jurassic Park, none of the films can hold a candle to the awesomeness of the books.
First of all they are intelligent, whether you realize it or not. I read JP when I was in middle school, and it was a fun story about a dinosaur experiment gone wrong. As I've gotten older and reread the book a number of times, each read brings to light another aspect of Crichton's focus. Sure it's about how dinosaurs aren't meant to be constrained within a park outside of their natural time period, but there is also the discussion of bioethics and theoretical mathematics that I never really grasped until recently.
Even with all that heady subject material, the book is still incredibly well written. Crichton paints an incredibly detailed world so that you find yourself immersed within and makes it difficult to come back to reality afterword. Plus, he has a part in the book that I will remember for the rest of my life. When they are hunting the raptors, Muldoon shoots one with a rocket, and it explodes like a tomato thrown against a brick wall (or something to that effect). Needless to say, that little description has stayed with me since childhood.
Finally, the main reason I like Crichton's books is because they are so much better than the movies that are based on them. Congo, Timeline, The 13th Warrior (based on Eaters of the Dead)... even Jurassic Park, none of the films can hold a candle to the awesomeness of the books.
2 comments:
yeah especially since they do things in the books that take away scientific cred that he really worked so hard to have. like the decision that an actual velociraptor wasn't scary enough so they just picked a different dinosaur and still called it one. that kind of thing pisses me off
I know many people just hate the books made into movies but I like them, but not because I loved the book. Yes, the books tend to be better just because of the detail and being able to "hear" the though processes and other things that cannot be depicted on screen. But movies themselves are just so darn fun. Jurassic Park (the movie) is one of my favorites. Jurassic Park (the book) is a favorite also. They are so different from each other that I don't even think of them as the same thing.
I was so sad to hear about Michael Crichton, this has not been a good year for authors.
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