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I have trouble taking Michael Crichton's stories seriously partly because of his odd obsession with theme parks. In Westworld, androids indistinguishable from

I have trouble taking Michael Crichton's stories seriously partly because of his odd obsession with theme parks. In Westworld, androids indistinguishable from humans are used for an amusement park. In Jurassic Park, it's engineering of fossil DNA to recreate dinosaurs that is used for a theme park and in Timeline, if I recall correctly, the first idea of a billionaire who manages to develop time-travelling technology is to use it to open a medieval theme park. Given any of those technology, I think this kind of use would lie pretty low on the list of either interesting or profitable things to do...

dashmatte 8y ago
I read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" when I was young and impressionable. It made an elegant argument denying Climate change and it took me almost 10 years for myself to get back on the right side of the argument. The argument centered around a lack of sample size to make a judgment on climate change. He testified in front of Congress just as convincingly in 2005. Both the right and left both agreed that climate change was real and needed to be addressed quickly until the mid 2000's then the right did a 180 on the issue. The right still uses his argument against climate change to this day and his books are recommended to young people. Let's fix the damage he's done before celebrating him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/sep/29/comment.bookscomment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/sep/29/comment.... http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michae...
darkpuma 8y ago
I don't recall enough about Timeline to recall that plot element, though I remember thinking it was a weak novel in general. But I consider Sphere and Andromeda Strain his best novels and neither are about parks.
atombender 8y ago
Among his 25+ fiction books plus screenplays, Crichton wrote just two books (Jurassic Park, The Lost World) and one screenplay (Westworld) about theme parks. Not sure how that's an obsession, especially he had to be talked into writing The Lost World by Steven Spielberg, who wanted source material for a sequel movie.

dashmatte 8y ago

I read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" when I was young and impressionable. It made an elegant argument denying Climate change and it took me almost 10 years for myself to get back on the right side of the argument. The argument centered around a lack of sample size to make a judgment on climate change. He testified in front of Congress just as convincingly in 2005. Both the right and left both agreed that climate change was real and needed to be addressed quickly until the mid 2000's then the right did a 180 on the issue. The right still uses his argument against climate change to this day and his books are recommended to young people. Let's fix the damage he's done before celebrating him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/sep/29/comment.bookscomment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/sep/29/comment.... http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michae...

darkpuma 8y ago

I don't recall enough about Timeline to recall that plot element, though I remember thinking it was a weak novel in general. But I consider Sphere and Andromeda Strain his best novels and neither are about parks.

atombender 8y ago

Among his 25+ fiction books plus screenplays, Crichton wrote just two books (Jurassic Park, The Lost World) and one screenplay (Westworld) about theme parks. Not sure how that's an obsession, especially he had to be talked into writing The Lost World by Steven Spielberg, who wanted source material for a sequel movie.