I was in the middle of 9th grade when I had got membership to a local library in Ahmedabad. I had finished up the last of Christie and Hardy Boys were a forgotten memory. It was time to progress towards more adult authors, or so I thought. As I was scrolling down the aisles in the library to pick a suitably “grown up” book, the librarian (who happens to be our family friend) suggested a book to me. His recommendation was “The Andromeda Strain” by Michael Crichton. He assured me that I would love this book, and challenged me that after reading one book by Crichton, I would run back to pick the next one by Crichton and wouldn’t rest until I finished reading all his books.
He was right.
Michael Crichton was one of those rare authors, whose every written word I can safely claim to have read (some more than once or twice), including even his non-fictions, articles and movie scripts as well. However it was his books that I used to wait for, buy them the moment they released and feverishly finish them off in one sitting. I don’t care how the world reviewed his books, but to me, they were some of the most exciting techno thrillers I’ve read in my life.
His literary style was never something he was famous for. Nor were his characters. Nor were his story line either. And his books were never meant to be character study either. But his books had one thing in them: The perfect amalgamation of tomorrow’s science and almost realistic scientific experiments to create a worst case scenario. And who doesn’t love reading about worst case scenarios?
His books pretty much played the same plot in his most of his books (save some of them): A group of scientists royally screwed up some scientific experiment and all hell breaks loose. The only time he deviated a bit from this general plot line was probably “Disclosure” and “Rising Sun”, and perhaps the only two books that came close to providing any kind of character depth. Both were great reads, the former about sexual harassment by women to men in corporate world, and the latter about Japan’s threat to US economy. Heck I can still picture Demi Moore from Disclosure or Sean Connery discovering the body in Rising Sun in their respective movie adaptations. (Yes, I have seen all his movie adaptations as well).
And then there were books that stuck to his formulaic plot. “The Andromeda Strain” talked about a village wiped off by a virus, while “Sphere” about deep sea exploration gone wrong. He dealt with Avionics in “Airframe”, while dabbled with theory of parallel universes and time travel in “Timeline”. His literary achievement and fame probably came with “Jurassic Park” though which talked about dinosaurs bought back to life by genetics from frog dna [And yes, the book was a million times better than the movie]. The sequel “The lost world” didn’t have much meat, but still provided thrills nonetheless. He tackled molecular nanotechnology and distributed systems and artificial intelligence in “Prey”, while gave us a look into future of healthcare and genetics in a what was his probably weakest novel – “Next”. [Though I agree that Next was not a well thought out story, the debate on who owns your genes was absolutely worth the read]. His most controversial thriller “State of Fear” mocked global warming and made a case against it.
His not so formulaic stories had their own share of fun too; “The terminal man” talked about behavioral modification, while “The great train robbery” was simply a class act of a plan well executed; “The eaters of the dead” talked about the vikings of 10th century, while “Travels” and “Five Patients” talked about medicine and his view on it.
I probably can go on about his other books as well, but I guess these were some of his more popular books than his lesser known ones he wrote as “John Lange”, which included “A Case of Need”, “Binary” and others.
Most of his techno thrillers had one thing going for them. Excellent research and background. While his contemporaries and copycats like Dan Brown reduced to talking about firewalls as color coded walls around a software fort (don’t believe me? read Digital Fortress), Crichton took care in writing about a technology convincingly. When he wrote, you believed it was possible. It may not be after all once you do your research, but when you read his books, his books convinced you that his ideas on technology were after all possible. (Heck, as early as last week scientists in Japan created a mosquito from frozen 16 year old mosquito [something explored in Jurassic Park]. Not kidding.)
And that was the beauty of his writing. His scientific curiosity and the conviction he presented his ideas were absolute delights to read. I often tend to think Crichton’s used his characters and plot to merely present his ideas. He really wasn’t interested in characters as much as he was interested in research and technology. His brilliance lied in using his characters to tell an edge of the seat thriller while talking about his own ideas.
Michael Crichton died yesterday, and perhaps the news was lost on the election hoopla, but as soon as I read it first thing today morning, my heart skipped a beat. In spite of having mostly stopped reading, he was the only author whose books I kept waiting for. Heck, I am eager as hell to check out in what will be his last book, this December. Like all his books, I expect this one to be a best seller too; I wonder what is he going to tackle in his next book. However it is also with sadness I look ahead – Will there be another author whose books I wait on so feverishly ever? Will there be an author who took his research and technology so seriously? Or an author who could mix technology and science so good and present his ideas in such a interesting way.
As I look ahead, I don’t see anybody who could fill in Michael Crichton’s shoes. And there in lied his importance.
As I end this post, I have to mention about that one book that always stayed with me forever: “Congo”. Though world may rate several of his other books better than this, I have always maintained that Congo was his best book ever. I have read the book multiple times, and each of those times the story of finding diamonds in Congo and coming across gorillas still keeps me hooked. Heck, the first part of the story that sets up the rest of the book is still chilling as ever. The whole story had a feel of fear in it. In my opinion, Congo was his most accomplished work, and will always stay.
I just wish there were more story writers like Michael Crichton. None before. None after.
Rest in Peace: Micheal Crichton.