Michael Crichton

[Dick Daskell]

Has anyone noticed any common themes throughout his books? In many of his books he is very scientific (e.g. Jurassic Park, Terminal Man)

[Drusilla1S]

He's a graduate from Harvard Medical School and once ran a computer software company. I suppose he writes about the things he knows best.

I enjoyed his website. Hope you do, too.

http://www.crichton-official.com/aboutmc/biography.html

[Dick Daskell]

Interesting facts on this site, many which I did not know. Thanks for the link

[jno]

Jurassic Park is a rethinking of Westworld

[Dick Daskell]

Does Westworld also mention Chaos Theory?

[jno]

that's where the rethinking came in...

[vehelpfulguy]

I found much more detail in the book of Jurasic Park than the film and so much more interesting.

The book was a fairly serious study of the dangers of genetic modification (although still a "fun" book).

For example, in the book the triceratops that is ill has got problems because it is an animal from mllions of years ago, but eating plants that are around today.

Many dinasours used to eat stones so that they would help grind up the food in their stomach. In the book the tricaratops has eaten too many stones as it could not digest the modern plants.

This was almost completely glossed over in the film and it was just portrayed as a "cute" animal that was ill.

[LeMarchand]

As enjoyable as many of his books are, I'd take some of his "facts" with a pinch of salt...

[rhona_j]

Haven't checked out the weblink yet, just about to, but I remember reading a book by him years ago, think it was called 'Binary' (out of print now I think!) but I thourghly enjoyed it! Hmm, a bit of useless info for you there, eh?

[rhona_j]

Hmm, just checked out the link, 'Binary' isn't listed in his novels.....I could have sworn it was by him. Maybe I'm going mad, just ignore me!

[KebabMeister]

Didn't he do the Andromeda Strain as well? I loved that film.

[LeMarchand]

"Binary" is by MC, but it was originally released as by "John Lange". It was filmed under the title "Pursuit"...

[rhona_j]

Ooh, thanks LeMarchand, I'm not going mad then!

[hiflier]

I don't know about a common theme in his books, but I read 'Airframe' recently and it was pretty clear that he had done little research into the subject, particularly when it came to technical details. Best to keep away from books that he's written on subjects that you are familiar with but that he is not.