Every year I go through a phase where I miss seeing a new Michael Crichton novel on the shelf at the bookstore every 1 - 3 years. Nobody else was able to instantly pull me into the story from the first page and make me not want to put the book down and stay up way to late too finish it. He had a way with words. And dialogue. And science. And technology. And current events.
Many authors cover one genre or theme in their writing: horror, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure/thriller, mystery. There are a few authors who change genres every few books - Dan Simmons leaps immediately to mind. His works span horror, real crime, and science fiction on a regular basis, and he often includes some historical element (The Terror, The Abominable, and Drood are excellent examples).
Authors of fantasy, adventure, and thrillers may change the details in their books, but the essential stories are typically the same. Sometimes this can be a bad thing if the stories are too formulaic. For example, there is a great evil and good sets out to defeat it - too many stories in a row like this and it is like the author just changed the names in a previous story. To some extent, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series is kind of formulaic (there is something bad and Harry needs to stop it), but in that series the devil is in the details, and the series is FANTASTIC!
But some author's work I see as being pretty much the same. For example, I've seen James Patterson's 'Alex Cross' stories - I've seen the movie Along Came A Spider, I've read Cat and Mouse, and I've read the back covers of several more - seems like there's always a serial killer, and the story is typically similar enough that I won't be picking up any more of his books. Given his popularity, many people apparently like this, but I'm not one of them. I will say that both stories did contain a twist at the end, but this wasn't enough of a payoff for reading the story - at least, not for me.
Authors of fantasy, adventure, and thrillers may change the details in their books, but the essential stories are typically the same. Sometimes this can be a bad thing if the stories are too formulaic. For example, there is a great evil and good sets out to defeat it - too many stories in a row like this and it is like the author just changed the names in a previous story. To some extent, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series is kind of formulaic (there is something bad and Harry needs to stop it), but in that series the devil is in the details, and the series is FANTASTIC!
But some author's work I see as being pretty much the same. For example, I've seen James Patterson's 'Alex Cross' stories - I've seen the movie Along Came A Spider, I've read Cat and Mouse, and I've read the back covers of several more - seems like there's always a serial killer, and the story is typically similar enough that I won't be picking up any more of his books. Given his popularity, many people apparently like this, but I'm not one of them. I will say that both stories did contain a twist at the end, but this wasn't enough of a payoff for reading the story - at least, not for me.
However, Crichton's books are different. While his stories are typically adventurous or dramatic, they had a wide range. For example:
- The Great Train Robbery deals with the first theft from a moving train in the 1800's.
- Rising Sun involves a corporate murder and cutting edge technology
- Sphere involved the investigation of an alien ship that crashed at the bottom of the ocean.
- Jurassic Park involves a theme park where science has produced living dinosaurs
- Disclosure is about a reverse sexual harassment case, also in the corporate world with cutting edge technology
- Airframe is about a company that builds passenger jets, and an investigation into an accident
- Timeline is about time travel to medieval France
- Prey is about a cloud of nano-particles that has been programmed as a a predator
- State of Fear is about global warming and climate change and eco-terrorists
- Next is about genetic research
- Micro is kind of like the movie Fantastic Voyage, but instead of being shrunk to the microscopic level, people are shrunk to a half an inch in height and thrust into the Hawaiian jungle and must deal with the hazards of nature that that size
Some of these books, such as Disclosure, State of Fear, and Airframe, followed on the heels of similar world events (Disclosure was a few years after a famous sexual harassment case, State of Fear followed concerns about global warming and climate change, and Airframe included an accident similar to the China Eastern Airlines accident from a few years earlier). Some other authors follow this pattern as well (James Rollins refers to genetically modified crops and colony collapse disorder in honey bees in his novel The Doomsday Key), but there aren't many of them - to my knowledge anyway.
Most of his works typically included something that was cutting edge. Even in the Great Train Robbery, stealing from a moving train had never been done before. Sounds pretty cutting edge for the year 1854. To top if off, the story is partially based on fact (there was a real train robbery).
I remember reading Sphere when I was in college. I didn't want to put it down, and I ended up staying up all night to finish it. It was not only a science fiction story, but was also a fast paced psychological thriller. It also includes some underwater action that rivals James Cameron's The Abyss, although Sphere was published first.
The stories of Michael Crichton always involved very realistic, human characters (not super heroes), facing realistic challenges (even when surrounded by seemingly impossible things, like nano-particles or dinosaurs). He was an amazingly talented writer who had the ability to get you hooked on a story within a handful of pages, and there are very few authors who exhibit this talent these days, and his death in 2008 left a gaping hole in the world of storytelling.
I remember reading Sphere when I was in college. I didn't want to put it down, and I ended up staying up all night to finish it. It was not only a science fiction story, but was also a fast paced psychological thriller. It also includes some underwater action that rivals James Cameron's The Abyss, although Sphere was published first.
The stories of Michael Crichton always involved very realistic, human characters (not super heroes), facing realistic challenges (even when surrounded by seemingly impossible things, like nano-particles or dinosaurs). He was an amazingly talented writer who had the ability to get you hooked on a story within a handful of pages, and there are very few authors who exhibit this talent these days, and his death in 2008 left a gaping hole in the world of storytelling.
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