Read all of Michael Crichton's Novels

Next is the next to last of Crichton’s books. I’m still debating whether I’ll read his pseudonymous works, but I don’t really count them as his anyway. I’m just waiting for his posthumous book, Pirate Latitudes to come out.

Just finished State of Fear. This means I have just one book left in his regular canon: Next. Not sure if it’s next on my reading shelf or not. State of Fear was interesting and had some good points. I think people were confused by it, thinking that Crichton was attacking the theory of global warming. I’m rather ambivalent about global warming, so maybe that influenced my interpretation of the story. Either way, I think he was attacking politicized science rather than any particular theory. It’s worth reading if for no other reason than to make you think about what you think about science.

I just finished Prey tonight, and I can tell already that it is up there with my favorite books of his, The Great Train Robbery and Sphere. Sometimes, Crichton gets off his preachy high horse and just has fun writing about just-past-the-cutting-edge science. And it’s fun. This one was fun.

All that’s left is State of Fear and Next.

I really hoped this book would be good. But it started off slow; it had a map on the inside cover that didn’t line up with the story; it had a really weak ending that didn’t line up with the geography as I understood it; and it even had a couple instances of bad grammar.

That said, it had a really, really interesting idea, much more interesting than just “Some dinosaurs survived!” He uses the surviving dinosaurs as a vehicle to talk about his own thoughts on evolution and extinction theory, and I think that’s worth reading. That’s what bumped it up from a 1/5 to a 2/5.

Just finished Disclosure. A lot of reviews I read really disliked it. Some were even offended by it. I didn’t find it offensive or terrible, but I didn’t find it awesome either. About par for the course Crichton.

Next up: The Lost World.

Just finished Five Patients this morning. It had its interesting parts, but it was mostly about how medical care in the 1960s could improve. I’m not a big fan of books like that (even contemporary ones) because they lose their value so quickly. It might be interesting to see which of his recommendations came to fruition, but that’s about it. Still, it had a lot of interesting history that I probably wouldn’t have gotten from anywhere else.

Michael Crichton isn’t always appreciated for his humor, but I thought this, from Five Patients was pretty funny:

This makes the hospital an expensive place, but it has its uses . . . .

I started Five Patients today. It’s pretty short and looks at medical care in the 1960s. The stories of care should be entertaining if nothing else.

Seven left. I haven’t read Jasper Johns, and I don’t really want to. Has anybody else read it? Is it worth reading?