I'll mlss Michael Crichton

Crichton's Wisdom

Excerpt:

Crichton, who died this week of cancer, will not be remembered as a brilliant prose stylist. But he knew how to hold reader attention, and he had an inventive mind that led him to write novels -- 26 in all, along with screenplays and works of nonfiction -- that concerned the problematic intersection of science, technology, public policy and ordinary life. A medical doctor by training, Crichton knew better than to treat scientists and technologists as a priestly class, immune from temptations of fame, profit or power.

As a result, Crichton was sometimes accused of being a Luddite. In fact, he was a champion of good science, and never more so than in a 2003 lecture at Caltech, hilariously titled "Aliens Cause Global Warming."

Comment: He wrote the perfect "airport books" - books to be read while traveling. My first Crichton novel - The Andromeda Strain; the second - The Terminal Man.