A Lost World

I always looked forward with great anticipation to reading the latest novel by Michael Crichton, the author, filmmaker and man of outstanding intellect, who died recently. His widely read books have been translated into thirty-six languages to date.
In my view Michael Crichton had ideal qualifications and a rare talent (honed by hard work and combined with considerable research) for stretching technological possibilities to their not-quite-illogical limit and exploring the consequences as things went wrong when the futuristic technology was combined with a range of questionable human motivations. Alas there will be no more Crichton tales - they are lost to the world. But I shall certainly enjoy re-reading many of my particular favourite novels including Jurassic Park, Timeline, Airframe, Prey and the successor to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. However, and notwithstanding the official website’s commentary, I intend to pass on a revisit to the one ‘out of sync’ Crichton work, State of Fear.
Michael Crichton’s style of writing was sometimes assailed by literary critics for supposedly shallow drawing of characters and the limited description of relationships amongst them. To the extent that this was an opinion held to any significant extent, from my point of view it was (a) a positive asset and (b) the criticism completely misses the point.
Crichton had all the requisite abilities. He also had so many imaginative ideas to develop and events to work through to instructive and sobering consequences that cluttering the work up with tiresome portraits of fictitious personalities (no doubt required to be flawed and frequently horizontal) redundant dialogue and interminable interactions would have been a drag on the flow of the exhilarating plot and the rapid tempo narrative. If sophisticated interpersonal relationships are what you simply must insist on regardless of plot or setting - and there is nothing wrong with that - then stick with Jane Austen, but please don’t require all writers or readers to have their preferences cast in the same mould. That and the awkward fact that most of the critics could hardly put Crichton’s books down.
Michael Crichton’s work was written in the unaffected manner and exemplary straightforward English that is called for by his subject matter. And this he did exceptionally well. In my view Michael Crichton should be ranked with H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and their triumphs of concept; The First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea - to which I would add Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. In my opinion, Jurassic Park was a masterpiece of this genre and the Steven Spielberg’s film broke new technical ground and was well done despite unnecessary tamperings with the script and two of the characters.
My personal favourite novel however, remains Timeline - although I accept that in this matter I will probably put myself in a minority amongst Crichton connoisseurs. However, the film did not, to say the least, do justice to the book. A time-travel theme is inherently fascinating but is extremely difficult to pull off plausibly with the intractable problem of contradiction avoidance not to mention the travel mechanism involved. In this latter respect he came up with the most creative and original account although somewhat contradicting his chaos related arguments of Jurassic Park in the former respect.
Millions of people right across the globe will miss Michael Crichton’s highly distinctive contributions to imaginative, science related, fiction - a lost world of the future - but, without doubt, many millions more will certainly discover them in the years to come. Michael Crichton's work will stand the test of time.
You can visit the official Michael Crichton website on the Internet at: http://www.michaelcrichton.net/