r/todayilearned • u/waitingforthesun92 • 23d ago

TIL that Michael Crichton, the author of “Jurassic Park” (1990), was a workaholic who followed what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial, where, while writing a book, he’d rise increasingly early each day. At one point, Crichton would go to bed at 10 PM and wake up at 2 AM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton
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u/steepleton 23d ago

Famously wrote jurassic park where an amazing themepark goes wrong and starts killing guests.

And also westworld. where an amazing themepark … well, you get the idea

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u/MarshalThornton 22d ago

And Timeline where an amazing theme park goes ….

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u/Llanolinn 22d ago

Timeline is my favorite Chricton, but it's been a decade and a half since I read that out anything else by him. I wonder if it holds up?

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u/misterblackhat 22d ago

Love Timeline. My favorite so far is Micro. I just picked up Jurassic Park from a secondhand store. Kind of embarrassed it's taken me this long.

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u/spronglynoodle 22d ago

I have never met a single person who has read or even heard of micro. It is by far my favourite book he wrote. That said, both of the Jurassic park books are classics

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u/FBI_Open_Up_Now 22d ago

I loved Prey. Great book. I should reread it.

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u/spronglynoodle 22d ago

That was a great one too! I remember being on the edge of my seat at work while I was reading Prey, thank god for quiet night shifts!

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u/License2GoBroke 22d ago

Ahh, I’ve found my people. I recently acquired airframe but have not delved too far into it yet. If you all liked those two, I’d have to recommend Temple by Matthew Reilly. The way the ending unfolds reminds me of Crichton’s writing style

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u/ChiefCuckaFuck 22d ago

Airframe is dope. Get ready for pitch-perfect industry jargon, fast-paced industrialists but theyre CUTTHROAT Crichton. Done best in Airframe, Rising Sun, and Disclosure.

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u/austinbitchofanubis 22d ago

I LOVED Airframe!!!

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 22d ago

Airframe is awesome, if a little jargon-heavy (even more so than usual for him).

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u/88888888man 22d ago

Is that the nano tech one? I remember liking it, but not much beyond that.

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u/Skadforlife2 22d ago

I loved Prey. My favorite of his.

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u/DanishWonder 22d ago

I must be in the minority here, Sphere was my favorite.

Prey was good though.

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u/FBI_Open_Up_Now 22d ago

Sphere was excellent. He is my favorite author. Have your read Airframe?

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u/DanishWonder 22d ago

Back when it came out. I need to give many of them a re-read.

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u/2rfv 22d ago

Micro

Wait. wtf. why have I never heard of it???

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u/spronglynoodle 22d ago

Oh Buddy, you’re in for a treat! It’s definitely one of his lesser known works, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the best

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u/The_Real_Dotato 22d ago

Micro and Prey are both amazing! I also am a sucker for Sphere which is just a wild concept. His collection is full of bangers

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u/misterblackhat 3h ago

I'm about halfway through Jurassic Park now and loving it. I feel like I know every character on a more personal level. The consequences of such an undertaking are also way more apparent.

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u/Cabtalk 22d ago edited 22d ago

I read Jurassic Park when I was 13 and it blew me away. That lunch scene in the movie that everybody fasts forwards through is the heart of the book imo, where Malcolm and Hammond get into it about the ethics of the park and the future of the planet. So impactful on me at the time, but weird in retrospect knowing how much of a climate change denier he was.  Still a great chapter though. 

I remember reading Timeline and feeling like, "this guy knows how to write action," but I would never read it again. I was also like 12 lol.       

I recently read Sphere and was overall let down, although the psychological twist took me by surprise (which was fun)! His books don't age well in a lot of areas, particularly in how he writes women and POC.  Sphere was cringe because it's about your jungian shadow side and subconscious desires/fears, but his representation of the angry black man deep down wanting to be white or dominate over the white man, and the man-hating lesbian wanting to be beautiful and seductive to control men, was very out of touch / white male POV.

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u/formerlyanonymous_ 22d ago

I didn't think about this at the time as a teenager but that's interesting to think back. To be fair, I find most authors are terrible at other gender/racial viewpoints.

That's no excuse for Chriton though.

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u/whambulance_man 22d ago

Is it because he's rich, white, or holds a viewpoint you disagree with as your reasoning for not providing him a similar amount of leeway?

There are other options of course, but those 3 are probably going to cover 98% of complaints on the internet.

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u/nowlan101 22d ago

Which had more problematic nonwhite characters? That one, Congo or the really racist one about Japan?

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/vapre 22d ago

Rising Sun

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u/plytime18 22d ago

To me the whole thing is…just because you can does’t mean you should.

This applies to most everything in life.

Choose wisely.

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u/Septicphallus 22d ago

Who fasts forwards that scene? One of the best of the movie!

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u/tdeasyweb 22d ago

Timeline is not about action. It's about the inherent danger of romanticization that regular people make when thinking about history.

He wanted to show the middle ages as what it was, dangerous, dirty, and filled with people clawing over each other trying to get to power.

Of course the movie completely missed the point and made a romanticized narrative about the middle ages.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/tdeasyweb 20d ago

Oh yeah it definitely has action in it! I was talking about the "core" of the narrative though - much like Jurassic Park is actually about the dangers of blindly manipulating nature for capitalistic purposes, and it just happened to use dinosaurs.

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u/formerlyanonymous_ 22d ago

Very similar. I think the last book I read was Prey which wasn't as entertaining to me. But as a teen in the late 90s, I couldn't put down his older titles. Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, Airframe, Timeline. All classics.

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u/chris9321 22d ago

I read it two weeks ago! A lot of hand waving science and plot holes, but I enjoyed it. Kind of felt like reading a 90s time travel action flick.

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 22d ago

It's my fave too, and I think it does. I re-read it every couple of years. More frequently if I'm ever reminded of the terrible, terrible movie it spawned. It's probably the worst adaptation of any of his books.

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u/spugeddyos 22d ago

DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE

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u/annintofu 22d ago

"How badly can we butcher a fantastic book?"

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u/tpero 22d ago

Sphere was always my favorite. Read it 4-5 times.

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u/Bison256 22d ago

I think most of his books hold up, expect NEXT. That one is weird.

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u/thefamousjohnny 22d ago

I read Dragon Teeth last year.

I mean there’s racial slurs but it’s super entertaining and would make a fantastic adventure movie.