'Goodbye Michael Crichton' and 'Republicans say shocking things, shocked that Americans react to it'

[thistlechaser]

Two topics in one handy post!

I'm sorry, Michael Crichton, but you're off my Christmas card list and out of my To Read pile for good. I really did enjoy rereading Jurassic Park, then I read a second book by you and it wasn't very good, then I tried a third one and it was worse...

Don't get me wrong. Book #28 for the year was Next, which was about... I don't know. Something about generics. I got 30% into the book and we hadn't had more than a couple pages about plot (certainly not enough for me to have more than the most basic idea what was happening with the story). The rest of the book was chapter after chapter of facts and nonfiction. Which universities make the most money from genetics. The patenting of certain genes. The "history" of genetics (in the "Professor Marsh was married to Dr. Smith and they had three kids. The oldest became a teacher at blah blah blah school (paragraphs of info), the middle became (paragraphs of unrealted info), and the youngest went into genetics. He studied at (blah blah) where he had a part time job at McDonalds...).

If you wanted to write a nonfiction book, Mr. Crichton, you should have done that. A third into your book and no sign of a plot? Chapters, entire chapters, with nothing but information dry technical information? Not even disguised as dialogue? I'm done with this.

I wonder if I've read more bad books than usual this year, or it's only now that I'm writing it down and tracking it that I'm remembering them all? Sometime nearer the end of the year I'm going to go back and count how many of the books I read in 2012 that I loved/disliked/etc. Should be interesting!

---

And on Republicans! This amused me greatly. Papa John's, Applebee's And Others Pay Huge Price For Anti-Obamacare Politicking.

It's like people being surprised that Mitt Romney lost a popular vote after saying that he didn't care about the majority of Americans. "What?! You mean people listen to my words and react?!!"

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Those are not necessarily 'Republicans', FWIW, but thanks for linking the article, because it makes me happy, after reading about the 'stance' they were taking on it, that they've been hit where it hurts. I've been boycotting Papa John's since the news broke, but now I guess I need to add Applebee's and Wal-mart to the list.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hit the buffer limit on the subject line so changed it to 'Republicans', then ended up using it again to keep consistent -- bad decision, in retrospect. (Also, I hadn't known about Applebee's either!)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

By the way! In case you didn't see this elsewhere.

"Bioware is giving everyone all the DA2 pre-order stuff out for free, all you gotta do is go here and claim it."

http://social.bioware.com/da2/dlc_bundle/

[evilgrayson.livejournal.com]

I think Crichton's books make better films than books. 13th Warrior was just awesome.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Whatever the last book was I read (something about nanotech) would have been a great movie -- it read just like one (minus all the nonfiction stuff jammed in). It was a really, really bad book. The one bit of plot I had encountered so far in this book (a maybe-talking chimp) would have worked in a movie, too. However, one mention of it (a few pages total) in the first 30% of the book... Ugh.

I like learning things, really I do, but the background and facts he gives are so detailed and pointless. I do not care who the parents of some minor RL scientist are. I do not care how many siblings he had. I do not care where his childhood home was located. Story! I'm reading this book for an entertaining story! Arg!

[gmth.livejournal.com]

LOL, I love most of Michael Crichton's stuff, but that description of his writing is totally spot-on. :D

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it works for you! :D I do love learning things, but man, I could use a lot more storyline in the middle of it!