Stitch on 11/11/2008 at 21:30
Sphere is a book that hooked me in hard as a teen. I found it so compelling that I consumed the novel in a massive can't-sleep can't-eat must-read Sphere marathon. For the longest time I held it as the highwater mark for surface-thin-but-goddamn-it-scratches-that-itch fiction, the literary equivalent of Pizza Hut or Little Jon.
I reread the book a few months ago on a trashy whim and frankly I'm not entirely sure what the teenage draw was. The concept and setting are novel, but the writing is fucking terrible. I know drowning readers in tech and science-lite exposition is a Crichton hallmark, but I was shocked at how little of it actually featured into the story. "Jesus Christ," I thought during the first chapter as a soldier explained in page-length detail the intimate workings of a helicopter the protagonist was in for ten minutes, "None of this actually matters."
More dire is the fact that Crichton can't build characters for shit, so when his quasipeople stop spouting awkward dialogue long enough for the shit to hit the fan, the reader isn't personally invested enough to feel any sense of urgency. Will they survive or won't they, who gives a shit?
And then characters do things just because the plot dictates and not because it seems at all true to the character and then oh look let me explain string theory with a bowl of fruit and boy the one dame in the book can't handle pressure hunh and jesus christ people read the worst fucking horseshit :mad:
Jurassic Park was adapted into a lovely movie, though!
scumble on 18/11/2008 at 09:59
I found Rising Sun quite entertaining, but I would never have thought of Crichton as a particularly great author. Influential but not necessarily that good.
fett on 18/11/2008 at 17:26
Quote Posted by scumble
I found Rising Sun quite entertaining, but I would never have thought of Crichton as a particularly great author. Influential but not necessarily that good.
Yeah, but the movie was a full-blown third trimester abortion with renal complications. I remember it being the first time (of many times that would follow) that I was embarrassed for Sean Connery.
