Michael Crichton, My Year With His Cannon

Review by Laurel Petrulionis

 Scientists Selling Out: Just Like Their Author

My Year with Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park, written in 1990, is a thrilling adventure tale that will keep your eyes firmly rooted to the page until the book is done. This science fiction thriller is based on the idea that fossilized mosquitoes have blood in them that contains dinosaur DNA. An eccentric old man, John Hammond, hires a team of scientists to recreate these dinosaurs, and he then builds a theme park for people to come and see them. A test group is flown in to try out the park, consisting of Alan Grant, a famous paleontologist, Ian Malcolm, a mathematician, and Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist. When Dennis Nedry, a computer technician, is offered $800,000 (70, 175-76) to steal dinosaur embryos by a rival genetic company, he swiftly leaves with the embryos, and shuts the security system down. The ensuing chaos kills several people and dinosaurs, while Malcolm proves time and time again that his chaos theory, in which nothing scientific will ever happen exactly as it should, is correct. After the science behind the book is explained, the plot picks up quite a bit, while a thrilling adventure narrative tells the tale of science's gravest errors.

The next book, Timeline, written in 1999, is an intriguing historical sci-fi story. A laboratory official hypothesizes that each time a person makes a decision, a new universe is formed where the opposite decision was made. The decision could be as simple as a person brushing her hair to as life-changing as running for president. In the book, scientists have created a means of going from universe to universe; only it doesn't work out as planned, but sends people back in time instead. A group of college students working on a French archeological dig sponsored by this laboratory notice odd things happening. First, a representative from the laboratory seems to know about buildings the students haven't unearthed yet, and when their curious professor goes to the laboratory to investigate, they are further surprised by finding notes left from their professor calling for help – in the 1400's. The students go to the science lab and soon find themselves whisked back to 15^th century France on a mission to find and save their professor. The plot of Timeline is not as science-based as Crichton's other novels, but somehow the reader learns quantum physics through a historical fiction novel.

After Timeline, the next novel is Andromeda Strain, written in 1969. This is the first novel Crichton wrote using his own rather than a pen name; it is a fast-paced novel written so fluidly, it is almost believable. NASA has a classified program called Scoop IV, in which satellites are sent all over the galaxy, trying to bring back some form of extraterrestrial life. When one of these scoop satellites is found in a small town in Arizona, Project Wildfire, the top secret agency in charge of examining any extraterrestrial life that is found, is brought in. Why? The small town in Arizona is dead. Everyone who lived within the city limits is dead, some lying out on the streets, others by their own hands. There are two survivors, an old man who has ulcers, and a young baby who cries too much. How did they survive? What form of life from outer space could be this malignant? How can a species exist without amino acids? These questions race through the heads of the Project Wildfire team as they come closer and closer to unlocking the secret of the Andromeda Strain. What they don't know is that the government has plans for this organism, deadly plans. The book is written in such an intelligent and informed style that many readers believed it was true, and to this day there are firm believers that the Andromeda Strain lives on.

Prey, the most recent of the four books, published in 2002, is thrilling, well written, and occasionally scary. Though it contains the most scientific information of the four, it also offers the most thrilling narrative. A stay-at-home father of three has been noticing some odd things about his family. His wife, Julia, is acting distant and is extremely stressed out. His youngest daughter, a baby of 9 months, suddenly breaks out in a rash one day, and although she is instantly cured by an MRI for reasons unknown, her body is covered in bruising. Julia ends up in a car crash, but won't allow an MRI to be done on her. Suddenly, the father gets a new job offer: an on site consultant for the nanotechnology lab that Julia works for. But when he arrives, something is very wrong. The lab has accidentally released a swarm of intelligent nanorobots that have been programmed to be predators, and their prey is anything alive. These robots are not only predators, but they can think for themselves. By far the creepiest of the books, Prey is a tale that will not and cannot ever put down once it's picked up.

Michael Crichton is a talented author whose writing style is creative and ranges broadly from historical fiction to horror, all with a sci-fi touch. His most common writing technique is his use of foreshadowing climactic scenes in the book. For instance, let's use an example from Prey. An elevator goes down a long tunnel with a ladder described as running next to it in case of an emergency. The main character, afraid of heights, makes a comment about said fear, and proclaims that he would never climb up that ladder. The reader should instantly assume that the protagonist will at some point within the climactic action have to climb the ladder, most likely while people he once trusted are shooting at him due to an invasion of mind-altering robots. Other times, Crichton can be blatantly obvious, such as depicting a character named Rob Carter who went back in time and became crazy within the more scientific pages of the book, only to introduce a character within the 1400's in the very next chapter named Sir Robert De Cart. Is it the same person? Crichton must be relying on most readers skimming the scientific paragraphs if this was truly intended to be a surprise.

A major theme of Crichton's books is portraying at least one scientist who "sells out," causing a major conflict within the plot. In Jurassic Park, Dennis Nedry is willing to risk everyone's life for a few million dollars by stealing dinosaur embryos. In Timeline, the managers of the laboratory sending people back in time care more about selling their new products than safely getting people back to their present time, causing deaths galore. In The Andromeda Strain, the government pays NASA to find extraterrestrial diseases that they can use in warfare. NASA accepts the payment, kills a town, and endangers the world. In Prey, a laboratory Vice President cares more about perfecting her product than being careful because she wants to sell it to the government for more money. She programs her product to be self-sufficient and lets it solve its own errors, such as blowing away in the wind. She ends up making her product so smart that it can outthink its creator in a classic Frankenstein-esque plot. Much like in Shelley's novel, the creation kills people.

A parallel to these fictional scientists who sell out comes from Crichton himself. As a best-selling author, Crichton was invited by President George W. Bush to be an "expert scientist," stating that Global Warming in fact, does not exist ("Michael Crichton's Speeches"). In a classic irony, President George Bush finally acknowledged this year the fact that global warming does indeed exist and poses a problem to our generation (Eisman).

Michael Crichton was born October 23, 1942, in Chicago to parents John Henderson Crichton and Zula Miller Crichton. In his undergraduate years, he attended Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude in 1964. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellow 1964-65 at Cambridge University. In 1969, he obtained his M.D. at Harvard Medical School and began to write during his medical schooling under the pen names John Lange and Jeffery Hudson. Under Hudson, he won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969 for his book A Case of Need. To date, Crichton has published twenty-five fiction books, and five works of non-fiction. His talents don't end at book writing, however. Crichton has written and directed eight movies and the hit TV show "ER." He has also written screenplays for several movies, some based on his books. Twelve of his novels have been made into books, the most recent in 2002, Timeline. Also, he has created and produced three computer games: Amazon, Timeline, and Jurassic Park. Crichton has won several awards, including Mystery Writers of Edgar Alan Poe Award for both Best Novel and Best Screenplays for A Case of Need and The Great Train Robbery, a dinousar has been given given the name Crichtonasaurus bohlini, and a People's 1992 Most Beautiful People list includes him. Crichton has also enjoyed the honor of being spoofed on episodes of "The Simpsons," the "X files," and "Gilmore Girls" ("About Michael Crichton").

Crichton is still alive today and is facing much controversy due to his testimony at a 2005 Congressional meeting where he spoke out against the reality of global warming, though he has had no scientific experience in the field ("Michael Crichton's Speeches"). Michael Crichton is a talented science-fiction author whose books, movies, television shows, computer games, and Congressional testimony have surely left an impact on many levels of American culture—from political activists to sci-fi junkies to computer nerds.

Works Cited

"About Michael Crichton." The Official Site of Michael Crichton. 25 Apr. 2007 <http://www.michaelcrichton.net/aboutmc/biography.html>.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. New York: Random House, 1990.

Eisman, Gerald. "President Bush on Global Warming." The American Chronicle. 1 July 2006. The American Chronicle. 30 Apr. 2007 <http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11107>.

"Michael Crichton's Speeches." Michael Crichton's Official Site. 29 Apr. 2007 <http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/index.html>.