I absolutely love Michael Chrichton, and am bummed that I've read everything he wrote. Is there any other "hard sci-fi" writers/works I should be aware of? I absolutely love realistic takes on unrealistic concepts.
I absolutely love Michael Chrichton, and am bummed that I've read everything he wrote.
I read the sphere and was kinda underwhelmed tbh
What are top 3 you recommend?
>I read the sphere and was kinda underwhelmed
In fairness, I read sphere completely blind, so the twist really hit hard and was unlike anything I was expecting. I do still think it's his best work though. My other top 2 would be Prey and Jurassic Park (mainstream, but it really is good shit). I also think Airframe is a sleeper of his since it isn't sci-fi, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Congo, Airframe, and Lost World are my favorites. Haven't read everything though.
I read The Hunt For Red October at around the same time as Jurassic Park and thought they were very similar, although Red October is obviously much less scifi. I can't stomach any Tom Clancy apart from that though, way too much glowBlack person CIA Israeli worship.
Perhaps The Three Body Problem
>Perhaps The Three Body Problem
Definitely not The Three Body Problem, and frankly it's insulting you would recommend such a badly written book because it happens to contain (badly understood) speculative science.
ok sorry
>The Three Body Problem
God no. The Three Body Problem has to be one of the shittiest (or at the minimum, overrated) books I have ever read in my life. Bad translation of bad prose, clunky, contradictory, and expository polemic dialogue, ridiculous metaphors, poorly understood scientific concepts, hateful characters, deus ex machina ending, the list goes on and on. The dialogue is the worst part about it.
Now that I think about it, I seriously don't understand why the vast overwhelmingly majority of asian media like literature, movies, tv, anime, and such have a need to have a long, expository, and cumbersome use of dialogue explaining shit. Maybe there is some asian literature that is incredible which doesn't have a need to have an awkward explanative dialogue inserted every other scene.
Lol I’m in the other thread too, not op tho. You’re not wrong. It was something different tho. Hadn’t even heard about it till a month ago now I’m seeing it everywhere
You should read Brian Catling's The Vorrh trilogy.
Did you read all the books he wrote under different names?
Yes I did. I found them fine, but I think his writing vastly improved by the time he started using his real name.
Crichton was my fricking jam in middle school. Prey, Congo, Timeline, even that State of Fear book were super fun back in the day.
Not exactly sci fi, but some Stephen King might grab ya.
>congo
More like KINO
Dude i just rewatched Congo.
Lasers, diamonds, talking gorillas, THAT FRICKIN SCENE WHERE EVERYONE STARTS SINGING California DREAMING.
'Member when even cheesy sci-fi flicks had memorable scores? I can still whistle the theme to Congo.
>King
The institute is one of the best novels he's written in a long time. It's a goddamn shame that the outsider got a series and even mr. harrigan's phone got a movie from the novel that came after, but the institute was left in the dust when they announced a tv series the day it launched. It'd be so damn good.
They're older school, but Crichton's way of rooting his plots to human nature always reminded me of Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison.
>"hard sci-fi"
I remember thinking the technical details in Rendezvous With Rama sounded right. It's clunky though. He isn't as good a writer as Crichton.
Stanislaw Lem is another "wierd situations told in sober clinical detail" guy. But I really didn't enjoy him. You could give Solaris a try.
Redpill me on Crichton. Why are many obsessed with this guy?
He is an entertaining,accessible yet thought provoking writer. Also he is a 7 ft chad who btfo'd climate change sóyence
I loved his books in elementary and high school but I think they are all basically 80% of introduction of cool concept with very rushed endings.
What do we think of andromeda strain?
Daniel Suarez, specifically "Delta-V"
it's about asteroid mining
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Best rec of the thread.
I only read chrichton for the jurrassic park series. I loved the novel of Jurassic park. I liked how badass muldoon was and hated they chose to kill him in the film. Though the best changes from print to film was making the old man a naive willy wonka of dinosaurs vs an ass, though it gave more context to nedry's betrayal and making lex older and not complaining about being hungry the whole time. I found the lost world though to be far less interesting. One of the laziest retcons was saying "I was only half dead, those dumb cuban doctors!" to bring Ian back to life. As well as Ian's constant prattling so Chrichton can strut what he thinks he knows. I will say the gas station scene was pretty good, though they should've encountered the camouflaged dinos and how dodson died was the definition of brutal on the part of Ian's girl.
Why aren't Crichton's books properly shelved in the scifi section? Fricking normies.
it's weird how the term "science fiction" doesn't refer to fiction related to scientific concepts but rather refers to futuristic space-age fantasy (essentially). Jurassic Park is far more about science than Star Trek or any other "sci-fi" story.
Both are sci-fi
Books cease to be scifi as soon as normalgays like them. In the case of, say, Jurassic Park, it became a "thriller" so that they don't look like nerds when they enjoy it.
Was Crichton ever even marketed as genre fiction to begin with? I don't think he was "removed" from the genre rather than simply never being marketed to that demographic.
Stanton Coblentz
HG Wells
Stephen Baxter
Arthur C Clarke
Isaac Asimov
Eric Temple Bell
Michael Crichton (OP spelled it wrong) was my favorite author through school into college. Pretty much still my favorite, although Dune is my favorite book.
Jurassic Park was one of the first that I really got into. I still love that fricking book. When reviewing my own writing, I think that I am probably copying Crichton to an extent.
Another that I am probably copying at least a little is James A Michener. His books are always much bigger, but I have loved several that I have read, including Centennial.
>I've read everything he wrote
what're your thoughts on State of Fear? I know reception has been mixed but I liked it