NEWS: Chrichton's Revenge

CULTURE: Crichton's Revenge

Don't piss off Michael Crichton. The Jurassic Park author evidently has a paper-thin skin and a very strange idea of revenge.

A minor character in Crichton's new book Next is most likely based on New Republic writer Mike Crowley, who wrote a long profile on the paperback writer in the New Republic last March. The character, named Mick Crowley, is a DC-based political journalist. And, oh yeah, he's also a child rapist with a tiny cock.

On the annoying registration-requiring New Republic website, the real life Crowley describes Crichton's character as a "literary hit and run," and notes that the character is superfluous to the book's plot, which according to the Times primarily involves the perils of biotechnology. Although most of his reaction is fairly dignified, Crowley arguably wins the character assassination duel with the following sentence.

What both the Times article and Crowley don't mention is that "Jurassic President," the New Republic article that led to the creation of fictional child molester Crowley is hardly objectionable. The nearly 4,000-word piece (which is unfortunately only available to TNR subscribers) scatters a few snide dismissals of Crichton's "pot-boiler prose," but is primarily a straight profile of Crichton's interaction with politics.

Following the publication of 2005's State of Fear, a novel that portrays global warming as a conspiratorial hoax, Crichton met with President Bush to discuss global warming; the two were reportedly in complete accord about the issue.

Crichton isn't the only best selling author drafted by politicians to offer ideas. JFK asked the James Bond author for ideas and suggestions for assassinating Castro, and Tom Clancy has had a chummy relationship with Pentagon officials, even meeting with members of Rumsfeld's office in 2001. Crowley argues that even before he got face time with politicians, Crichton's books and movies had shaped US policy by presenting what Crowley describes as "a damning critique of expertise."

It's an interesting enough premise, but not a particularly damning one. Crowley doesn't even emphasize how weird it is that the guy who wrote Westworld gets a say in environmental policy. And I'm not saying that either, for fear that a baby-raping online writer named JohnnyFU might make a cameo in one of his future books.

Crichton. It's spelled Crichton.

crichton has gone off the goddamn deep end.

Hell, normally people would have to win a contest or an auction for the inclusion of themselves in a novel.

beat me to it...

Maybe in Michael Crichton's next book there will be a pathological misspeller named Jonnie Foo.

It's so painful to read. It's an understandable mistake in that it's an akward sort of name, but less understandable given how many times it appears in the article and was spelled correctly in the quoted portion

That said, yeah, he's a weird guy. He has some smart ideas, but that the President of the country would look to him for advice is...well there's no point in saying it, it's pretty clear what our president is like.

That extra h is "the h of shame."

See, Ian Fleming was actually involved in the intelligence community and would presumably have been a useful reference in an assassination plot. Crichton...eh, he's a smart guy and all, and he clearly reads a lot, but he's a medical doctor, not a climatologist.

awkward =)

nims is on a goddamn roll here, people.

sorry. i have an earache. it makes me compulively spell check.

"is primarily a straight profile of Chrichton's interaction with politics. "

Really? Did you read the article? Because as I recall, it was a pretty good slam. I mean, I agreed with it, and revelled in it, as I tend to do when I read TNR, but I would hardly call it neutral. Crowley himself describes the article as critical.

Not that this exonerates Crichton in any way, but hey.

Is that so?

I hate having to explain my humor. DAMN EARAKE!

I'm all, "you can't do that, nims! subtlety is lost on the internet. you should have gone with 'earake.'"

um, jinx?

how about an awsome earake?

I thought it first.

defanately awsome.

hey, you want to watch me masterbate?

your such a hipocrate.

your such a hipocrate.

so how about that Michael Chrischton?

Based upon the last couple novels of Crichton's I tried to read, a two sentence blurb about a baby raping journalist might present the most compelling character in the book.

Sorry, does this mean you don't know his name's Ian Fleming?



In my experience, any well-known author/novelist turns batshit crazy the farther they go. On the flipside, I would write every critiquing journalist as a pedo with small dick... and if they can put to page

who should we fear most, the batshit revengeful author or the potentially failed author-now-journalist who envisions the batshit revengeful author alone in his darkened study?


Afterall, I don't necessarily hold Firefly against Piers Anthony.