One of my favorite authors of all time passed on this week. Mr. Michael Crichton. When I was a wee young lad, I could often be found with my nose in a book. I read the classics, I read fiction, everything was great. It was 1991, When I was only 8 years old that I picked up my first Crichton book. Jurassic Park was coming to the big screen, and I wanted to be sure to read the book before the movie came out. I was astonished when I checked it out from the library, weighing in at over 400 pages. Certainly the largest book I had ever read.
But I read.
Cover to cover. The book was thick, but I was sucked in. Words that I had never read about biology, DNA, and dinosaurs. The story was thick, matched only by the science. I was hooked. I loved the movie, but was disappointed by what they had left out.
This book started a love for science-fiction. I read every MC book I could get my hands on. Congo, The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, The Lost World, Airframe, and Rising Sun. I was addicted to it all. It lead me to other books and authors, Tom Clancy, and Stephen King.
I do have one confession to make. While I was serving an LDS mission in Newark Delaware, I was in someones home that we were teaching and I saw the book Prey on her bookshelf and inquired about it. She said that it was a new one, and offered it to me to read. I told her how we don’t read other books and blah, blah, blah. She new that I was going to be going home in a few weeks and said that I should read it when I got home. I obliged, and accepted her gift.
It sat on my desk for a few days, I read the back cover, the flaps, and tried to avoid the premise of the biocyber thriller. It wasn’t long before I had some free time and I was neck deep into the book. At about 3:00 in the morning, I put it down, having blown through every page. I loved the book, one of the best things that I had ever read.
So here it is that he has left us now. His legacy is intact, he gave us deep resonating stories about science and technology. Stories that inspire us all.