disclosure
by I just started reading the book Disclosure by Michael Crichton, and so far I just find it funny. It was written in 1993, so a lot of the technical stuff is outdated, he's talking about people "who don't know how to requisition laser printer paper" (he always goes out of his way to mention that these are "laser" printers) or how to degauss a computer monitor.
He spends 2 paragraphs describing this high tech cell phone which can flip open and can store numbers by the first 3 letters of the person's name. The company this guy is working for manufactures modems, and is developing the CD rom technology, and he goes out of his way to explain that he's not talking about CDs for music, but using CD roms for data storage. I know for the time this may have been high tech, but at this point it's almost laughable.
I've only gotten a few chapters in so far, so the storyline hasnt really gripped me yet, but i just think it's funny how in just a few years something can go from cutting edge to old old school. fun stuff.
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Disclosure is ... not a favorite. By any means. It's more a Corporate America - Office Gossip novel. Frustrating to me.
Yeah, Crichton's writing style is weird - he's said in interviews how he spends years researching a novel so it's technically correct. Even reading "Jurassic Park" or "The Lost World", you can see (more so than in the movies) that he studied a lot of paleontology and biology. He's been criticized for this because he spends more time elaborating on these seemingly needless details then developing his characters. I agree with those criticisms. Characters in a novel should seem like people in real life that would react in certain ways to the situations they're confronted with. You can't start a good novel with only a situation and let your characters react in haphazard ways to it.
it's my first book of his that i've read, and i haven't really gotten too deep into it so I'll hold off on my criticisms for now. but i can see what u mean
i completely disagree (sorry, i'm a huge crichton fan)
i think its amazing how in depth he goes into his subjects, because its a fun way to learn about topics that you'd otherwise probably not pick up a text book and start reading about.
and, i think he does an excellent job of balancing the "science" of his novels, with the character development. I found it very easy to relate to his characters...particularly so in jurassic park and the lost world.
i guess overall, its not for everyone...but i think he's super-di-duper great
I agree with you. He explains his scientific matters well and in a fairly detailed manner while not making the reader feel like a retard. And it's always interesting. His characters are kinda typical but they're crafted well enough that you can easily relate to them and care about them.
I disagree. I think his characters, especially in "The Lost World", "Jurassic Park" and even "Sphere" were cookie cutter. It's easy to relate to characters you've read about in hundreds of other novels.
i dont know how you can call characters like those in sphere and lost world cookie cutter... how often do you read about dinosaur hunters and teams who study accident sites?
Webby is right. His characters are structurally VERY similar.
Those are just the situations they're placed in. Think of boy bands and the way they follow a formula: The cute one, the bad boy, the innocent one, etc. That's what I mean by cookie cutter. His characters aren't very deep.
in sphere they were pretty deep... geologically speaking anyway
BAHAHAHA! i like how the food was different. whipped cream was something different. the cream won't whip under pressure. interesting.