Eater of the Dead

So I'm thinking I won't even read the comments to my last post, because A) I've slept since then, B) I would probably be tempted to rebut any comments in detail while escalating the rhetoric, which C) I've spent most of the day doing already in my head and D) life's too short.

And in the "life's too short" department, Michael Crichton has died. This makes me sad, because I've liked his work, although as I look over his ouevre, I'm not finding a whole lot that I'm enthusiastic about. His work ranged from abysmal (Congo) to flawed but inriguing (The Andromeda Strain) to pretty darn good (Jurassic Park). As a novelist, his work seemed to jump the shark between Disclosure and Airframe (which seemed to me largely the same book), but his movies were influential, both the ones he directed and the ones made from his work.

He also created ER, a longtime Thursday night TV staple which was for a while the most popular drama on television and is now in its final season. Ironic that he should die as the show is also departing, and sad that he couldn't see the final episode.