What is Michael Crichton's best?

Answer 1

Timeline !!!

I read this one long before the movie was made. (yes, there was a movie made from this book too). I kept thinking what a good movie it would make. It was ok, but I still think the book was much better (as is usually the case)

Answer 2

Sphere

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Book review by Anthony Campbell. Copyright © Anthony Campbell (1999).
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Michael Crichton is the author of "Jurassic Park" and "Sphere" is another of his science fiction stories. The US Navy has discovered a huge space craft on the floor of the Pacific Ocean; it is covered with coral and this implies that it has been there for at least 300 years. A group of four scientists is sent down to investigate. One is a psychologist and the events are all seen through his eyes; the others are an astrophysicist, a zoologist, and a mathematician. More or less inevitably, one of the team (the zoologist) is a woman and one (the mathematician) is black.

The team gets inside the spaceship, which turns out to be from the future and of American manufacture, which helps the author to avoid a lot of sticky linguistic problems. Inside they discover a mysterious sphere, which at first they are unable to enter; later, the mathematician does so and emerges after some hours apparently intact. Now messages from the sphere start to appear on the computer screen in the team's underwater habitat; at first friendly in tone although oddly childish, these communications become increasingly threatening and hostile and this trend culminates in an attack on the habitat by a giant squid, apparently guided or even generated by the sphere. There is a cyclone raging at the surface so no one can leave, and it seems inevitable that everyone will be killed. Most of the story is concerned with the characters' attempts to escape from their predicament.

The book makes a valiant attempt to combine adventure, science fiction, psychology, parapsychology and various other themes into a thrilling mixture, but I have to say it didn't work very well for me. The psychologist's theoretical stance seemed to me frankly incredible; it was a curious blend of modern academic psychology and Jungian ideas of the shadow. In fact, I found all the characters uninteresting and unconvincing; this is of course quite common in science fiction, but in this case the deficit wasn't compensated for by the science; there were too many loose ends. In particular, we never discover what the sphere really is or where it came from. Perhaps this is supposed to add to the mystery and magic of the situation, but I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that the reason this question was left unresolved was that the author didn't know the answer himself. Pseudo-profundity is the keynote of this book.

Answer 3

12 patients. It chronicled his residency in a Boston Hospital. It was also the foundation for "ER" . A lot of people say the "Dr. Carter" character (played by Noah Wyle) was actually based on Crichton himself.

Answer 4

Jurassic Park is certainly the most popular. For "best" I would look earlier, perhaps The Andromeda Strain or The Great Train Robbery.

Answer 5

Totally subjective but I would have to go with either The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. Both were very entertaining, fast reads and suspenseful but both discussed bigger ideas that stuck in my head long after I finished the book.

Answer 6

The Andromeda Strain.

Answer 7

Jurassic Park by far....I also like Andromeda Strain.

Answer 8

I have just finished State of Fear, and Next,, State of Fear was a though interpretation of the science for and against global warming,, he posts a lot of references and charts,, plus its a good yarn,, Next is equally good and about genetic research,, read em both

Answer 9

Jurassic park was a helluva movie. didnt read the book though.

Answer 10

Timeline, definetly Timeline. It is one of the best books you will ever read.The movie is okay but the book is a whole lot better.