Just finished Congo, Crichton’s 1980 book exploring themes of communication with great apes and the possibility that man and chimpanzee had inter-bred at some point in the distant past.

What I like about Crichton is that his books are accessible by a 10-year-old yet are based on serious scientific research. He is a medical doctor by training.

Of course he has had fantastic success translating his work to film and TV. I never realized until recently that Crichton wrote and directed one of my formative early films Westworld

I liked Crichton even better after I read his autobiographical book Travels:

In some ways Crichton’s heir is Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer…

Actually, (after I had written the statement above) I got the chance to ask Robert if he was influenced by Crichton and he said he had not read him since age 12. Though both have a scientific background, Crichton is “anti-Science” — in his books the scientific breakthrough always goes wrong. The dinosaurs run amok.