Not really lighter than air

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This passed the time on the bus. I don’t real­ly have much of an opin­ion. Crich­ton is an intel­li­gent and skilled writer, so even this very flat, life­less sto­ry nev­er fell into any wretched traps. The char­ac­ters were pret­ty life­less, but not so much that it made me sick. The arche­typ­al bad­dies were pre­dictable, but there was enough going on that I was­n’t cer­tain I was right in my pre­dic­tion until it was final­ly revealed. Crich­ton han­dled some tech­ni­cal mate­r­i­al in a way that seemed thor­ough­ly pos­si­ble and accu­rate, even though it prob­a­bly wasn’t.

If *Air­frame* is dis­ap­point­ing, it’s because it’s entire­ly for­get­table. Cer­tain­ly not because it was either unpleas­ant or insult­ing to read, because it’s neither.

So four down, forty-six to go in my 50 book challenge.

Published by splicer

4 Replies to “Not really lighter than air”

  1. Your tag line about

    Your tag line about Bicy­cling to Afghanistan remind­ed me of one of the great ath­letes of all time: Göran Kropp. Nobody has ever heard of him, but in 1996 he rode a bicy­cle from Swe­den to Mt Ever­est, pulling a trail­er with all his gear. He did a solo ascent with­out Sher­pas or oxy­gen, and then bicy­cled back to Swe­den. He was on the moun­tain at the time the 12 peo­ple died in the Scott Fischer/Bob Hall attempt that was writ­ten about in Jon Krakauer’s book “Into Thin Air.” You might like to read that, or “Ever­est” by Rein­hold Mess­ner, the first man to reach the sum­mit with­out oxy­gen. I just fin­ished “Pat­tern Recog­ni­tion” by William Gib­son of “Neu­ro­mancer” fame. I read “Neu­ro­mancer” twen­ty years ago and thought it tru­ly awful. I reread it last year and found it had­n’t got­ten any bet­ter over the years. I don’t know what pos­sessed me to pick up “Pat­tern Recog­ni­tion”, but I found I enjoyed it. His writ­ing style has mel­lowed a lit­tle over the years and there is an inter­est­ing plot. I think you’d like it. I’ll mail it to you if you like. Dad

  2. Final­ly some­one who noticed
    Final­ly some­one who noticed how over­rat­ed Neu­ro­mancer was!

    I remem­ber when Michael Chrich­ton was kin­da cool… it’s been quite a while.

  3. Oh, of course I’ve heard of
    Oh, of course I’ve heard of Mr. Kropp. Although I might have to admit that I prob­a­bly heard his sto­ry from you. =^)

    Although I enjoyed Neu­ro­mancer and oth­ers of Gib­son’s ear­ly works, I agree that Pat­tern Recog­ni­tion was a leap for­ward for him. Pat­tern Recog­ni­tion’s char­ac­ters were much more real; even his car­i­ca­tures had some nuance. A very refresh­ing change from his ear­li­er nov­els. I read it a few months ago, but thank you for the offer. I did like it a lot.