Well, Time Magazine has announced their Person of the Year, and it’s apparently you. So congratulations for that. Great job! No, really, I’m serious. You couldn’t be more deserving. Well, there was that patch this year where you were a little bit crazy and everything. But you totally deserve it. I held out hope that I might have been under consideration, but nope — went to you. Again.
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Michael Crichton and whoever it is that writes the Hannibal books (it’s Thomas Harris, but who cares, really?) are both officially on the list of authors who are dead to me. John Grisham was the first person on the list a while back — I just got so tired of reading drivel from someone who I had previously sorta enjoyed. But these two books were just too much to bear:
Here’s a little excerpt, from the very first page of Hannibal: “The door to Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone. This curious portal opens on immense and well-lit spaces, early baroque, and corridors and chambers rivaling in number those of the Topkapi Museum.”
Come on. Who writes junk like that? Ugh. Crichton’s book was similarly unreadable in the first 200 words, so I returned both.
So I’m putting authors on notice. No time for junk this year. Too much amazing new work around, not to mention masterpieces that have been around forever I want to finish.
Plus the football playoffs.
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And this: holy schnikeys it’s cold outside. 30 degrees when I got up this morning. Had to scrape ice off my windshield. I know that it’s not in good taste to complain about the 3 days of the year when I have to scrape ice, but there it is.
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Oh, and Dexter just finished last night. Great show. Michael C Hall was tops.
Didn’t mention it last week, but The Wire Season 4 also finished up and was totally magnificent. As others have said, it was the best season of the best show ever on TV. Just about perfect television.
I never read Crichton. I never will.
See:
http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20061225&s;=diarist122506
and great commentary here:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/57008
My favorite part about Michael Crichton books was his complete and utter inability to end a story. Going back to the early days of Andromeda Strain, the ending is always, “And then the problem just went away”. Virus? No problem, it mutates to be safe. Crazy diamond-guarding gorillas? No problem, volcano erupts. It confused me for a long time that Jurassic Park actually had a teaser ending, and then I read that actually the editor had added it. Of course, Crichton just wanted the island napalmed so that the dinosaur problem would be solved.
I stopped reading as soon as the chapter length officially became 1 page, and it started reading like a very bad screenplay.
I never read Crichton. I never will.
See:
http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20061225&s=diarist122506
and great commentary here:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/57008
My favorite part about Michael Crichton books was his complete and utter inability to end a story. Going back to the early days of Andromeda Strain, the ending is always, “And then the problem just went away”. Virus? No problem, it mutates to be safe. Crazy diamond-guarding gorillas? No problem, volcano erupts. It confused me for a long time that Jurassic Park actually had a teaser ending, and then I read that actually the editor had added it. Of course, Crichton just wanted the island napalmed so that the dinosaur problem would be solved.
I stopped reading as soon as the chapter length officially became 1 page, and it started reading like a very bad screenplay.