This week, we saw America welcome its first Black President, on the same day, the world said goodbye to Michael Crichton. I’ve never been in the position of seeing a favorite author pass away. The ones I read are either still alive or, like the Dame and Sir Arthur, have been dead for years…and so I feel…at a loss…The first time I came across Mr. Crichton, I was 15 and my brother handed me a book and said, “You have to read this.”
It was Congo and he was right. That book had me from the first page, and from that moment, I was a devotee of Michael Crichton’s work…As a person, I respected the immense talent and intelligence behind his work. As a reader, as soon as I saw his name on a book, I bought it–never had to look at the cover art, read the blurb, because it was Michael, and I knew it would be worth the purchase.
As a writer, I strive to achieve in my writing what he did in his: to transfix and seduce a reader, to pull them into a story, make them believe those characters are real, that the plot can happen, and keep them breathless in anticipation to the very last page.Michael Crichton made me love medical/technological fiction and for that, I’m eternally grateful.