Favorite Crichton Novel

What's your favorite Crichton novel?

Mine without hesitation is Timeline! Even though it borrows lots of narrative formulas from JP especially, it uses them for it's benefits and creates this masterful medieval world I can't get enough of. Followed by JP, Pirate Latitudes and The Terminal Man. I'm not sure what would round up my top 5, maybe Eaters of the Dead.

NOTE
1) There were only 15 poll options, so unfortunately only fraction had chance of actually making the poll list. Vote OTHER for others
2) I was debating leaving JP and TLW out of this in the poll, because you know in JP forum the results could end up being predictable with their presence... but at the same time this is JP subforum after all and it'd be weird to exclude them, and also some people might've moaned if I left them out. So they're there

I think the problem here might be that not a lot of people actually have read his non-JP novels?

Mistral wrote:

I think the problem here might be that not a lot of people actually have read his non-JP novels?

Well, I've read Congo and while it's a fun pulpy adventure book, it's not what I would call Crichton's best novel outside of Jurassic Park. It was a fun read, and the film is a huge guilty pleasure that I will readily admit is a bad film/adaptation, but the ideas presented are arguably better represented in the Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes series. The other ones I want to read are Timeline and Andromeda Strain based on their reception.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Mistral wrote:

I think the problem here might be that not a lot of people actually have read his non-JP novels?

Well, I've read Congo and while it's a fun pulpy adventure book, it's not what I would call Crichton's best novel outside of Jurassic Park. It was a fun read, and the film is a huge guilty pleasure that I will readily admit is a bad film/adaptation, but the ideas presented are arguably better represented in the Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes series. The other ones I want to read are Timeline and Andromeda Strain based on their reception.

Well yes I would also be lying if I said I had read them all, not even close, only a fraction. It's ongoing process but lately have had far more else to go through.

The ones I've read, I would rank:

Timeline 10/10
Jurassic Park 10/10
Pirate Latitudes 9/10
Terminal Man 9/10
Sphere 8/10
Eaters of the Dead 8/10
Prey 8/10
Airframe 8/10
The Lost World 8/10
Micro 7/10
Congo 7/10

State of Fear I'm still middle way through but I wouldn't say it's the greatest lol

Andromeda Strain I started listening but middle way through realized it's abridged and stopped right there

Sphere and Eaters of the Dead are really good. The plot twist in Eaters of the Dead was JP level.

Plot twist?

It's Beowulf mixed with ibn Fadlan's accounts, so is the fact that the two came together the plot twist?

Mistral wrote:

Plot twist?

It's Beowulf mixed with ibn Fadlan's accounts, so is the fact that the two came together the plot twist?

The Plot twist is the reveal that the creatures are Remnant Neanderthals at the end

Oh right, that.

As I elaborated further on my audiobook thread, the narrator of that book, Victor Garber, was fantastic btw, speaking in both Arabic and Nordic-ish accents. And Crichton himself gave some trivia too. I've also heard bits of another version with more traditional narrator, just reading it plainly, and it's much more boring.

edit:
The Good One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9J7qdaE7Lc
The Boring One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_1vNWQFZw0

My favorite is Jurassic Park, followed by The Lost World, Sphere, and Congo.

However, I feel that Sphere is objectively his best work - simply his most engaging take on the human condition, IMO. I also feel that TLW is objectively not an especially great novel - it has a lot of great ideas, but nothing really connecting them together in terms of plot. It's a book that was very obviously written to help Spielberg come up with a sequel - personally, I like the movie version better...but I'd still like them to use the un-adapated characters and concepts from TLW in future films, ideally with a stronger plot built around them.