Michael Crichton died

Damn. I remember 'The Andromeda Strain' big time.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment-eonline/20081105/b67285/

What...the...berkeley...

Yes, a prime example of a movie that DID NOT need to be remade (TV movie recently).

aircooled wrote: Yes, a prime example of a movie that DID NOT need to be remade (TV movie recently).

Uh, what? The 3 part (IIRC) movie series was the E36 M3!

wow that really sucks, I've enjoyed several of his books.

wonder if they'll try and clone him

wow, I grew up reading his books.

Andromeda Strain was the Bee's knees.

I read Jurassic Park enough times to split the spine in 6 places.

more recently, I really enjoyed "State of Fear", and "Next"

I read a number of them, but they all seemed to end the same way. Congo, Sphere, Andromeda, Jurassic - the problem just kinda went away.

Disclosure, on the other hand, freaked me out.

Disclosure had some good lines. JP was original. State of Fear was interesting, but propaganda. Next was cute. While I didn't love his books, I found them good enough to read.

Sad. I've always liked his books. A scientist that has an imagination and can write entertaining fiction is a rare thing.

Any other good hard SF writers out there?

Harlan Ellison comes to mind.

Neal Stephenson's older stuff is pretty good hard sci-fi. Harry Turtledove is writing some interesting stuff as well. Alternative history fiction is usually his bag.

Joe Haldeman's 'The Forever War' series is pretty darn good hard SF with good storytelling. EDIT: It appears that in October of this year, Ridley Scott announced that he will do a movie adaptation of the first book. If it's anywhere near as good as 'ALIEN', it'll be fantastic!

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did a lot of good stuff as well.

For pure escapist SF, Harry Harrison's 'Stainless Steel Rat' stuff is excellent. Just check your mind at the door and don't get too deep into the science end of it, sort of like Douglas Adams' 'Hitchiker' stuff.

When Scott told me this news I kinda freaked out for a second. M. Crichton was probably my favorite living author, and now he's down to like...11tieth place on the dead author list.