I remember being enthralled by The Andromeda Strain when I first saw the movie as a kid. It’s one of those stories that hit me at an impressionable time, and in such a way that I remember it far better than other movies from the same era.
Despite being a big sci-fi fan though, I never read much of Michael Crichton‘s stuff. I watched the big movies like Jurassic Park, even picked up a used copy of his early Muslim warrior gone a-viking novel Eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922 (and laughed at Antonia Banderas’s performance as the title character in the movie adaptation: The 13th Warrior).
His later stuff, however, seemed to go off the rails. Just “wack” as the kids say. Like 2004’s State of Fear, in which “eco-terrorists” plan to break off a piece of the Antarctic ice shelf with explosives in order to create environmental crises that will enable them to keep raising funds on climate change. Enough explosives to break off huge chunks of ice? You could sell that stuff on the market to raise funds if you had it.
Still, sorry to hear of his death, for old times’ sake.