I love Michael Crichton, the man knows how to write a page-turner, and the nerd in me likes the way he always incorporates techy stuff in a plausible way. I pretty much like every one of his books that I've read. And here's how I rank them, from best to worst.

  1. Rising Sun - Kind of random as my favorite of his books, as it's one of his least techie books (just barely touching on imaging technology). The thing is, most of the endings to his books suck. For a couple, I've literally gotten angry at the ending, usually because the setup is so good, that I've felt completely cheated at the end. So in large part, my rankings of his books are based on how non-sucky the ending is.

    Anyway, I loved Rising Sun because it didn't have a sucky ending and was completely convincing. At the end I was 100% convinced that Japan was taking over the U.S. and we needed to take active measures to stop it. As it turns out, he was completely, embarrassingly wrong about it. But that I was so convinced I think showed his power as a writer.

  2. Jurassic Park - I think this is the first Crichton novel I read. The ending didn't suck and it was pretty well written. The science (as in most novels) is completely implausible, but it did spark serious debate about exactly how much was possible. Plus it was the best movie adaptation by far. Anyway, a good read.
  3. Prey - I just read this one, and other people seemed to think it sucked, but I really enjoyed it. Again, the ending didn't suck, which is key. But also, I was a little more familiar with at least some of the technology discussed. (If you do a web search on "genetic programming chai", a lame class project I did embarrassingly comes up first.) Again, it's ridiculous, but entertaining, and believable in its own way. It would make a fantastic movie, I think.
  4. Disclosure - Another not really techy book (the VR stuff was just thrown in and pretty irrelevant). But the ending didn't suck too much. Supposedly, it turning the gender tables on sexual harrassment let him distill the issues down to fundamental ideas, but whatever, it wasn't that interesting as an analysis of sexual harrassment at all.
  5. Timeline - Another book where I was more than a little familiar with the science (the quantum effects stuff), although the twist in applying it to time travel was interesting. Really, it's just a conventional medieval story after the first 1/3, so kind of a departure from his other books. Kinda less interesting because it was less sciency, but the ending didn't anger me.
  6. Congo - I read this in Korea summer of '95 in a single night. Really well written, but the ending pissed me off. Actually, now that I'm documenting it, I guess not all the endings are bad, but the ones that are are so bad it lingers.
  7. State Of Fear - Among his worst books, but I still enjoyed it. The thriller part was well done. The science part was among the worst of all his books, and it goes on and on. The ending didn't piss me off... at first. Then you think about it, and realize it's completely abbreviated - there's no real resolution. The immediate action finishes, but there's nothing preventing a return of the fundamental problem. Anyway, this book is particularly preachy, the stuff it's preachy about is boring, and it interferes a great deal with the action, so one of his worst books.
  8. The Lost World - I know I read it, and remember almost nothing about it. That's not a good sign. Unmemorable book, to say the least. But at least I don't remember the ending pissing me off.
  9. Airframe - The stuff about aeronautics is interesting, but the ending is so completely stupid it makes the whole book inane. Argh, I'm getting angry just thinking about it right now. It's among the very stupidest of endings of any story ever conceived. Wholly enraging.
  10. Sphere - And the ending to Sphere is even worse than the ending to Airframe. This book I actually did throw across the room, the ending is that much of a cheat. I hate hate hated this book. Although I'm still tempted even now to watch the movie just to see how they dealt with the terrible ending. But I've resisted.
  11. Next - His worst book, even worse than Sphere. By far his most confusing book - it's hard to even figure out what's going on, which character is which. He juggles between like 15 storylines with super brief chapters. And two kids have the same first name. I still enjoyed it, like I do all Crichton books, but I had a hard time even understanding the storyline. A terribly constructed story.