(2)Favorite Passage

Pages 1-140 of PREY

So far I have read the introduction and first segment of PREY titled HOME. So far in the book, all of the main characters have been introduced, including a man named Jack, the man who's perspective that we see all of this from. Thus far we are confronted with Jack being a stay at home father after losing his job, and having to deal with his own suspicions of his wife having an affair, as well as what he believes is a deteriorating marriage. From what I have read so far I think that I may well be able to argue Michael Crichtons importance simply from his ability to use descriptive writing to keep a reader captivated with an otherwise dull story. "... as I replayed the mornings conversation in my head, I felt uneasy for other reasons. A lot of her comments sounded like she was building a case against me. Laying it out methodically, step by step.
You are shutting me out, keeping me away from my children.
I am here, you just don't notice.
I'm a good mother, I balance a very demanding job with the needs of my family."(87-88)

He squinted at the desolate landscape and shook his head. "How long you been out here?"
"About sixty cases," Grant said. When Morris looked surprised, he explained, "we measure time in beer. We start in June with a hundred cases. We've gone through about sixty so far." (Jurassic Park 33)

As we can clearly see in the above passage, one thing that Michael Crichtons writing is not with out is humor. He is quite good at taking very funny seemingly unrealistic circumstances and weaving them seamlessly into the plot of a story without making the reader think twice. He does not often use humor, and from what I have seen never uses it once he gets into the thick of a story, but occasions to use it in the beginning of a story to keep readers interested. His usual style of writing involves copious quantities of description that build very powerful settings for readers. This I believe is due in part to the fact that Crichton is not only a writer, but a director as well. This at times makes his books seem almost like movie scripts, as if they were written with the intention of being turned into movies.