My obituary of Michael Crichton appeared in the WSJ last week.

I became hooked on Crichton in 1992–one of my brothers urged me to read Jurassic Park, which I did when I should have been studying for finals as a senior in college. Simply couldn’t put it down. Went on to read lots of other Crichton books, which had their strengths and weaknesses but were usually interesting. Key line from my article:

He aspired to be more than a mere entertainer. Mr. Crichton was fundamentally a novelist of ideas — a public intellectual who wrote potboilers.