Michael Chrighton

Okay, I’ll admit, I haven’t actually read the book I’m about to complain about. Perhaps it would be a better idea to explain why I won’t read the book, then. I read an excerpt from a new? Michael Chrighton book. I thought it might be fun. Back when Jurassic Park was new, and I was a teenager, I enjoyed keeping the book by the toilet for a few months.

Anyway, check out this choice piece of prose from the book:

It is magnificent,” the girl said. When she spoke English, her accent sounded exotic. In fact, everything about her was exotic, Jonathan thought. With her dark skin, high cheekbones, and black hair, she might have been a model. And she strutted like a model in her short skirt and spike heels. She was half Vietnamese, and her name was Marisa. “But no one else is here?” she said, looking around.

I’m sorry, but of all the paragraphs that have ever described or extolled the beauty of a woman, this one is particularly ineffective. “She might have been a model” please…

The plot is a little bit more interesting. It seems to be about a batch of “evil” activists who, for the sake of the life on earth, somehow plot to destroy most of the human race. Wow, now there’s an idea.