Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Crichton, Michael (Vol. 90) - Gary Jennings (review date 11 November 1990)

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Gary Jennings (review date 11 November 1990)

SOURCE: "Pterrified by Pterodactyls," in The New York Times Book Review, November 11, 1990, pp. 4, 15.

[Jennings is an American novelist, nonfiction writer, author of children's literature, and critic; his novels include Aztec (1980) and Spangle (1987). In the following review of Jurassic Park, he applauds Crichton's ability to make scientific information understandable and interesting but laments the predictability of the plot and characters.]

With his 1969 novel, The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton invented the "techno-thriller" fully two decades before that term became the fad description for every book by Tom Clancy, Dean R. Koontz and W. E. B. Griffin. However, whereas those writers deal mainly with arcane military hardware, Dr. Crichton dares to contrive even more craftily credible plots by writing about the basic, infinitesimal building blocks of life and...

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1. Introduction
2. ∗Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Pauline Kael (review date 9 November 1981)
   2. David Denby (review date 16 November 1981)
   3. Gary Jennings (review date 11 November 1990)
   4. Ronald Preston (review date 21 November 1990)
   5. J. P. Telotte (essay date 1990)
   6. Robert Nathan (review date 9 February 1992)
   7. Ian Buruma (review date 23 April 1992)
   8. Karl Taro Greenfeld (review date 11 May 1992)
   9. Julian Loose (review date 22 October 1992)
   10. Stephen Jay Gould (review date 12 August 1993)
   11. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 6 January 1994)
   12. John Schulian (review date 16 January 1994)
   13. Patt Morrison (review date 16 January 1994)
   14. Julie Burchill (review date 22 January 1994)
   15. Geraldine Brennan (review date 30 January 1994)
   16. Douglas Kennedy (review date 4 February 1994)
   17. Michael Coren (review date 21 February 1994)
   18. Francine Prose (review date October 1994)
   19. Publishers Weekly (review date 21 August 1995)
   20. Mark Annichiarico (review date 15 September 1995)
   21. Mim Udovitch (review date 1 October 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright