Yeah, that was another of his things where he would do some degree of research about a subject that caught his attention in order to do this sort of "hard low-sci-fi" thing that tries to ground itself in a few reasonable details before bringing in the literally magic technology or pure fantasy elements. Like Jurassic Park is full of the sort of things that might have shown up in National Geographic articles about genetics research or newspaper articles about biotech companies in the 80s and 90s, it just then takes like the pop science journalism ideas and extrapolates them into a world where the most wildly ideal possible circumstances are true and all the messy bits aren't an issue because you can just science them away.
It's an interesting style and I think it does make for cool worldbuilding, though I can't help but feel like it's also irresponsible in a way, like there's a real danger of spreading disinformation through it intentionally or not because so many consumers really do just absorb whatever they're fed and that attempt at faux-realism can shape their worldview in dangerous ways. I think the worst offender from Crichton in particular was about how climate researchers are a murderous cabal carrying on a hoax for funding which formed one of the go-to chud talking points, like I literally had a teacher in high school who repeated that conspiracy theory during class as a fact.
I've often said that if an author has a point to make they shouldn't just imply it or try to show it through a story, they should beat the reader over the head with it and textually tell it to them repeatedly; the corollary to that then is that one should avoid textually stating and making clear points which are harmful and wrong because people absorb things through repetition and even ideas in fantasy can worm their way into the broader ideas of the reader and contribute to their worldview (see things like "trying to change the status quo just causes more harm than it solves" and "revolutionaries are either silly and misguided or cynical would-be despots" that get beaten into Americans by pop culture plots that show these things over and over again).
Yeah, that was another of his things where he would do some degree of research about a subject that caught his attention in order to do this sort of "hard low-sci-fi" thing that tries to ground itself in a few reasonable details before bringing in the literally magic technology or pure fantasy elements. Like Jurassic Park is full of the sort of things that might have shown up in National Geographic articles about genetics research or newspaper articles about biotech companies in the 80s and 90s, it just then takes like the pop science journalism ideas and extrapolates them into a world where the most wildly ideal possible circumstances are true and all the messy bits aren't an issue because you can just science them away.
It's an interesting style and I think it does make for cool worldbuilding, though I can't help but feel like it's also irresponsible in a way, like there's a real danger of spreading disinformation through it intentionally or not because so many consumers really do just absorb whatever they're fed and that attempt at faux-realism can shape their worldview in dangerous ways. I think the worst offender from Crichton in particular was about how climate researchers are a murderous cabal carrying on a hoax for funding which formed one of the go-to chud talking points, like I literally had a teacher in high school who repeated that conspiracy theory during class as a fact.
I've often said that if an author has a point to make they shouldn't just imply it or try to show it through a story, they should beat the reader over the head with it and textually tell it to them repeatedly; the corollary to that then is that one should avoid textually stating and making clear points which are harmful and wrong because people absorb things through repetition and even ideas in fantasy can worm their way into the broader ideas of the reader and contribute to their worldview (see things like "trying to change the status quo just causes more harm than it solves" and "revolutionaries are either silly and misguided or cynical would-be despots" that get beaten into Americans by pop culture plots that show these things over and over again).