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Crichton's Revenge on Critic: Write Him into Novel Plot as Baby Rapist

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BurtWorm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:00 PM
Original message
Crichton's Revenge on Critic: Write Him into Novel Plot as Baby Rapist
From ThinkProgress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/14/crichton-critic/

Best-selling novelist Michael Crichton is a vocal critic of global warming science. His 2004 novel State of Fear depicts global warming as a hoax concocted by environmentalists to raise money. In January 2005, Crichton spent an hour talking with President Bush; the two were “in near-total agreement,” according to Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes.

Last March, New Republic senior editor Michael Crowley wrote a cover story called “Jurassic President: Michael Crichton’s Scariest Creation.” It highlighted Crichton’s junk science and the danger posed by President Bush adopting it.

Crichton’s response was to smear Crowley in his latest novel, Next, by writing in a character named “Mick Crowley” who rapes a two-year-old boy. The following is a graphic excerpt from Crichton’s novel (reader beware):

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. …

It turned out Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but –as was his custom–tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.)


The real-life Michael Crowley is also a Washington journalist and also graduated from Yale.

The New York Times reports, “Mr. Crichton could not be reached yesterday for comment, and a publicist at his publisher, HarperCollins, did not return calls.” In an article posted today, Crowley says he is “strangely flattered” by the reference: “If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he’s conceding that the critic has won.”...
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Book Lover Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:02 PM
Response to Original message
1. HarperCollins let that through?
HC Legal thought that was OK? Damn, I know Crichton is important to their bottom line, but no one pushed back on this?
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AX10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:04 PM
Response to Original message
2. Big time law suit coming his way. I will never read a book by that..
piggy!

:puke:
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EmperorHasNoClothes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Having read one of his books
(about a decade ago), I can tell you that you won't be missing anything.

I also used to read Tom Clancy when I was a teenager, until he wrote an entire novel, the entire point of which was apparently to push for elimination of capital gains tax. Many of these rich, superstar novelists seem to like to use their novels as a means of pushing their political agenda. Fine with me if they want to, but it's reason enough for me not to buy any more of their books.
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Sherman A1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. I used to read Clancy as well
His first couple of books were okay, because they were different and fast paced. Then he just got boring. It was essentially the same novel, over and over again.
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TechBear_Seattle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:05 PM
Response to Original message
3. I hope Mr. Crowley sues
I think chances are very good he could end up with millions in settlement. Better still would be if he committed the settlement towards debunking Crichton's junk science.
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neuvocat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:06 PM
Response to Original message
4. And just what exactly is his point of reference?
No doubt he has one. Crighton wouldn't be projecting by any chance, would he?
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Dudley_DUright Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-14-06 03:58 PM
Response to Original message
6. I propose a "new rule" called Crichton's Corollary (e.g. see Godwin's law)
Edited on Thu Dec-14-06 04:12 PM by Dudley_DUright
You insinuate someone is a child rapist and you automatically lose the argument.
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