My favorite part about Michael Crichton books was his complete and utter inability to end a story. Going back to the early days of Andromeda Strain, the ending is always, "And then the problem just went away". Virus? No problem, it mutates to be safe. Crazy diamond-guarding gorillas? No problem, volcano erupts. It confused me for a long time that Jurassic Park actually had a teaser ending, and then I read that actually the editor had added it. Of course, Crichton just wanted the island napalmed so that the dinosaur problem would be solved.
I stopped reading as soon as the chapter length officially became 1 page, and it started reading like a very bad screenplay.
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See:
http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20061225&s;=diarist122506
and great commentary here:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/57008
I stopped reading as soon as the chapter length officially became 1 page, and it started reading like a very bad screenplay.