The World is Sick

Mmm… Forbidden donut

I’ve neglected this place for a while. I’ve just had a lot of stuff to do recently. Projects on top of projects, none of which are particularly fun or rewarding. And World of Warcraft. That is fun and rewarding.

I now have Michael Crichton all over my room. My dad managed to get a copy of Next for six dollars. Sort of shows how well that one was received. I haven’t really looked at it much, but it seems like there is no real story there.

Pirate Latitudes, on the other hand, has a story. The story feels as if it was written with the express intention of being translated to the big screen. Cinematic visuals, exciting combat ideas, along with some very classic privateering betrayal. I have nothing against that, really.

I certainly enjoyed the book. I only had two problems with it. One, whenever I tried to picture Captain Hunter, I got an image of a guy in a hoodie with claws. So that was a little strange. The other problem was the use of the Kraken as a course-altering device. One thing about Crichton’s books is that he doesn’t just make up stuff, he actually does research about the things he writes about. The suspension of disbelief only comes when dinosaurs start to change sex and make babies.

Here, a Kraken actually attacks the ship, and there is a very 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas fight sequence. My issue is that giant squid capable of attacking ships and eating people do not exist. Unlike the evolving nanoswarms from Prey, or the “sea monsters”(they were clearly whales) from Eaters of the Dead, the Kraken in this story didn’t have any proper basis. It’s just put there, and we have to assume that Pirate Latitudes takes place in a universe identical to ours in terms of pirating in the 17th century, but has supergiant squids.

I guess that entire sequence was designed to go together with an enthralling  orchestral score.

It’s Saturday. Whoohoo.