Michael Chrichton is dead. I remember reading Jurassic Park, like, three times, even though I even at that age thought it was a terrible novel. There was just all this scientific candy in there I liked, and probably learned a lot from. Still, that's twelve hours of my life I'm never getting back.

In later years he did a lot of damage to the movement towards stopping climate change. He was an outspoken skepticist, writing a ludicrous book in which the bad guys are eco-terrorists who want to lay waste to the coast of California with a tsunami.