Pirate Latitudes: The posthumous novel by Michael Crichton

This post, in principle, would be a commentary on the latest Michael Crichton novel "Pirate Latitudes". But once started I will be converted into a mix on it and the history of its author, who gave me so many good times with his novels.

For many years Michael Crichton has been, and I say was, because although he died in 2008, his work will remain and will never stop liking, one of my favorite authors, so varied in their frames. In addition to his role as novelist, many of his films would be made into films, with their biggest hit Jurassic Park. He was also one of the creators, which for me is the best medical series "Serious," Grey's Anatomy would not consider, because many cases are too great, and even entertaining is a kind of Melrose Place in a hospital - "ER", the mythical Emergency, which lasted for a whopping 15 seasons-all record on TV "modern" - on the air.

He was one of the pioneers of "tecnothriller" genre in which unfolded in a sublime way, with stories that were scientifically possible but were located closer to science fiction, as many of the frames that are built based on premises possible with current technological knowledge, although many have not been put into practice.

In turn, his books often left the message that you can use the technology as the ultimate goal, and to be measured rather its consequences, because, generally, the characters they were playing "God", had just one disastrously, as the premises of chaos theory.

Thus, we had examples of his novels: biotechnology as in Jurassic Park, The Lost World or Next, quantum computing applied for time travel, Rescue in Time; nanotechnology prey.

In other novels such as Critical State was his vision, not quite politically correct climate change, but that came in great detail in literature

However, we also learned address issues such as power relations in enterprises in novels such as Rising Sun or harassment-both also carried cinema, that is not looking for the typecasting

To conclude this prelude, and modest tribute, was a versatile writer, who created very different stories, all with a great rhythm and narrative tension.

His last novel was apparently discovered in his files, once dead. By all appearances was a project many years slept in a drawer while he alternated with other novels. It moves away from its normal, because it is an adventure novel, specifically Pirates, set in the XVII century.

We are introduced to an English privateer, Captain Hunter, who lives in Jamaica, which, as everyone, seeking his fortune in the Caribbean waters.

Hunter learns about the presence of a Spanish galleon, kept in an inaccessible fortress, which is laden with riches and recruits a crew of an attempt to grab the treasure.

From here the novel, which emphasizes not just for its originality, we offer almost everything you would expect of the genre: arrests, escape from their captors, assault on the fortress, rescue ladies in distress, flight, naval battles, storms, encounters with cannibals, betrayal, revenge ...

The "good" in this case the pirates are clever and know how to deal with any adversity, while the "bad" in this case the Spanish are lazy, vicious, bad sailors ...

That is, a cliché too obvious, and that produces a smile, like a B movie it was.

Mind you, do not say it is poorly written that it is not, he has the pace with Crichton's novels. However, with this theme and plot the novel is far from other parts of the author, if anything stood out was precisely because of its originality.

We may never know if Crichton himself, aware that it could not compare to other works, put it in a drawer, and was just an attempt to exhaust the reef, which apparently is not completely exhausted, as among its files found another novel, themed nearest to the latest and you should see the light this year.

Perhaps it was an experiment to do something different in the style of what makes Perez Reverte with Captain Alatriste, for example, but for me these, although also somewhat topical are better than the last Crichton.

You might want to start a saga, saga that has been cut, it also takes good account of all the characters in the epilogue of a work by another relatively short compared with other works of the author.

In any case certain that Crichton is not remembered for this work. Hopefully the last decade more of himself, although, according to Wiki , was less than half. In any case, we read it in a few months and we give our verdict.