When Michael Crichton passed away in 2008, he left behind several novels, some unfinished, but some of them weren’t published during his lifetime for a reason. Crichton still needed and wanted to fix them up some more.
Stephen King has talked about how he lets a manuscript’s first draft “marinate.” He’ll forget about it for several months as he begins work on something else. Then, he return to it with a fresher mind and fix it up how he sees fit for a second draft. Next, he’ll let his wife, Tabitha, read it to get her opinion and change up some things. Then, he’ll let some English scholars read it over or send it to the necessary people for technical advise as he did with From a Buick 8. After that, he’ll take it to his agent and editor. And even then, it’s not a done deal. There’s work done on manuscripts still before they can get published.
It’s a very arduous task that many writers don’t understand when they start out. Seasoned writers/journalists will tell you they spend more time editing than they do just writing. It takes a lot of work because you got to remain passionate about it from the first sentence of the first page to the final approval for publication.
A novel like Dragon Teeth seems like Crichton probably spent years working on it but was never really satisfied with it. And it’s shows. He wrote the novel in 1974 during a period when the mythos of the American West was wearing thin. John Wayne was still making movies but Blazing Saddles had cut apart the issues that some people have had with the genre.
Despite the book cover, there are no dinosaurs running around the Old West, which would make a very good story if done right. Now, this is a historical fiction tale of the Bone Wars. Set mostly during the summer and early fall of 1876, it follows William Johnson, a young student at Yale University who gets more than he expects out of a wager with another student.
He lies his way on to the expedition with the real Othniel Charles Marsh for her yearly expedition in the Badlands to dig for fossils. Johnson claims to be a photographer but Marsh abandons him during a stop in Cheyenne, Wyo. out of suspicion he’s a spy. But he then meets up with Edwin Drinker Cope, another real-life person and rival to Marsh joining his expedition.
As they travel farther west, they have to contend with the harshness of the Old West and the desolate Badlands. At the same time, there is news of the defeat at the Battle of Bighorn which resulted in the death of many American military including Gen. George Custer. They discover many fossils including Brontosaurus teeth. But they have too much to make one journey back to Fort Benton.
So, they leave half and intended to come back and get the rest a second time. Johnson volunteers to lead this. But his inexperience and ignorance of the Old West leads to a series of problems. They are pursued by the Sioux which results in everyone but Johnson dying. And he manages to make it to Deadwood where he realizes things are a lot different.
It’s a typical story of a young man learning that the ways in one part of the country don’t actually work in another part. He also grows up a little as he meets some unsavory characters. And that’s the problem. It feels too generic at times. Crichton presents his own style but the story feels like he was trying to work on it some more. The characters seem basic and generic.
Wyatt and Morgan Earp are introduced during the Deadwood part. And Crichton kinda breaks down the mythos surrounding Wyatt Earp as he’s portrayed as more of a huckster who used his fame for capital gain. Wyatt offers to protect Johnson from some rowdy cowboys but plays cards with them all night so they want bother Johnson while he sleeps. Well, he did protect Johnson in a way but this isn’t the fancy Wyatt Earp of the classical Hollywood era.
Crichton did a lot of research for his books and the stories that have been told about the Earps are mostly that – stories. It was actually Virgil Earp who was the main lawman in Tombstone, Ariz., during the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with the Clanton Gang. Wyatt just had the good fortune of being the last brother alive when motion pictures became more famous and actually became an actor embellishing his own tales for entertainment.
This is one of Crichton’s shortest books and I feel that he really wanted to beef it up another 100 pages, something he wasn’t able to do as he began to work on other novels. Crichton himself became a filmmaker in the 1970s first with Westworld, followed by The Great Train Robbery and Coma. He was very busy writing scripts, producing movies and TV shows as well as writing books. It takes up a lot of time.
Also, westerns dropped in popularity in the late 1970s through the 1980s. And by the 1990s when they had a resurgence, his plate was full with other projects, so he probably put it away hoping to work on it as the next project. Creative minds work strangely and differently. Crichton was known to eat the same thing for lunch every day while writing so he wouldn’t have to think about what he was going to eat.
Fans of his work will life this. And those fascinated with the Old West might like it. But it still feels like it should’ve been given more of a polish before it was published. For a book about people digging for bones, it needed more meat.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 