Airframe - Michael Crichton

Well, I've been feeling under the weather today, so I went with another re-read. I promise this is the last one for a while!

One of the things I really like about Airframe is that it gives a lot of information about the construction of commercial airplanes, how they're built, how they're tested, and most importantly (for the story) what happens when something goes wrong. It's a fun introduction to field that I would never have explored otherwise.

Crichton does make a number of anti-tv/journalist rants in this book, but personally, I don't know that I disagree. Here's this evening's quote:

"Used to be-- in the old days -- the media image roughly corresponded to reality. But now it's all reversed. The media image is the reality, and by comparison day-to-day life seems to lack excitement. So now day-today life is false, and the media image is true. Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back."

That last really echoes with me, and is why I don't watch tv. I just recently broke down and got a tv/vcr combo, but the first thing I did was to neuter it!