As Lyra said (commented), a good many words have a subjective meaning. Consequently, context is everything. I work right now for a mainstream daily newspaper. We're pretty insistent on using "said."

Absolutely. Said in newspapers is just fine by me. Newspapers ought to be striving for objectivity and language is a huge part of that. (Although there are times when I think newspapers should give up on the objectivity thing and just go with their biases, trusting the readers to recognize them and adjust their understanding accordingly.) In literature, though, I generally expect and want subjective meaning.

Crichton is Stephen King

OK Gus -I know took some heat for this. I think though in a way King deserves. Not King at his best - at his best, King can take the conventional horror tropes, and use them in first rate writing - good character, good dialog, sometimes even convincing world building. I though Carrie and Firestarter were fine pieces of writing. Stand By Me imay be one of his best short stories (and I know - conventional wisdom here. What can I say? Conventional wisdom is sometimes right.)

But the worst of King is as bad as Crichtons stuff. The Green Mile, in addition to everything else had the most offensive Magical Negro ever - [Green Mile Spoiler white fonted]on top of childlike gentle simplicity, saintlike ability to forgive, and magical superpowers exclusively at the service of white folks - he also was willing to die for a crime he was innocent of, obstensibly because he was "tired", but really cause he would have inconvenienced a lot of kindly white folks who would have had to take some heat for letting him live. [Ok he got even a little bit - one of the most gentle, saintlike bits of revenge in literary history. I get the feeling that ,given the choice, the "victim" would not have undone it.]

Crichton is apparently incapable of doing better. King has done better. When he produces that level of crap, maybe he deserves MORE heat than MC does -certainly no less.

Crichton is Stephen King

I had a moment there where I imagined the human from Farscape replaced with an odd looking writer in his 50's.

Ok, to jump off of the Crichton sub-thread. I just wanted to say I watched my first (actually the Pilot) for Dead Like Me. I had high hopes from Bryan Fuller's involvement in it. I must say it pales in comparison with Wonderfalls.

Like so many other series running on the cable networks it seems to be obsessed with adolescent ideas of adulthood. It was like Wonderfalls without a soul. I think that is why I always loved the Buffyverse, Firefly, and Wonderfalls. I almost immeadiately connected with the characters as people, whereas on the cable shows the characters on the shows are people I would never make an effort to know. Most of their lives seem screwed up because they are so self-involved that the empathy I would naturally have toward intelligent characters is entirely lost.

I hope that pay networks are not the last hope for genre television, because I have yet to find one that I find remotely compelling. Talent without soul just isn't worth watching.It reeks of missed potential.

Thanks Tim for your involvement with the other producers. It was enough to give them a shot of being writers I would follow. I guess I stuck with people that had some real tie to the Buffyverse.

Ok, to jump off of the Crichton sub-thread. I just wanted to say I watched my first (actually the Pilot) for Dead Like Me. I had high hopes from Bryan Fuller's involvement in it. I must say it pales in comparison with Wonderfalls.

I would highly recommend watching some more episodes, because I thought it just kept getting better and better. It felt like the writers and actors were still finding their characters in the pilot. I bought the DVD's on Tuesday, and I finished last night, and I'm going to watch it again, and then see if I can get some of my friends hooked on it.

I thought it was very funny, and there were some really touching moments, and it made me think about some things. I see quite a bit of George in me.

I tend to think of CJ Cherryh as a hard SF writer in that her science is usually social science, and that's what drives the story more than pure character. If that makes any sense.

There is a lot of poli-sci/international relations stuff in the Foreigner series. I haven't read anything else of hers.

Love Stephen King. LOVE him. Although The Green Mile is one of the few I haven't read, I did see the movie and agree that using the magical negro trope with the initials J.C., no less was rephrehensible. "The Body", "Apt Pupil" and It are some of my favorite King, along with Eyes of the Dragon and the Gunslinger/Dark Tower books.

Yeah, right, John Varley. (I get his name confused with Jack Vance, whom I couldn't get through, either.) My bad. I like Greg Bear and David Brin a lot too - The Postman kicked ass. Also Tim Powers, whom my BF introduced me to. Last Call and The Stress of Her Regard in particular.

also ETA the one Anderson I tried to read was The Boat of a Million Years.

Maybe I'm just not socially conscious enough, but the Magical Negro aspect of "The Green Mile" didn't bother me. I can see where it's a very racially insensitive trope, but for some reason I just can't make myself care. Probably something wrong with me. At any rate, I enjoyed the serial novel immensely, twice. And if you lay the MN business aside, you have to admit it's well-crafted storytelling, start to finish.

It are some of my favorite King

Also The Shining, which I don't think Kubrick really did justice to. I actually think the ABC miniseries did a better job of it.

I think I've read one of his short story collections, maybe Skeleton Crew? It was the one with "The Lawnmower Man" in it (was the movie really based on it? Cause it didn't resemble it in the least) and "Sometimes They Come Back." Wait, is "Graveyard Shift" in that, or is that in a titular collection? The one about rats?

And now that I think about it, I don't love Crichton because of his prose or characters, but because I really enjoy reading his books. They're great adventure novels revolving around science (not always though, I also like Disclosure, though Airframe ended up being kind of lame).

Yeah, totally. The Shining was awesome. Skeleton Crew is the one with "The Mist" (which I think was made into a movie too) and the story about the scary-ass toy monkey that was pictured on the cover. The one about the rats I thought was in SK.

Really bummed about the fact that our stupid cable won't get TNT for some reason (at least not clearly) and so we missed the new Salem's Lot that just ran. That book initiated me into the wonderful world of all-nighters when I was 13.

ETA I was thinking of "The Lake" - that's the one that got turned into Evil Cabin or whatever it was called. I just wish someone would make a good movie out of the "The Mist".