Eldergays, tell me about James A Michener

I never read one of his tomes (but did read John Jakes' Bastard series). I do remember when "Centennial" was turned into a big TV miniseries - one of the leads was DL fave/rage-aholic/closet case Robert Conrad. I think he played a trapper.

I order fiction for a library, and still replace some of his more popular titles (e.g., Centennial, Hawaii, The Source) when they are lost or damaged. Some older boomers have requested them as ebook or eaudiobooks (some of the audiobooks are over 50 hours long!), and the usage is OK, but far from what it was in his bestselling heydey. He's like James Clavell, whose popular epics still have a small devoted readership, which is slowly dying out. I read him myself in the early 80s, but haven't since. I loved Centennial as a teen.

Tales of the South Pacific was his first published work (it's a collection of short stories ordered sequentially, thus it approximates a novel) which won the Pulitzer Prize and was the basis for the musical and the movie. You could say - others have - that he started his career at the top. His subsequent works were incredibly detailed and to me, ponderous, but they were very popular at the time.

I read Kent State years ago and thought it was pretty good.

I read Centennial, Hawaii, the Source, Caravans, and Mexico. I have always meant to read Tales of South Pacific to see what was taken and not take for the musical adaptation and to see how his style from that work to his later works. I probably read most of them in the 90's just post-college. I enjoyed them at the time.

The past ten years or so I have read a number of Edward Rutherford's novels. Basically the same concept as Michner but European settings. If my memory serves me, I think Michner might have done a better job creating more interesting characters than Rutherford, and am tempted to read another Michner just to have a better comparison between the two authors rather than go by the memory of the last Michner I read which was probably 20 years ago.

I skipped the beginning of Centennial when I realized the book starts with pre dinosaur history.

When people show up it is a pretty good read.

His nephew was in the same department as me in grad school. That's all I've got.

[quote]I skipped the beginning of Centennial when I realized the book starts with pre dinosaur history.

He did tend to go back a little more than necessary in some of his books, although the dinosaur actually does come back into play later in the book. I wonder how the Centennial mini-series as aged.

University of Northern Colorado in Greeley (site of filming Centennial and actually originally named Centennial) built a huge-ass library building named after Michener on the promise of a donation. Then Michener turned around and gave the $$ to the Univ. of Texas! Greeley was stuck with a massive 3 storey library building and about 3,000 books (that were already sitting in their old, small library. Fun side note: The 'Indian village/meeting the teepee" scene was filmed in the lobby of the Greeley Ramada Inn....

He once wrote me a letter, telling me (a nobody) how much he'd liked a piece of mine that appeared in The Atlantic. So I will always love James A. Michener.

I read several of his books in the 1970s, but felt sheepish about it because he was ridiculed. However, I read ‘Chesapeake’ a few years ago, and it was really good.

Hawaii was good, but by the time he got to Texas, he was an unbearable hack.

His nonfiction has always been better than his fiction because he is a man with little or no imagination.

I tried but never could get past a few pages. Very pedestrian.

I've read Tales of the South Pacific a few times. It's worth reading, especially if you want to know more about the war in the Pacific. The musical was a tiny part of it and the original story did not have a happy ending.

A long time ago I was backpacking around and stopped in Hawaii (Waikiki). Met several other backpackers who were carrying the novel Hawaii. It was quite a hefty book to carry but they were interested in the history of the place they were visiting.

Space (about the space program) was pretty good, and was made into a TV miniseries. His book Chesapeake was a historical novel about the area of Virginia and Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay, from 1583 when the Spanish were exploring the area, up until the Watergate era; and I remember when he was in Virginia doing research for the novel.

His research staff wrote the same damned book ten times, just changing the names.