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mae
02-20-2008, 02:59 PM
All of a sudden I am on a Michael Crichton kick. I've often wanted to read him but never been able to for some reason. Now, thanks to the marvel that is the Internet and more specifically places like Amazon Marketplace, I've been able to get most of his novels in first edition hardcovers in new or like-new conditions, each for under 5 or 10 bucks. Score! Now, the luck ran out on his five earliest novels: The Andromeda Strain (0394415256), Terminal Man (0394447689), The Great Train Robbery (0394494016), Eaters of the Dead (0394494008 ), and Congo (0394513924). I'm looking for a little help from the good folks around these parts on locating any of the above for a good price. I realize the newest book in this list came out the year I was born, but still... some sellers want $100 give or take $50 for some of these :panic: I'm looking to spend something a little more modest.

KO1
02-20-2008, 03:02 PM
I read alot of his work back in Junior High and High School.

Congo, Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Terminal Man, and The Great Train Robbery.

His work isnt bad, I actually enjoyed quite a few of those novels. but occasionally he comes off a bit full of himself, making passages more complex not for the benifit of the story, but almost seems to make himself seem more intelignent. Just my two cents though

Bev Vincent
02-20-2008, 05:17 PM
He also has a bunch of paperback originals he wrote to put himself through med school under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffrey Hudson

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton

Crichton isn't a stylist and not very good at writing characters, but I always come away from his books feeling like I've learned something.

Erin
02-20-2008, 06:58 PM
I do like Michael Crichton a lot, but more so in a "quick, fun, summertime-read" type way. His books are perfect for a vacation at the beach.

I really really enjoyed Timeline and The Andromeda Strain the most out of his books.

Mattrick
02-21-2008, 11:35 AM
I've got a book with three of his novels; Great train Robbery, Andromeda Strain and the Terminal Man. I read Jurassic park as a kid, don't recall much of it. Lost World was a fantastic book and about 95% different from the movie. My brother read Sphere, he said it was okay.

Telynn
02-21-2008, 08:29 PM
I checked that book out of the library, the one with the three stories. Good stuff. I read Jurassic Park a long time ago, it was great. Much better then the movie, but then aren't they all?

aurora
02-21-2008, 08:43 PM
Being a huge Crichton fan myself I'd also highly suggest, 'Sphere', 'Prey', and 'State of Fear'. I loved on particular lip smacking tasty chapter in 'State of Fear'! Desert any one?

mae
02-22-2008, 10:42 AM
I'm almost done reading Prey. A lot of fun. I'll have a complete collection if I get those five books.

Lance
02-22-2008, 10:25 PM
I've read a lot of his works and I like them. I just finished one called A Case Of Need that he wrote under a different name when he was only twenty five. But I've always had the feeling that he goes out of his way to show how intelligent he is. We get it, you're a doctor, you're super smart. :rolleyes:

Brice
02-23-2008, 07:27 AM
:lol:

Matt
02-23-2008, 08:17 AM
I've really enjoyed his books. I listened to "Next" recently--it was quite interesting in a :orely: kind of way.

Heather19
02-23-2008, 08:33 AM
I used to read quite a bit of him, but I haven't picked up any of his more recent stuff. My favorites are Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and The Adromeda Strain.

Erin
02-23-2008, 11:34 PM
Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books ever. Its such a good read.

Ka-mai
02-26-2008, 11:11 AM
Timeline was my favorite, it started my own Crichton kick, but Matt didn't like it. :lol: Go figure. Anyway, Jurassic Park is a classic.

Lance: TOTALLY. My other gripe with him: He frequently writes about these quirkily attractive, super-smart people in their late 20s or early 30s who don't have close friends or significant others and somehow find their soul mate during his plot. I was glad to see he broke away from that in Prey, which was the last one I read.

PS: I also liked Congo, but Eaters of the Dead is pretty over-styled, IMO.

TerribleT
02-26-2008, 11:55 AM
I've always loved Chrichton. State of Fear was AWESOME. I never got the impression he was trying to show his smarts off, but that's just me. I know that he does an amazing amount of research for his books, so when he writes stuff, it's factually correct. Erin, you must be a ton smarter than I am, because I have never considered him a "quick and breezy" read. I think Jurassic Park, and it's themes of chaos theory, the inability of man to contain life, and the idea that fucking around with genetics could lead to some potential disasters was complex, and gave me a ton of food for thought. I really didn't care much for Next, it wandered and was undeveloped.

Erin
02-26-2008, 05:49 PM
:lol: I'm no big smarty!

I think what I meant by "quick and breezy" was that even though he does write about complex themes and has chapters of deep scientific discussion, he is such a good writer, he makes it very easily understandable and consumed by the general population. His novels are so suspenseful that I'm always tearing through them fast and eating them up. I didn't really mean that like they are flimsy, dumbed down books by any means.

Oh...and I haven't read Next yet, although I got it last Christmas. What is it about even?

TerribleT
02-26-2008, 05:51 PM
It's about Genetic Engineering. I like it, I just didn't think it was his greatest ever.

what
03-14-2008, 10:59 AM
If you guys haven't checked it out yet, pick up Five Patients... it was my first Crichton read and I loved it.

Bev Vincent
03-14-2008, 12:01 PM
His autobiography, Travels, is also great. It gets a little "out there" at the end, but I enjoyed the book a lot.

Mattrick
03-16-2008, 04:49 PM
I've still got my hardcover of Lost World I read when I was ten. One day, soon, I'll read it again. I recall staying up all night and reading the whole second half of the book. Movie made me cry :( WHAT DID THEY DO!>?!

Vasagi
03-20-2008, 11:04 AM
I like Crichton, and have read several of his books. The film adaptations are usually garbage compared to his novels ... Jurassic park being an exception.

Timeline's one of my favorites ... maybe because it was the one I've read most recently. I liked his whole time travel concept, with quantum physics and parallel universes. Messing with technology that's basically impossible to understand ;) Good stuff.

Matt
03-20-2008, 11:15 AM
I liked Timeline a lot too. It basically spoke to what I believe time travel is.

Just another alternate universe

fernandito
03-20-2008, 11:23 AM
Sphere by Crichton is in my top 10 novels.

Arthur Heath
03-31-2008, 12:20 PM
Has anyone read Travels? EXCELLENT book. Possibly the best non fiction book I have ever read.

Heather19
03-31-2008, 01:59 PM
Has anyone read Travels? EXCELLENT book. Possibly the best non fiction book I have ever read.

What's it about? I haven't heard of it at all.

And Feev, I forgot all about Sphere. I loved that book.

Arthur Heath
03-31-2008, 03:28 PM
Crichton writes about his insecurities about himself and overcoming them. The first 1/3 is his experiences in med school and the last 2/3rds are about him visiting different countries (hence Travels) overcoming what he believes to be his insecurities. Go get it, it is an amazing books.

Bev Vincent
03-31-2008, 04:14 PM
It's an autobiography of Crichton's life from the point where he decided to abandon medicine and his worldwide travels thereafter. It's a fascinating book.

Heather19
03-31-2008, 04:23 PM
Sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.

Erin
03-31-2008, 05:51 PM
I haven't heard of it either. It just went on "THE LIST". :lol:

mae
06-02-2008, 10:18 AM
All of a sudden I am on a Michael Crichton kick. I've often wanted to read him but never been able to for some reason. Now, thanks to the marvel that is the Internet and more specifically places like Amazon Marketplace, I've been able to get most of his novels in first edition hardcovers in new or like-new conditions, each for under 5 or 10 bucks. Score! Now, the luck ran out on his five earliest novels: The Andromeda Strain (0394415256), Terminal Man (0394447689), The Great Train Robbery (0394494016), Eaters of the Dead (0394494008 ), and Congo (0394513924). I'm looking for a little help from the good folks around these parts on locating any of the above for a good price. I realize the newest book in this list came out the year I was born, but still... some sellers want $100 give or take $50 for some of these :panic: I'm looking to spend something a little more modest.


Quoting myself here. Not that anyone cares, but I've finally been able to procure four of the five above-mentioned hardcovers in new or like-new states on Amazon Marketplace and Half.com for very good prices, around 10-15 bucks each. Now my Crichton collection is nearly complete. Just Eaters of the Dead remains.

razz
06-02-2008, 11:36 AM
Crichton novels are the largest collection of books I got. king is #2. this guys a genius. i think it's funny though that he's scared of blood. I never read the great train robbery, couldn't get a copy of eaters of the dead, and couldn't get int timeline or Terminal man, but I love most of his other books.

LadyHitchhiker
06-02-2008, 02:47 PM
I :wub: Crichton...

blackrose22
06-02-2008, 03:07 PM
Always like Crichton. The last book of his I read was Timeline and thought afterwards it would make a good movie.

Bev Vincent
06-02-2008, 03:58 PM
They did make a movie out of Timeline, but not a very good one. There's a remake of Andromeda Strain playing on A&E these days that is okay -- not great, but okay.

razz
06-03-2008, 11:43 AM
i just bought the dvd of Sphere. the next day it was on tv

Arthur Heath
06-03-2008, 11:47 AM
I just started his A Case Of Need (written under his the moniker Jeffery Hudson back in 69) and its pretty darn good. Usually not for medical thrillers, but, of course, having taken medical school and just being Chrichton himself, he writes a great book here.

mae
06-04-2008, 07:24 AM
Hey speaking of Crichton, it seems he's republishing his early novels written under the pseudonym of John Lange, through Hard Case Crime who published The Colorado Kid:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0843959592/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/084395597X/

Hopefully we can see more of these, and in hardcover, too.

ZGDK
06-25-2008, 05:27 AM
I've been wanting to read some of his books for a while I'm just not sure what to start with.

what
06-25-2008, 06:43 AM
The first I read was Five Patients (I believe that was the name) and I was hooked. It is a great read!

Bev Vincent
06-25-2008, 07:45 AM
Terminal Man and Andromeda Strain are excellent places to begin. Also the movie adaptations of those and The Great Train Robbery, the latter starring Sean Connery. Also WestWorld, which was scripted and directed by MC, starring Yul Brynner, which has a few Dark Towerish moments (Brynner, robotic creatures like Andy)

Matt
06-25-2008, 07:59 AM
Great suggestions. I would also suggest Jurassic Park, its up there as one of my favorite books.

If you are thinking..."eh, I saw the movie"...its much different and better.

Arthur Heath
06-25-2008, 09:07 AM
I've been wanting to read some of his books for a while I'm just not sure what to start with.

I'd start at Timeline. Kind of a modern sci-fi thriller. If you want to learn about the author himself read Travels. He talks about dropping out of medical school to become an author and dealing with his personal demons. Excellent book.


The first I read was Five Patients (I believe that was the name) and I was hooked. It is a great read!

I have my hands on this, I should get around to reading it.

mae
06-26-2008, 06:18 AM
My first Crichton book was Prey. A newer novel, but just excellent. Non-stop action. Finished it in a few days which is blazing fast for me. I have since acquired most of his previous books, as well as the newest, missing only two, in fact. A great writer, in my opinion, vastly underrated due to so-so movie adaptations (sorta like King, in that, I guess).

razz
06-26-2008, 06:21 AM
i couldn't read Prey the first time. now i love it.

lophophoras
06-26-2008, 08:55 AM
The last Crichton book I read was Next. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I have read most of his work and do have a few of his books in my collection. I rate him along the same level as Koontz, McCammon, and Barker.

mae
07-15-2008, 01:38 PM
I've now completed my collection of Crichton fiction! So happy! I now have all of his novels in hardcover all lined up, even The Andromeda Strain as a first edition (my oldest book).

razz
07-15-2008, 01:39 PM
i wonder what hi next book will be

Arthur Heath
07-15-2008, 02:02 PM
I've now completed my collection of Crichton fiction! So happy! I now have all of his novels in hardcover all lined up, even The Andromeda Strain as a first edition (my oldest book).

Are you also collecting his pseudonyms?

mae
07-15-2008, 02:38 PM
I do have a hardcover reprint of A Case of Need under Crichton's name, but that's it for now. I may seek them out, but most were published in paperback only (Binary was in hardcover, and I believe that's the only one, but I'm not positive). I just have an aversion to paperbacks, so I never buy them.

Arthur Heath
07-15-2008, 03:15 PM
I just have an aversion to paperbacks

I have an aversion to paying 20+ dollars for books. I find being 6-8 months behind and only paying 7 dollars much more agreeable.

mae
07-15-2008, 03:20 PM
Well I've been lucky in that I've been able to procure most of these for actually under $20, some ridiculously so. I didn't mean to come off sounding snobby, it's just that I can't enjoy a book if it's a tiny paperback. And when we begin talking paperbacks released years and decades ago...

Jean
07-15-2008, 11:34 PM
I just have an aversion to paperbacks

I have an aversion to paying 20+ dollars for books.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/bears_friends.gif

mae
11-05-2008, 10:08 AM
Devastating news...

Mr. Crichton has unexpectedly passed away today at the young age of 66 due to cancer.

http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/11/67369/

Odetta
11-05-2008, 10:26 AM
yeah, I just heard that on the radio 5 minutes ago! :cry:

turtlex
11-05-2008, 10:27 AM
BBC reports :

Author Michael Crichton dies, 66

Michael Crichton won awards including an Emmy.

Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park has died, aged 66, 2008 after a "courageous and private battle against cancer," his family has said.

He penned the books Congo, Twister and the popular Jurassic Park trilogy, all of which were adapted into films.

He also created the long-running US hospital drama ER and his books have sold more than 150 million copies.

"He will be profoundly missed by those whose lives he touched," his family said in a statement.

Crichton has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America Award for ER.

A private funeral service is expected.

Sad News indeed.

Arthur Heath
11-05-2008, 10:34 AM
Terrible news. He battled 'a private war with cancer' For a guy who went through medical school (though he quit to write) it makes me wonder what he was thinking.
Surprisingly terrible news indeed.

mae
11-05-2008, 10:41 AM
He was working on a new novel. There wasn't much information, but he seemed to be along quite well. Hopefully it could see the light of day as a testament to his art and life.

lophophoras
11-05-2008, 11:00 AM
I was very surprised and saddened to hear this.

My condolences go out to his family.

I was lucky enough to get a signed gift edition of Jurassic Park which was my most favorite of his works.

razz
11-05-2008, 12:19 PM
he's one of of my favorite authors :cry:
this really sucks.

mae
11-05-2008, 12:20 PM
I just finished collecting his first editions earlier this year.

What a loss...

mae
11-05-2008, 12:51 PM
Seems like the novel he was working on was scheduled for release this December. It's been pushed back to May now:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0007241011/

jhanic
11-05-2008, 01:38 PM
I started a new thread on this up in The Oracle before I saw this.

Mods, do what you want.

Michael Crichton--:cry:

John

Woofer
11-05-2008, 04:56 PM
RIP Michael Crichton

mae
11-18-2008, 07:10 AM
According to a poster on another forum, Michael Crichton actually revised his two early novels (under the pen-name John Lange) that were recently published, like King's The Colorado King, in Hard Case Crime. For one of those Crichton even wrote new framing chapters, he says.

Savoury
11-24-2008, 01:22 AM
I particularly like the unique blend of science and suspense. I'm particularly fond of The Andromeda Strain. At times the focus shifts a bit too much on science perhaps, that it sometimes seems to lose it's functionality but it never really bothers me.

JiMiTHiNG
12-24-2008, 08:57 AM
Was very sad to hear of his passing. I have enjoyed everything I have read by him. I think the Great Train Robbery was my favorite. It felt a lot different then all the other things he wrote. I agree that his charters are always a little thin and under developed. But they are really just bit parts with the technology or situation being what the story is always really about.

Beamer
12-28-2008, 02:14 PM
I read Next, it was ok....

razz
01-03-2009, 06:58 PM
I just got a paperback edition of both Next(i have a hardcover, but i just couldn't resist) and Congo from a used goods store. My old copy of Congo was left in our car and got destroyed.

Ka-mai
01-05-2009, 07:46 PM
I just reread Timeline, Congo and Jurassic Park.

That was some good stuff.

mae
04-06-2009, 06:55 AM
Posthumous Crichton Novels on the Way

Michael Crichton, the best-selling author of technological thrillers like “The Andromeda Strain” and “Jurassic Park” who died of cancer in November, left behind at least one finished novel and about one-third of a second. Both will be released over the next year and a half, his publisher said.

HarperCollins, Mr. Crichton’s publisher for his previous three books, will release “Pirate Latitudes,” an adventure story set in Jamaica in the 17th century, on Nov. 24. The company also plans to publish a technological thriller in the fall of 2010, a novel that Mr. Crichton was working on when he died.

Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, said Mr. Crichton evidently wrote “Pirate Latitudes” at the same time that he wrote “Next,” his last published novel.

The new novel, discovered by Mr. Crichton’s assistant in the writer’s computer files after his death, features a pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica, and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon.

“It’s eminently and deeply and thoroughly researched,” Mr. Burnham said. “It’s packed through with great detail about navigation and how pirates operated, and links between the New World and the Caribbean and Spain.”

The novel represents a departure from Mr. Crichton’s longtime fictional preoccupation with the moral and social ramifications of science and technology. But Mr. Burnham pointed out that “Pirate Latitudes” also harks back to the kind of historical yarn that Mr. Crichton wrote in the “The Great Train Robbery,” first published in 1975. Mr. Burnham said that the book needed little editing and that Harper planned a first printing of 1 million copies.

At the time of Mr. Crichton’s death he was under contract for the second of a two-book deal that began with “Next.” He had begun that second novel, a technological thriller, but was only about a third of the way through. Mr. Burnham said that the publisher would work with Lynn Nesbit, Mr. Crichton’s agent of 40 years, and his estate to select a co-writer who would finish the book, working from Mr. Crichton’s notes.

“We want a high-level thriller writer, somebody who understands Michael’s work,” Mr. Burnham said. “From what I gather, there are notes and indications of which direction the novel was going, so the writer has material to work from apart from the actual material that was finished.”

Neither Mr. Burnham nor Ms. Nesbit has seen the unfinished novel. Ms. Nesbit said that Mr. Crichton was “the most private of all authors that I have ever met in my life,” and that he never showed his agent or his editor any material before he had a complete draft. She said that other than the general category of technological thriller, she had no idea what the incomplete novel was about.

Ms. Nesbit said that she and Mr. Burnham had discussed some possible co-writers, but no decision had been made. She added that any selection would be made in collaboration with Sherri Crichton, Mr. Crichton’s widow, acting on behalf of his estate.

In “Next” Mr. Crichton explored the ethical dilemmas posed by the expanding field of genetics. According to Nielsen BookScan, which represents about 70 percent of retail sales and does not cover retailers like WalMart, the book sold 500,000 copies. Mr. Burnham said that the figure was closer to 800,000 copies.

Ms. Nesbit said that Mr. Crichton left “many, many electronic files,” and that there could well be other novels or unfinished material. “We haven’t begun to really go through it all,” she said.

Mr. Burnham said, though, that HarperCollins had no plans to take Mr. Crichton’s name and create a franchise in the way that ghostwriters have continued to publish books under Robert Ludlum’s name long after his death. “We’re not taking a name brand and spinning books out of it,” Mr. Burnham said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/books/06crichton.html?_r=2&ref=arts

Bev Vincent
04-06-2009, 07:16 AM
This pleases me to no end.

mae
04-06-2009, 07:22 AM
Indeed. The novel sounds very interesting, and hopefully they'll do justice to the unfinished one. As they said, there could be more unpublished material, novels even.

Munchausen
04-06-2009, 08:02 AM
I've read The Andromeda Strain, The Lost World, Terminal Man and Next. He probably would have been a great author if his characters were as dynamic as his scientific extrapolations. To me they seemed like so many leaves in the wind. He was a thinking man's Irwin Allen if you will.

mae
04-06-2009, 01:56 PM
A little more info: http://www.michaelcrichton.com/mc-newbook.html

mate211
04-07-2009, 08:33 AM
My first book was Jurassic park:D I was only 8 or 9 years old. It was scarry but i loved that.
RIP:(

mae
11-23-2009, 07:50 AM
Excerpt from Pirate Latitudes, out tomorrow (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574546132464512964.html?m od=googlenews_wsj)

Janet Maslin's review for the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/books/23book.html)

ArtherEld
11-25-2009, 08:19 AM
Going to Barnes & Noble to get my copy today. Has anyone started it yet? Any of you speedreaders already finish it? What do you think so far?

I simply can't wait. Don't know what it is about Crichton. Can't put his books down.

mae
05-23-2011, 02:14 PM
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/michael-crichton-micro-coming-from-harpercollins_b30755


HarperCollins will posthumously publish Micro by Michael Crichton in November. Prior to his passing in 2008, Crichton had written about one-third of the book.

According to USA Today, nonfiction writer Richard Preston finished remaining two-thirds of the manuscript. Preston consulted Crichton’s outline, reference materials, and notes to complete the novel.

Preston explained: “For me, it was an irresistible challenge to finish the novel, and I was driven by a desire to honor the work and imagination of one of our time’s most visionary and creative authors.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iffDJ_pzZORFpwVkNpQCdW2IO_mw?docId=42e517d59 c6b4e738b14e83c0c0dad1b


A new, posthumous story of science gone wrong is coming in November from the late Michael Crichton, with help by Richard Preston.

Crichton, author of such blockbusters as "Jurassic Park" and "The Andromeda Strain" died in 2008 and had written one-third of "Micro," a thriller about a biotech company in Hawaii and the graduate students who end up stranded and endangered in a rain forest. Preston, known for his best-selling nonfiction work about the Ebola virus, "The Hot Zone," used Crichton's outline, reference materials and notes to finish the book.

Publisher HarperCollins announced Sunday that "Micro" would be "a high concept thriller in the vein of 'Jurassic Park.'" In a statement released by HarperCollins, Preston said he was immediately captivated by Crichton's manuscript.

"Michael was writing at the top of his game, with a grand sense of adventure, into an eerie world that seems almost beyond imagining," Preston said. "For me, it was an irresistible challenge to finish the novel, and I was driven by a desire to honor the work and imagination of one of our time's most visionary and creative authors."

"Michael was exhilarated by his concept for this novel," Crichton's agent, Lynn Nesbit, said in a statement. "He felt he was breaking new ground by introducing his readers to a fascinating, almost unimaginable landscape with real scientific underpinnings."

Crichton is one of many authors whose publishing output has continued after his death. David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King," a novel assembled from notes the author left behind after his suicide in 2008, came out last month. The "Wheel of Time" fantasy series by Robert Jordan, who died in 2007, is being completed by Brandon Sanderson. Crichton's "Pirate Latitudes," a novel he had finished before his death, was released in 2009.

fernandito
05-23-2011, 03:08 PM
Interesting ...

Jethro
05-30-2011, 06:40 AM
I like Crichton, and have read several of his books. The film adaptations are usually garbage compared to his novels ... Jurassic park being an exception.

Timeline's one of my favorites ... maybe because it was the one I've read most recently. I liked his whole time travel concept, with quantum physics and parallel universes. Messing with technology that's basically impossible to understand ;) Good stuff.

Indeed, the film adaptation of Timeline was horrible...as was Sphere.

LadyHitchhiker
06-01-2011, 03:23 PM
Oooooooooooooooooooh!!!! I've been waiting for another book like Jurassic Park.

For those who liked Jurassic Park, you will most likely like Fragment by Warren Fahy. That was an excellent book.

mae
11-10-2011, 08:26 PM
http://www.musingsonmichaelcrichton.com/2011/10/micro-uk-video-trailer-and-excerpt.html


The marketing department at Harper Collins UK sent me the link for a video trailer for Micro. There’s also a 10-page excerpt of the novel. I am happy to note that the UK release is on Nov. 22, the same date as the US. Two years ago, I threw a minor hissy fit when Pirate Latitudes was released in the UK and Europe eight days before being released in the US.

http://richardpreston.net/enhanced-e-book-micro

HarperCollins will release an enhanced e-book edition of MICRO. Yesterday a film crew was here at my house shooting an interview with me for the e-book. In it, I talk about poking around the rain forest on Oahu, learning the biology of micro-monsters, and doing the detective work with Michael’s notebooks and materials, figuring out what Michael intended for the story. There will be footage of Michael, and lots of scientific stuff, too. Good for an iPad or Kindle Fire or Nook, etc.

Erin
11-11-2011, 08:45 AM
This sounds very promising! I'll have to check it out.

onlylivingboyinny
01-05-2012, 12:28 PM
Oooooooooooooooooooh!!!! I've been waiting for another book like Jurassic Park.

For those who liked Jurassic Park, you will most likely like Fragment by Warren Fahy. That was an excellent book.

This ^

rolandesch
01-05-2012, 10:45 PM
This sounds pretty much like Prey, if any of you have ever read that one by Crichton. I'm a huge fan of his, having read Rising Sun, Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Prey, Sphere and a few more. He's an amazing author, so it seems like I'll be reading this sometime after I finish the DT saga! Thanks for posting.

Bev Vincent
01-06-2012, 03:03 AM
This one is getting pretty roundly panned by the critics. I don't have much interest in it, even though I'm a big Crichton fan. Sounds to me like it's more Preston than Crichton.

Jean
08-11-2012, 04:01 AM
I have finished The Andromeda Strain.

The thing is, I am not interested in science, not in the least. I am bored with anything scientific, or technology-related.

I read The Andromeda Strain practically in one sitting - interrupted only by a very short night's sleep. I was reading while eating; on the bus; walking down the street; in the supermarket line. I never wanted it to finish. Alas, it did - but my friends here are right: there's a whole wonderful new world ahead of me now; luckily, he's written lots.

I have this rare, precious feeling of having talked with someone outstandingly intelligent - and the amount of scientific facts in the novel doesn't have anything to do with it. I assume they are correct, but I don't know, nor do I care. It's just that the book itself, and the man who wrote it, are or superb intelligence, and this light shines from the pages right into the old bear's soul. His mastery of literary craft is, I think, unsurpassable. Seemingly dry, the narrative is structured the way every point he makes strikes home, relentlessly. The dramaturgy of the story is breathtaking. It is the most articulate - with jeweller's precision - piece of literature I've read in years.

I've only now learned that he died four years ago. I take it as a personal blow, as if I've just lost a friend.

I am going to read anything he's ever written, including speeches. I don't think there can be "better" or "worse" books here. Even if - which is probable - the books are uneven, plot-wise, it doesn't matter anything. The author will still be the same, with his acumen and wits; irony and pity.

Such a HUGE thanks to you guys, and pablo in particular!!!

P.S. Reading Jurassic Park now!!!!!!!

Brice
08-11-2012, 06:11 AM
I have finished The Andromeda Strain.

The thing is, I am not interested in science, not in the least. I am bored with anything scientific, or technology-related.

I read The Andromeda Strain practically in one sitting - interrupted only by a very short night's sleep. I was reading while eating; on the bus; walking down the street; in the supermarket line. I never wanted it to finish. Alas, it did - but my friends here are right: there's a whole wonderful new world ahead of me now; luckily, he's written lots.

I have this rare, precious feeling of having talked with someone outstandingly intelligent - and the amount of scientific facts in the novel doesn't have anything to do with it. I assume they are correct, but I don't know, nor do I care. It's just that the book itself, and the man who wrote it, are or superb intelligence, and this light shines from the pages right into the old bear's soul. His mastery of literary craft is, I think, unsurpassable. Seemingly dry, the narrative is structured the way every point he makes strikes home, relentlessly. The dramaturgy of the story is breathtaking. It is the most articulate - with jeweller's precision - piece of literature I've read in years.

I've only now learned that he died four years ago. I take it as a personal blow, as if I've just lost a friend.

I am going to read anything he's ever written, including speeches. I don't think there can be "better" or "worse" books here. Even if - which is probable - the books are uneven, plot-wise, it doesn't matter anything. The author will still be the same, with his acumen and wits; irony and pity.

Such a HUGE thanks to you guys, and pablo in particular!!!

P.S. Reading Jurassic Park now!!!!!!!

And I thought I was the only one who does this. I'll be engrossed in a book, crossing busy intersections, weaving in and out of traffic without pausing in my reading.

mae
08-11-2012, 04:59 PM
Jean, I'm so happy to have helped you discover Michael Crichton! You have lots of great stories ahead of you, so many real classics, I think. And yes, his death was a shock. Nobody knew he had been ill. But his body of work is large (though nothing like King's of course). If you really do intend to read his entire oeuvre, I'd suggest you leave his pseudonym novels for last, except A Case of Need, which he later republished under his own name, and maybe Binary. His non-fiction books are also interesting. I thought Electronic Life, a book about computers which was published in the early 1980s and is thus extremely outdated now, was especially fascinating.

And Jean, that is some very strong praise, something I didn't quite expect ("the most articulate - with jeweller's precision - piece of literature I've read in years"). I knew (hoped) you'd like it, but this was a pleasant surprise.

Stockerlone
08-14-2012, 10:22 AM
An amazing author.
On my MUST HAVE list are still some of his pseudonym
german first editons.

A Case Of Need
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aGDfCyQPL._SS500_.jpg

Binary
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mIUYBH6VL._SS500_.jpg

Jean
08-17-2012, 12:48 AM
oh my Lord, finished Jurassic Park!

Yet again, Crichton did the impossible. At the beginning, the novel seemed much more conventional than Andromeda, much more, so to speak, reader-friendly, and I was afraid - no, afraid is the wrong word, because I knew the author, this awesome ultimate interlocutor, remains the same, with his unparallelled intelligence and dry wit - but, well, a little apprehensive - and I was totally wrong!

The impossible he did this time (last time it was fascinating bears with scientific stuff, which no-one else has been able to do) was to make bears relish the action scenes. I've never read anything like this. You know how much bears hate it when everyone starts running, falling, shooting, burning, crawling etc; when Sai King, one of my favoritest authors ever, comes to this (which he almost inevitable does), I practically dislocate my jaw yawning, and on reread always skip, or at least skim, most of these parts. Here I was riveted. I know I will reread it lots of times in the future. It is - I am happy to repeat it - articulate like nothing else I've read. Every sentence serves its purpose. The dialog when Grant is trying to restart the generator is one of the best things ever. So is all the rest of it.

Now Crichton is among my favorite authors ever, right there on the top with Dickens and King. Fantastic, incredible! I am almost 50 years old, and have been reading nonstop all those years.

Thank God I've discovered him only after I got my Kindle. I would spend all my money on his books, like I did on King's (books in foreign languages are frightfully expensive here, and I just couldn't wait till I go to Europe again).

Lauterer
08-17-2012, 01:58 AM
Finally Jurassic Park made it possible... unbelievable but i have only seen the film... and this was kind of popcorn-kino(=cinema) - as we call it in Germany...

Probably should read the book, because i am still thinking about you just making jokes :biggrin1:

Seems to be learning never stops... KA

Jean
08-17-2012, 03:43 AM
i have only seen the film... and this was kind of popcorn-kino(=cinema) - as we call it in Germany...The film was one of the reasons why I didn't want to read the book all those years.

And no, I wasn't joking. My jokes are usually less elaborate.

thegunslinger41
08-17-2012, 07:40 AM
Hmmm...thinking i will have to read this one for sure. Never read it due to having already seen the movie.....

One of my favorites of his was Sphere. Totally sucked me in. :)
G

jhanic
08-17-2012, 08:35 AM
My two LEAST favorite Crichton books are Airframe and Prey. Both bored me to tears.

John

mae
08-17-2012, 09:04 AM
Loved Prey! Very exciting. Jean, your exuberant exaltations are making me want to pick up some MC right now. Haven't read his stuff in a while, though (as the genesis of this thread makes clear) I too am a relative newcomer to his works, but my shelves proudly display all of his first editions, except the paperback-only early novels. Maybe a re-read of The Andromeda Strain is in order. Like you, Jean, I read that in an almost non-stop fashion.

Jean
08-17-2012, 09:57 AM
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

John Blaze
08-17-2012, 10:21 AM
My two LEAST favorite Crichton books are Airframe and Prey. Both bored me to tears.

John
Ditto.

Loved Timeline. I think Timeline, Congo, and the JP books are my favorite of his.

mae
08-17-2012, 10:51 AM
Haven't read Airframe yet, but it sounds fascinating. But then again, it's Crichton, so no wonder.

Heather19
08-18-2012, 06:37 AM
I was going to ask how Congo was. I couldn't remember if I had read it or not, but I love the film. And all this Crichton love is making me want to pick up one of his books again as well.

John Blaze
08-18-2012, 03:19 PM
The book makes the movie look like shit. I loved it.

Dan
08-19-2012, 09:15 AM
Jumping on the band wagon. Started The Terminal Man audiobook.

John Blaze
08-19-2012, 09:50 AM
That one is kind of dated, but I still liked it. :)

Patrick
08-20-2012, 09:26 PM
oh my Lord, finished Jurassic Park!

Yet again, Crichton did the impossible. At the beginning, the novel seemed much more conventional than Andromeda, much more, so to speak, reader-friendly, and I was afraid - no, afraid is the wrong word, because I knew the author, this awesome ultimate interlocutor, remains the same, with his unparallelled intelligence and dry wit - but, well, a little apprehensive - and I was totally wrong!

The impossible he did this time (last time it was fascinating bears with scientific stuff, which no-one else has been able to do) was to make bears relish the action scenes. I've never read anything like this. You know how much bears hate it when everyone starts running, falling, shooting, burning, crawling etc; when Sai King, one of my favoritest authors ever, comes to this (which he almost inevitable does), I practically dislocate my jaw yawning, and on reread always skip, or at least skim, most of these parts. Here I was riveted. I know I will reread it lots of times in the future. It is - I am happy to repeat it - articulate like nothing else I've read. Every sentence serves its purpose. The dialog when Grant is trying to restart the generator is one of the best things ever. So is all the rest of it.

Now Crichton is among my favorite authors ever, right there on the top with Dickens and King. Fantastic, incredible! I am almost 50 years old, and have been reading nonstop all those years.

Thank God I've discovered him only after I got my Kindle. I would spend all my money on his books, like I did on King's (books in foreign languages are frightfully expensive here, and I just couldn't wait till I go to Europe again).
I read JURASSIC PARK back in the days before they made a movie out of it. I loved that book - for the many the same reasons you state. Jean, your enthusiasm makes me want to read the book again.

Heather19
08-21-2012, 02:37 PM
The book makes the movie look like shit. I loved it.

Yeah, I assumed the book would be better. The movie is super cheesy, but I still love it :lol:

John Blaze
08-21-2012, 06:07 PM
Amy good gorilla, Amy good.

Jean
08-22-2012, 12:41 AM
oh, I remember now, I watched the movie (Congo), and rather liked it. I presume the book must be a lot better, though.

Reading Lost World now, awesome!

John Blaze
08-22-2012, 02:39 AM
Glad you're enjoying it.

Jean
08-22-2012, 04:42 AM
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

Mattrick
08-26-2012, 09:31 PM
The Lost World rules.

John Blaze
08-28-2012, 03:08 PM
:D yeah it does.

Jean
08-29-2012, 12:58 AM
oh yes, totally

Patrick
08-29-2012, 08:17 AM
Tonight or tomorrow I will start a new book. It will be PREY, by Michael Crichton.

Jean
08-29-2012, 09:13 AM
Tonight or tomorrow I will start a new book too, and it might be Prey, or maybe Timeline, or Congo, or -

oh, what bliss!!!!

fernandito
08-29-2012, 09:57 AM
Sphere!

Heather19
08-29-2012, 10:59 AM
Sphere!

Yes! I was just going to ask Jean if he had read that one yet. That would be my recommendation too.

Jean
08-29-2012, 11:27 AM
Sphere, then! :rose: :rose: :rose:

John Blaze
08-29-2012, 11:42 AM
IDk, I loved Timeline. Prey I thought was kinda weak.

mae
08-29-2012, 01:13 PM
I'd go in chronological order.

sgc1999
08-29-2012, 01:49 PM
i want a signed 1st or s/l copy of andromida strain:/

jhanic
08-29-2012, 02:42 PM
http://used.addall.com/SuperRare/submitRare.cgi?author=michael+crichton&title=andromeda+strain&keyword=&isbn=&order=PRICE&ordering=DESC&binding=Any+Binding&min=&max=&exclude=&dispCurr=USD&timeout=20&store=Alibris&store=Abebooks&store=AbebooksDE&store=AbebooksFR&store=AbebooksUK&store=Amazon&store=AmazonUK&store=AmazonDE&store=AmazonFR&store=Antiqbook&store=Biblio&store=BiblioUK&store=Bibliophile&store=Bibliopoly&store=Booksandcollectibles&store=ILAB&store=Half&store=LivreRareBook&store=Powells&store=ZVAB

John

Merlin1958
08-30-2012, 07:10 PM
Timeline or Sphere both are true Crichton works. Prey, I was a bit iffy on, though the theme was excellent!!

Garrell
08-30-2012, 07:44 PM
I got 19 MC books for under $20, now if I can just finish GRRM, I can get to reading him:)

Patrick
09-05-2012, 02:40 PM
Tonight or tomorrow I will start a new book. It will be PREY, by Michael Crichton.
I quite enjoyed PREY. There were some aspects of the story that I thought were a bit weak, but then they were explained by the end, so I was satisfied.

John Blaze
09-05-2012, 08:14 PM
I'm not saying I hated it, but compared to his usual awesomeness, it was pretty weak. I thought Pirate Latitudes was ok, and I just found out they're making a movie for it. I'm pretty sure it'll be good, it doesn't seem like it'd be easy to fuck up.

Jean
09-06-2012, 02:16 AM
finished Sphere

loved every word of it, including prepositions and articles. Punctuation marks, too.

fernandito
09-06-2012, 10:23 AM
:thumbsup:

Isn't it fucking incredible? For me, that's the zenith of what great sci-fi could and should be. Such a great novel.

Roland number 19
09-06-2012, 01:24 PM
Recently re-read Jurassic Park and Lost World and I was planning on picking up Sphere in the next few days. This thread solidified that I'll be getting it... tonight. :lol:

fernandito
09-06-2012, 01:42 PM
Do it, Nick. We all floaaaaaaattttt down here.

Roland number 19
09-06-2012, 04:39 PM
Well, with peer pressure like that how could I possibly say no?

Merlin1958
09-10-2012, 05:34 PM
:thumbsup:

Isn't it fucking incredible? For me, that's the zenith of what great sci-fi could and should be. Such a great novel.


Have you read the "Foundation" series by Asimov? Sphere was good SF, but Foundation is classic IMHO

BROWNINGS CHILDE
09-10-2012, 10:54 PM
Ive enjoyed everything from MC with the possible exception of Rising Sun and the positive exception of Airframe.

John Blaze
09-11-2012, 12:26 AM
I liked Rising Sun. Airframe is about on par with Prey in my book. Entertaining, but Meh, I'll probably never read it again.

BROWNINGS CHILDE
09-11-2012, 12:32 AM
Both of those books are mostly dealing with industrial espionage. They were, of course, brilliantly written. However, I was not interested in any aspect of the plot, and was bored to tears.

Jean
09-11-2012, 11:17 AM
Bears are not interested in espionnage, industrial or any other.

Neither are they interested in dinosaurs, science under any sauce, alien bacteria, time travel, octopi, etc, etc, etc....

***

Bill: I've tried to read Foundation and was sooooooooo bored I had to stop in the middle of [presumably] first book

mae
09-11-2012, 11:23 AM
As a known Japanophile, I think Jean will really enjoy Rising Sun.

Jean
09-11-2012, 12:01 PM
I will enjoy every word, interjection, sneeze or snore Crichton ever uttered.

BROWNINGS CHILDE
09-11-2012, 04:59 PM
Yes, I'm sure you will enjoy Rising Sun, Jean. There is a great deal of insight into Japanese culture in that book. I didnt hate it, I just didnt enjoy it as much as his others.
But I am incredibly interested in cloned dinosaurs, alien microbes, timetravel, medical phenomena, newly evolved super apes, and general science (even sans sauce).

Patrick
09-11-2012, 09:16 PM
I liked RISING SUN, but I read it in the early '90's when it came out.

Dan
09-12-2012, 04:00 AM
I just finished listening to Micro. Very well written and easy to listen to, even though he only wrote about 1/3 of the novel. You can tell when Crichton ended and Richard Preston started because it gets less technical. At least that is my impression.

mae
09-12-2012, 08:55 AM
Good collection of interviews with Michael Crichton: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9496

mae
10-15-2012, 08:12 AM
So Jean, wondering what your next Crichton is gonna be.

Jean
10-15-2012, 09:32 AM
I am taking a short pause, or else I'll never read anyone else. I think I'll be trying to follow the chronological order as close as I can when I re-start. I plan to get a new Crichton after I am through with Casual Vacancy.

mae
10-15-2012, 11:26 AM
Sounds like a good plan.

mae
12-02-2012, 12:14 PM
Hey Jean, just wondering, are Crichton's books popular in Russia?

John Blaze
12-03-2012, 12:37 AM
Nevermind, I was confuzzled.

Jean
12-03-2012, 09:43 AM
Hey Jean, just wondering, are Crichton's books popular in Russia?
I think they are.

Jean
12-07-2012, 06:34 AM
friends!!!!!!!!!! people and animals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if someone by any chance hasn't read Eaters of the Dead - do it now!!!

I understand that it is a lesser-known Crichton novel. I be damned! it's more than awesome - it's incredible.

Just to think that he published it four years - four fucking long years! - before Umberto Eco started getting published...

I'll say no more! read it!!!

John Blaze
12-12-2012, 01:22 AM
I thought it was good, but not his best by any means. The movie was ok too.

mae
10-21-2013, 06:47 AM
Huge news! Hard case Crime is putting all of Crichton's early novels written under the John Lange pseudonym back in print over the next month or so:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cMWCgp%2BrL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tMdC0Lm9L.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h1sS-YLlL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QUV8SmTML.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rbEvKVaZL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aZPkqhElL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Zh-xZ%2B%2BRL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512yvl6y92L.jpg

Bev Vincent
10-21-2013, 07:06 AM
I think I have all of these in their original paperback from 'way back. There was also one he wrote as Michael Douglas (cowritten with his brother) and one as Jeffrey Hudson. They're not bad. He published Andromeda Strain in the midst of this run of pseudonymous releases.

mae
10-21-2013, 03:49 PM
And you'll be happy to know, Jean, these are all available for the Kindle now.

Jean
10-21-2013, 11:34 PM
Yes!!!

mae
10-22-2013, 01:30 AM
The other two pseudonymous novels, A Case if Need and Dealing were also released for the Kindle.

blunthead
03-23-2014, 01:08 AM
Huge news! Hard case Crime is putting all of Crichton's early novels written under the John Lange pseudonym back in print over the next month or so:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cMWCgp%2BrL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tMdC0Lm9L.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h1sS-YLlL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QUV8SmTML.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rbEvKVaZL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aZPkqhElL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Zh-xZ%2B%2BRL.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512yvl6y92L.jpgThis is so cool. I've been a serious Crichton fan for years, and have read almost everything he wrote as Crichton. Now there are suddenly a bunch more!

mae
10-29-2014, 07:37 AM
Wonder how bears are progressing through Crichton's oeuvre.

mae
07-22-2015, 10:16 AM
http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/ranking-all-16-michael-crichton-novels.html

When Jurassic World finally roars to life on June 12, it’ll mark the latest emergence of the dinos-run-amok scenario created by Michael Crichton in his 1990 novel Jurassic Park. While that book is probably the author’s most famous work, it’s also just the tip of his high-tech, high-concept, popular-thriller iceberg.

Like his fellow superstar novelists Tom Clancy (military technology) and John Grisham (lawyers), Crichton had his own distinctive and incredibly page-turning shtick: meticulously researched settings that involve a crack team of experts combating a wild social or scientific breakthrough of some kind or another, be it a hungry T. rex or a sexually dominating female boss. (There’s a serious conservative streak running through his novels.) Crichton died at age 66 in 2008, which means we’ll never get to see what exotic adventures this intellectually curious and endlessly imaginative — if exuberantly pedantic — guy would make of, say, social media or Bitcoin mining, but he left more than enough behind.

In addition to his novels, the Harvard-trained M.D. also released four books of nonfiction, as well as a couple early efforts under pseudonyms, and his last book, Micro, was finished by Richard Preston. Those are worth investigating, but not here: We’re solely ranking the novels published under Crichton’s own name, from worst to best, which, as you’ll see, is plenty. So let’s go.

16. Rising Sun (1992)

Crichton’s lurid whodunit is a thoroughly paranoid wannabe-exposé of Japanese business development in smoggy, fast-paced, traffic-clogged, corrupt Los Angeles in the early ’90s, peopled with a cast of sleazy journalists and lawyers, sex-fiend politicians, smug celebrities, tittering secretaries, and drugged-out models. It’s all in service of hammering home the idea that, in Japan, business is war. Sort of amazingly, in hindsight, the book includes lines like, “There are many reasons to dislike the Japanese.” Once in a while, Crichton drops an observation that piques interest (apparently, the Japanese “never accepted Freud or Christianity”), but the traces of curiosity here are overwhelmed by oodles of nasty xenophobia.

It’s up to resident sempai Captain John Connor, a retired member of the LAPD helping a younger protégé solve a kinky murder, to bring those Japanese usurpers to justice. The sleuthing is a platform for Crichton’s sledgehammer analysis of international relations. (He insistently knows what the Japanese are.) Despite all the Japanese-are-kicking-our-asses fearmongering, the book’s propulsive series of twists and deductions and wild setpieces can be entertaining: You'll enjoy the secret lab beneath a children’s skating rink where an illicit videotape of the murder is analyzed frame by frame. But Crichton’s warning at the end that America must wake up to “see Japan clearly” as a warring competitor is an example of what makes the whole thing sort of off-putting.

15. State of Fear (2004)

Like Rising Sun, State of Fear grabs your attention with an over-the-top mix of sex and violence: It opens with a seductive ecoterrorist paralyzing her new lover, a tsunami researcher, with a tiny poison octopus that leaves a “blue ring of death.” The environmentalists here are an international secret conspiracy of well-funded thugs who wield youthful idealism, scorpions, and weather (yes, weather) against their foes, using storm-manipulating rockets to convince the public with their manmade natural disasters that climate change is real. The hero is John Kenner — an MIT prof who also happens to be an international law-enforcing super-spy — who recruits a team of accomplices with some windy speechifying about the bogusness of climate change.

State of Fear is Crichton at his most cynical and snide, but it can be pleasurable to see how far he takes his seething anti-global-warming spiel, and all the inventive ways he can pad it with data and charts. Every plane ride in Crichton’s most globetrotting adventure is an excuse for an extravagantly detailed lecture, complete with bar graphs. But at 600-plus pages, the hectoring grows tiresome, and the book piles on the red herrings, near-death escapes, and unbelievable acts of decoding. It’s hard not to throw up your hands when Kenner’s team finds a crucial secret piece of paper in the battery compartment of a remote control by analyzing a cryptic Buddhist proverb.

14. Congo (1980)

This was Crichton’s second novel in a row, after Eaters of the Dead, to deal with a mysterious primitive group terrorizing the forces of civilization, and his first book of many to rely on the close analysis of surveillance footage to reveal its all-important information. In this case, the info involves deadly primates with excellent communication skills who’ve been trained to guard valuable diamond mines deep in the jungle of Zaire, in a place called the Lost City of Zinj, which we learn rivals the Hotel California for maximum you-can-never-leave ominousness. Congo takes a while to get going — with a lot of plane rides and detailed explanations of things like solar flares or the histories of military computing and African conquest — before a group of scientists, diamond miners, and one super-smart gorilla named Amy finally get to ol’ Zinj. There are lots of lengthy, technically detailed passages that do a lot of huffing and puffing to teach us that, hey, those diamond things are pretty valuable — so much so that our underdogs are in a race against a major consortium to find the treasure. But when things threaten to get too explain-y, Crichton is good to throw in stuff like an earthquake, a lightning storm, a volcano overflowing with blue diamonds, cannibals, and the odd bout of human-versus-super-ape techno-warfare to keep your attention. Throughout Congo Crichton wonders, interestingly, about the markers of difference and similarity between humankind and other closely related species, emotionally and intellectually, and also looks at the difference between animals in captivity and in the wild. As such, there’s enough nature-versus-nurture and civilization-versus-wilderness questions to whet your anthropological appetite, but ultimately, your enjoyment of the novel may depend on how much you want to know about Amy’s dietary and potty needs.

13. Disclosure (1994)

Crichton followed Rising Sun with an even more sexually explicit story about the ruthless high-tech world of the early ’90s. The plot deals with a sexual harassment suit at DigiCom, an insanely high-strung software company — one that’s busy making sure its breakthrough virtual-reality units don’t make potential investors vomit. This time around, instead of laying the blame for big-money malfeasance on the Japanese, Crichton invents a sexily manipulative corporate-ladder-climbing monster named Meredith who’s attempting to wrongfully pin harassment charges on innocent manager Tom, and then milks the battle-of-the-sexes titillation — hard.

Twenty-one years on, Disclosure has some time-capsule charm, as it harkens back to the CD-ROM days and name-drops CompuSoft, Symantec, and Bill Gates. We even get a character explaining that the internet is “the vast worldwide computer network.” Beyond that, there are some worthwhile considerations about creepy hierarchies of fear and blind protection of power — Disclosure sure is good at steeping us in corporate hell. But Michael Crichton’s argument that power is sexless in today’s workplace (“neither male nor female,” as an opening quotation from late Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham puts it) sure feels like a poor-us-white-dudes-in-power complaint. “There were new rules now, and every man knew them,” Meredith’s victim Tom laments, as he visits other men against whom this she-monster has used her wiles to secure her corporate position, while at the same time hiding her lame executive abilities. Sure, there are deficiencies in our understanding of the dynamics of sexual harassment that this book tries to entertainingly rectify, but ultimately, it’s a problematic — though at times compelling — inner voice of male victimhood that guides us through Disclosure.

12. The Lost World (1995)

Crichton’s sequel to Jurassic Park finds some of the Gore-Tex-clad characters from its predecessor returning to remote Costa Rican climes in search of another secret manufactured prehistoric civilization: the InGen corporation’s own sequel to its first park, the straightforwardly named Site B. As per usual, some folks want to study the site, while others want to exploit it, and the story explicitly attempts to take us to “the edge of chaos” (as the prologue is titled), fleshing out Crichton’s fascination with “complexity theory” and evolutionary and extinction arguments while thrilling us by returning to the cozily horrific world of dinosaurs. There’s lots of entertaining pooh-poohing and one-upsmanship among the paleontologists, and loads of minutely detailed lessons about prehistoric creatures — if you’re not sure whether or not you’re looking at a raptor, just check to see if the dino’s “antorbital fenestrae” is “too rostral.” Jurassic Park mathematician Ian Malcolm returns to spit knowledge on just about any topic, especially when shutting down his new rival, the know-it-all upstart paleontologist Dr. Richard Levine. “The characteristic human trait is not awareness,” Malcolm explains, “but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.” Now you know.

The human baddies are some of Crichton’s most grandiose and idiotic; the egg-thieving geneticist Lewis “the Undertaker” Dodgson literally hisses when he speaks, saying things like, “These animals are totally exploitable,” and wrongfully expects to stop T. rex attacks with piercing sounds. Crichton’s children characters seem like they could win the Hunger Games. Assistant paleontologist and seventh-grader Kelly is handed a shotgun by her Jane Goodall–like animal-behaviorist hero, Dr. Sarah Harding, and sure enough can easily blast raptors from atop a whizzing motorcycle. It’s not totally surprising when the archvillains are picked off one by one by dinosaurs, more and more brutally, but as in the original Jurassic Park, the heart still quickens when the carnivores show up and do, well, anything. Crichton had an undeniable knack for suspenseful setpieces, and the one that has a Tyrannosaur swat a trailer full of people hanging off a literal cliff does the trick.

11. Airframe (1996)

In yet another Crichton novel about nefarious corporate behavior, Casey Singleton, the PR head of an American airplane manufacturer, has to investigate what “event cascade” led to one of its prized machines “porpoising” in the air, killing several people, ideally proving that it wasn’t responsible to seal a huge deal with China. Was it uncontrolled slat deployment, fatigue cracks, a locking pin, a counterfeit part, a proximity sensor? Gah!

Airframe gives Crichton another chance to return to one of his favorite themes: the inevitable chaos of all complex systems, and he handles the ins and outs of plane manufacturing with aplomb, efficiently provoking awe and fear about the intricate and fallible design of quarter-million-pound machines. It could be an aspiring engineer or mechanic’s favorite Crichton, and — if you’re susceptible to such things — it could inspire more mid-flight worries than that classic Twilight Zone episode about the airplane gremlin.

There’s plenty in here about the specifics of airplane manufacturing, and the novel is also a worthwhile look at how a company investigates and lays blame for a complicated event. Good PR rules all, it seems, with some excess cynicism reserved for journalists, a favorite Crichton punching bag. The climactic showdown between the press and the airplane company for the “true meaning” of the story, involving two rivals strapped to the faulty airplane as it re-creates the crash conditions, achieves genuine liftoff. But sometimes we learn a thing or three too much about planes, and the story gets sluggish, occasionally absurd. Unions, for example, are presented as mobs of wrench-throwing goons, and when a journalist pukes during the climactic test flight, Airframe feels like another Crichton revenge fantasy, albeit one that gets pretty lively.

10. Pirate Latitudes (2009)

Crichton finished his long-gestating pirate adventure and final completed novel, one of this techno-futurist’s rare forays into the past, while working on Next. And just as Next deals with the problems of labeling genes, Pirate Latitudes deals with the problems of labeling colonial seafarers as it explores the nasty grey areas of 17th-century conquest: Are Captain Charles Hunter and his crew “pirates” or “privateers,” staking legal claims, or unlawfully pilfering from each other, explorers or exploiters?

Thankfully, there’s plenty of Caribbean-based adventure and gory vengeance to offset all the taxonomy questions. Hunter’s band of rogues undertake a perilous mission to attack and plunder an invulnerable Spanish fortress manned by the legendary Über-dastard Cazalla — it’s “the most extraordinary privateering expedition in the century since Drake attacked Panama.” There’s also bawdy sailor-speak and well-researched weapons history galore. French grenades, rat-intestine fuses, cannons, crossbows — you want it, you got it. The book isn’t quite as provocative as Crichton’s sci-fi, but the author makes up for it with a many-tentacled kraken, a gripping cannon battle in a place called Monkey Bay (followed closely by a hurricane and an escape from cannibals), and the general suggestion that the dangers of the deep sea are fathomless.

9. Eaters of the Dead (1976)

Crichton’s riff on Beowulf begins with an expository journey of Vikings off to face an unnamable enemy. But rather than the enigmatic primates of Congo or Next, our Nordic heroes must go against an ancient humanoid species capable of resembling a glowworm dragon, among other fantastical things. Along the way, Crichton gives us anthropological tidbits on a variety of tribes encountered, like the Oguz, who, you’ll be fascinated to learn, never bathe after ejaculation. The repetitive trek across river after river with lots of cooking and traveling and celebrations is initially stultifying, but Eaters of the Dead eventually builds serious tension by pitting its inexperienced and sheepish narrator, the stranger-in-a-strange-place Arabic swordsman, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, against a shape-shifting foe. From the first battle against a stinky black mist onwards, the book gets more and more exciting, especially if you like your evil pure and your warriors stoic.

8. Timeline (1999)

Timeline opens with a compellingly mysterious image: A strange, sickly robed figure in Nikes muttering John Denver lyrics appears on the desert highway during a couple’s road trip. It gets weirder from there. A group of modern-day historians travel back in time to 14th-century France to rescue a beloved prof, and they encounter that land’s alternatively brutal and charming ambience, forced to joust and stab and romance their way back home.

Any other writer might call what’s going on here “time travel.” Crichton dubs it “orthogonal multiverse coordinate change” — and mashes that OMCC together with medieval fantasy in this, his most decapitation-heavy book. The results are cool: Using the 32 quantum states of an electron (instead of merely two, like the rest of us), late-20th century scientists interfere with photons from other universes to travel through “wormhole connections in quantum foam.” Whatever it means, it’s neat, and the trips back in time have a pumped-up Star Trek transporter vibe.

As far as the educational by-product that Crichton is so good at delivering, well, did you know that castle-dwellers were really neat freaks who rolled their chain mail in sand to get rid of dust? Or that you could ignite medieval gunpowder with spit? Neither did the modern-day folks in Timeline. Curl up with a glass of Bordeaux and learn something fun.

7. Prey (2002)

Prey is another one about a biotechnology firm, this one staffed by overtaxed, Sun Chips–munching, Diet Coke–guzzling workers busy making dangerously unpredictable forms of artificial intelligence at a VC-funded start-up called Xymos. This one’s set in the spider’s web of Silicon Valley, so more lattes are consumed per page than in any other Crichton. It’s the author’s effective return to the minuscule-but-deadly substance narrative of his earlier The Andromeda Strain, with bacteria capable of entering and disrupting “the cytoplasm of cardiac cells,” which, of course, is a horrendously bad thing. The unholy combination here of genetic engineering and nanotechnology provides maximum creep-out: The nemesis, a rapidly adapting bioswarm (a “mechanical plague”), is a potent metaphor for the hazards of biotechnology and the runaway train of evolution. It also begs the eternal question: What’s best for combatting a bioswarm? The scientists responsible for tracking and destroying the nanoswarms eventually settle on dirtbikes, hacked Windex, a fecal-smelling concoction, and, in a pinch, bombs.

Aside from the mechanical plague, Prey has a bunch of other memorable images. There’s a molecular assembly line that looks like a giant liquid octopus with fractal architecture and diamondoid coating that’s also an unstoppable military helicopter, an approximate version of a corrupt character named Ricky that’s made out of shape-shifting swarm particles, and black rivers of swarm interrupting kisses between scientists. Maybe the only reason Hollywood hasn’t adapted this one is because swarms aren’t as easy on the eyes as apes or dinosaurs.

6. Next (2006)

Forget Congo: This is Crichton’s ultimate talking-chimp story. A tale of transgenic wrongdoing (among many other things), it’s way weirder than its predecessor, without the clear plot thread of the author’s other novels, and it improves from a slightly murky start to thoughtful speculations about the worrisome vagueness of gene patenting and the potential use or misuse of human tissues by corporations and academies. The book shows Crichton’s vibrant curiosity for these issues rather than trotting out an ossified position like he did in State of Fear. It’s also got fun monkey-in-the-household shenanigans and a variety of strange animals to keep us amused: a foulmouthed parrot, a purple glow-in-the-dark turtle, and giant cockroach pets. Sure, it’s a mishmash of familiar Crichton tropes (stolen embryos, revealing surveillance footage, “complexity theory”), but it’s the author at his most unpredictable and loose and nutty.

5. The Terminal Man (1972)

Crichton’s mind-control classic pissed off the American Epilepsy Foundation with its tale of scientists’ efforts to curb psychomotor epilepsy patient Harold Benson’s “psychotic mentation.” (That’s Crichton-speak for unwitting episodes of sexual aggression and violence.) This Jekyll and Hyde update features myriad burgeoning computer-age anxieties about a machine takeover bubbling up, with impeccable med-tech details — each EEG printout and leering doctor is in its right place, as Benson’s state-of-the-art brain-electrode implants fail to whip him into shape, instead prompting even more brutally murderous rampaging. Crichton demonstrates his skill at taking an ultracontrolled environment (here, the “Neuro-Psychiatric Service” ward) and mussing its hair, showing what happens when all the correctly implemented data in the world won’t stop an angry guy from mashing in people’s faces.

4. The Andromeda Strain (1969)

Crichton’s first “Michael Crichton” novel (that is, not written under one of the rotating aliases that he used to kick off his career) is a compelling medical mystery that begins with an apology in the author’s foreword that it’s “a rather technical narrative.” For the most part, you won’t mind the obsessive attention to detail, not when Dr. Jeremy Stone, a young Nobel laureate, is busy saving the world from alien bacteria (“a unicellular organism, coccobacillary in shape, gram-negative, coagulase, and triokinase-positive”). How does he do it? By deciphering secret codes, running diagnostics on weird hemoglobin, using zippy techniques like X-ray crystallography — you get the drift.

Andromeda Strain wisely preys on a blend of late-’60s fears about germs, nukes, and interplanetary travel, and gives us the ultimate neat-freak creep-fest as a crack team of pathologists in pink onesies (here’s the guy who discovered Brazilian tapeworm; there’s a doc prominent in the “hot field” of staph infection) assemble to destroy this super-bacteria while making loads of queasy stomach-illness in-jokes. Plus, Crichton gives us the perfect psychedelic-era medical response to an ulcer patient who survives the killer strain and might lead to a cure: “The man was acid.” The book doesn’t skimp on menacing secret intragovernmental missives, mysteries of the organism, or elaborate quarantine and autopsy procedures, and only goes wobbly at the end, when it relies on a hackneyed (but forgivably goofy) self-destruct countdown sequence that a hero must stop, in ultra-slow-motion, by turning a key while being peppered with automated poison darts and warned of his impending doom by a sultry female computer voice.

3. Jurassic Park (1990)

Oh, the whimsical use of genetic engineering by billionaires, and the unknown adventures in science that take place behind closed doors: Jurassic Park is museum-curation and amusement-park exploitation at their most horrifying, and Crichton’s big goldmine. (It was also a real contender for the top spot on this list.) It begins with the author’s strongest horror — a series of mysterious attacks and desperate responses in Costa Rica — and it has his most well-executed use of the suggestion of violence, as an unseen but devastatingly implied raptor attack on a child gets us eager for various combinations of dinosaur-versus-human. The book gets a tad slow when detailing Jurassic-era plants or paleontologist neuroses, but picks up whenever the dinos arrive, while sending thoughtful (if overlong) discussions of perpetual change and instability our way via mathematician character Ian Malcolm’s “chaos theory” ramblings. (“Wobbles” are essential to a system, huh?)

Jurassic Park is also Crichton’s first of several books to really employ imperiled children as a chief part of the suspense engine (as well as the usual power outages and pitch-black grapplings), and relies on a few other well-worn — and well-deployed — devices to ratchet up the tension and then offer relief. Codes are elaborately deciphered, escapes occur via river raft, our casually rugged heroes outsmart surprisingly smart dinosaurs, and plenty of cowards and villains meet their brutal deaths. The book gets a lot of mileage out of the strength of its central conceit (what if dinosaurs came back?), but you can’t deny its fun quotient, and Crichton made sure to leave plenty of room for a sequel.

2. Sphere (1987)

Crichton’s most mysterious plot again involves newly discovered entities in a very remote place, as a team of terrified elite scientists investigate the appearance of an unidentified vessel in deep waters somewhere between Samoa and Fiji that’s scaring the hell out of the world’s militaries. This has lots of fun speculations about how our governments would prepare for a possible alien encounter, chief among them sending a bunch of geniuses in blue polyester jumpsuits into a problem-solving incubator to figure it out. What is “it”? “Unquestionably,” one of the brainiacs helpfully explains, “the most important archeological site in the history of mankind.”

Sphere’s inter-team banter and tensions are some of Crichton’s liveliest head-games, particularly when they occur between hubristic math prodigy Harry Adams and the arrogantly racist scientist Ted Fielding. For a story about a giant metal sphere, the suspense builds organically, and the setpieces are striking — the mysterious ship has a giant room with its own weather system that you have to take a conveyor belt to get to. There’s real excitement when the team is pitted against a variety of impossible blob-creatures and their own increasingly malleable (and terrifying) consciousnesses. Though it’s a bit disappointing that the drama is resolved by simply blowing up the alien thing, the mutating hive-mind creature is Crichton’s richest creep-zone, and the blindness-about-ourselves and we-must-face-our-fears thematics have a strangely effective power-of-positive-thinking message. One quibble: Why doesn’t anyone ever call the alien structure an “orb” or a “ball”?

1. The Great Train Robbery (1975)

It’s not his best-known work, nor is it typical of his hallmark high-tech interests, but The Great Train Robbery is Crichton at his most enjoyable. The intricately plotted and charmingly slang-laden adventure shows the meticulous preparation that went into a notorious 1855 gold heist, in a period of history when lots of people, apparently, were “doing a bit of soft” (running elaborate cons) to get by. The story follows a “cracksman,” charismatic master thief Edward Pierce, and a “screwsman,” key copier Robert Agar, in London’s world of “crushers” versus “dippers” who rely on the help of “judys” to work a “bone lay.” What’s all that mean? The fun is in finding out — this is Crichton at his most energetically colorful; more than any of his books, you can sense the writer having fun with the subject matter. It also covers all the important Victorian crime-novel bases: railroads, slums, pubs, public hangings, venereal disease, and a wide variety of clever escapes from sticky situations. (Look out for the fantastic sequence where thieves use a coffin, Trojan horse style, to board and ransack the titular train.) The Great Train Robbery might not be the author's most representative work — there’s not nearly enough techno-jargon for that — but, for our money, it’s top-shelf Crichton.

mae
08-12-2016, 05:29 AM
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/28/12319480/michael-crichton-new-book-dinosaur-dragon-teeth

When Michael Crichton passed away in 2008, he left behind a massive collection of papers: outlines, notes, and several incomplete novels. In the years since his death, Crichton’s widow Sherri has been combing through those files, and recently discovered a new manuscript called Dragon Teeth, which is now set to be published by HarperCollins in 2017.

The new novel returns to a topic for which Crichton is most famous: dinosaurs. The novel follows the intense rivalry between two prominent, real-life paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh as they try and out-discover one another in 1878. The book takes place in the American West from the perspective of a fictional apprentice, William Johnson, as he makes monumental discoveries of his own. Sherri Crichton believed that the book was partially inspired by his correspondence with the late Professor Edwin H. Colbert, a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Two books have emerged from Crichton’s files over the years. The first was a completed book: Pirate Latitudes, about 17th century Caribbean pirates, which was released in 2009. A second was Micro, a partial manuscript that was completed by Richard Preston (author The Hot Zone), published in 2011. Unlike Micro, Dragon Teeth appears to be largely finished, and won't require the use of an additional author.

Dragon Teeth is set to be published by HarperCollins in May 2017.

mae
01-27-2017, 04:05 PM
https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTZ8rKShrkDTT2Qq1mXwOy-HH3pJE_sCLtCDIONvt5oS8UfbrlB

blunthead
01-28-2017, 03:45 AM
Thanx!

Room 217 Caretaker
01-28-2017, 04:34 AM
I'm all for that. I miss Michael.

Mulleins

Jean
01-29-2017, 07:37 AM
omg omg! I know I'm the last to find out, as usual... but it's great news

no, great writers never die! years after their death they keep coming up with new novels

much, much love to Michael, one of the very few authors bears love on some deep personal level

needfulthings
01-29-2017, 10:51 AM
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/42/7BTsBG.jpg

mae
03-03-2017, 07:28 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2016/11/17/michael-crichton-dragon-teeth-exclusive-excerpt-book-buzz/93887780/

Dragon Teeth will be published by Harper, a division of HarperCollins, on May 23. It’s about a favorite Crichton subject — dinosaurs — only this time it’s historical fiction set during the 1870s and the “Bone Wars” between two real-life paleontologists in the American West.

Crichton, author of such mega-selling thrillers as Jurassic Park, Rising Sun and The Andromeda Strain, died in 2008 at age 66. (Four of his books hit No. 1 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.) He’s been back in the conversation lately thanks to the HBO sci-fi "Western" series Westworld; Crichton wrote and directed the original 1973 movie starring Yul Brynner.

The Dragon Teeth manuscript was found among the author’s files by his wife, Sherri Crichton.

Dragon Teeth revolves around the rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh as they search for fossils. The young, fictional hero of the novel is William Johnson, who alternately apprentices to both men and then makes historic discoveries of his own. In the excerpt from the fourth chapter, "Philadelphia," that follows, we see Johnson at home in 1876, before he heads out West with Professor March.