Michael Crichton Books

Description /Buy link takes you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.

Author Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois (on October 23, 1942); he grew up on Long Island in Roslyn, New York. He had a strong interest in an early age, at just fourteen, he a travel column in The New York Times. He began studying at Harvard in 1960, after always planning on becoming a writer. His problems with an English professor at Harvard led him to get a bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology in 1964. He was later initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Due to the fact that he was six feet nine inches tall, he felt alienated from other people, and was keenly aware of his own intellect.

Michael Crichton was a workaholic; he would work for about six or seven weeks on drafting a novel , and towards the end of the process, he would wake earlier and earlier and get only about four hours a night. Crichton was married five times, only one of which did not end in divorce; it ended when he died of Lymphoma on November 4, 2008 when he was 66 years old. His fifth wife, Sherri Alexander was pregnant with their son at the time; he was born in early 2009.

His books often took the form of a fantastical adventure in the mold of Arthur Conan Doyle or Rice Burroughs. The stories are often set in worlds where complex systems are brought to their knees and people need to deal with the consequences. They can often be cautionary in nature. Think of Malcolm’s classic line “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should” and you’ll understand Crichton’s writing.

He wrote many scripts (some of which he directed himself), created the television series “ER”, wrote “Jurassic Park” (including the sequel “The Lost World”), and wrote many stand alone novels. He also wrote some short stories and non fiction; Crichton wrote under his own name and with the name John Lange and with his brother, he wrote a novel as “Michael Douglas” (the name is a combination of their first names). His work is from the techno-thriller, science fiction, adventure, and action genres.

The Lost World is the only sequel he ever wrote to one of his novels and did so because of the demand for it by fans as well as the director Steven Spielberg. That book owes some credit to Arthur Conan Doyle for both it’s title and for Dr. Ian Malcolm being the star. The Lost World was an homage to Doyle’s classic and he got the inspiration for bringing back Malcolm from the dead from Sherlock Holmes.

Michael Crichton has a unique record that might never be matched as in the year 1994 he had the top show on television, the top movie at the box office and a bestselling book. Jurassic Park was tops at the box office, Disclosure hit #1 on the New York Times bestsellers’ list and ER was the top rated drama on television.

MICHAEL CRICHTON AWARDS

His novel “A Case of Need” won best novel from Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award in the year 1969. He won another Edgar for “The First Great Train Robbery” for best motion picture. His show “ER” won a Peabody and an Emmy.

MICHAEL CRICHTON BOOKS INTO MOVIES

Crichton’s work was adapted into many movies (“The First Great Train Robbery” was done by Crichton himself). “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World” were both made into a movie by Steven Spielberg. “The Andromeda Strain” was made into a movie in 1971. Barry Levinson made adaptations of “Disclosure” (released in 1994) and “Sphere” (released in 1998). Blake Edwards made “The Carey Treatment” into a movie in 1972. In 2003, “Timeline” was made into a movie that was directed by Richard Donner.

In addition to the 16 books based on his books or his characters, Michael Crichton had done a lot of work as a screenwriter and a director in film. He was the screenwriter and director of the original “Westworld” movie that has since been adapted into a popular television show. He also wrote and directed the films “Coma”, “Looker”, “Runaway”, and “The Great Train Robbery”; the last of which was based on one of his novels. He mostly gave up film work after the 80s, but did co-write the hit movie “Twister” in the nineties.

BEST MICHAEL CRICHTON BOOKS

For those readers looking to get into novels by Michael Crichton, this section will help with that. .

Jurassic Park: This is the first novel in the “Jurassic Park” series and was released in the year 1990. A billionaire is able to clone dinosaurs. His ace team of scientists are able to extract DNA from the dinosaurs, and grow them in his laboratories. He then locks them on an island, secured behind electric fences. This will create a sort of theme park for people to visit.

He has a group of different scientists, from different fields, to see the park, however, something goes terribly wrong. Someone that works on the island becomes a traitor and turns the power to the fences off. This allows the dinosaurs to get out.

The Lost World: This is the second novel in the “Jurassic Park” series and was released in the year 1995. Six years have gone by since the disaster at Jurassic Park. Ian Malcolm (mathematician and chaos theorist) works with Richard Levine to find a lost world of dinosaurs. This comes after rumors come out about some animal corpses that are found on the shores of Costa Rica.

They find out about Site B, located on Isla Sorna; which is the production facility that InGen (the no longer functioning company responsible for bringing back the dinosaurs) use to hatch and grow them. It is near Isla Nublar, or Jurassic Park.

Disclosure: This is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1994. In just one day (just 24 hours) Thomas Sanders’ entire world falls apart. He gets passed over for a promotion, his new female boss comes onto him while they have a drink after work, and then, she claims that he sexually harassed her the night before.

She demands that he transfers, this would cut him off from the millions that he would have made when the company he owns was floated on the stock market.

When Does The Next Michael Crichton book come out?

The next book by Michael Crichton is Eruption and will be released on June, 3rd 2024.

Home » Author » Michael Crichton

BookSeries.org