Michael Crichton

The best-selling master of the ‘technothriller’

Michael Crichton

1942–2008

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Author Michael Crichton could keep readers turning the page whether his subject matter was aerodynamics, virtual reality, the genetic code, or high finance. Not only did he sell more than 150 million books, his writing yielded more than a dozen films, some of which he directed. Crichton also created the hit medical TV series ER. His goal, he said, was always entertainment: “It’s fun to manipulate people’s feelings—and to be manipulated.”

Crichton began writing during a difficult childhood in Long Island, N.Y., said the Los Angeles Times. “I was tall and gangly and awkward”—he eventually grew to 6-foot-9—“and I needed to escape, I guess,” he said. His father, who was editor of Advertising Age, was, according to Crichton, a sometimes abusive “first-rate son of a bitch.” Crichton sold his first piece of writing, a travel article, at age 14. Later, pursuing a medical career, he went to Harvard Medical School, where he supported himself by writing thrillers. “He became so adept that he wrote one in nine days.” Medicine fell by the wayside as he quickly achieved critical success with The Andromeda Strain (1969), about a returning U.S. space probe that unleashes a deadly disease. Crichton followed with The Terminal Man (1972), about an accident victim implanted with a malfunctioning, brain-controlling computer, and the movie Westworld (1973), which he wrote and directed, in which killer androids stalk humans in “a fantasy theme park for

wealthy vacationers.”

Crichton had a knack for melding “old-fashioned storytelling with up-to-date, gee-whiz science,” said The New York Times. Congo (1980) was about the quest for “a rare variety of diamond capable of being transformed into a power source more efficient than nuclear energy”; in Sphere (1987), he tackled spaceships and black holes. His archetypal work was probably Jurassic Park (1990). “Part fantasy, part nightmare,” it depicted a world in which scientists create living dinosaurs by cloning their DNA, only to have their creations run amok. “The 1993 film version, directed by Stephen Spielberg, became a phenomenal box-office success.”

Besides being a writer, Crichton was a professional contrarian, said the Chicago Tribune. “He endured charges of racism with Rising Sun (1992), a novel that insisted the Japanese were out to conquer the world.” Feminists piled on him for depicting a man being sexually harassed in 1994’s Disclosure. Crichton also opposed what he considered politically correct science. In 2004, he cast doubts on global warming with State of Fear. Environmentalists were appalled, especially when his stance won him an audience with President Bush. But Crichton was unbowed, and he decried spending “trillions of dollars tackling a problem that is nonexistent.”

Crichton, who died of cancer, is survived by his fifth wife, Sherri Alexander, and a daughter. His final novel, whose title has not been released, will be published posthumously.