Michael Crichton Is Dead at 66
Thursday November 6, 2008
Michael Crichton, author of dozens of bestsellers including the classic science fiction novels The Andromeda Strain (1969) and Jurassic Park (1990), died Tuesday at the age of 66. The cause was cancer.
Crichton was a master of using crisp and clear writing to draw readers into an unfolding and deepening story about the dangers of increasingly complex systems. His influence is wide-ranging, inspiring countless other writers (one who recently mentioned Crichton's effect on his work was J. J. Abrams).
Crichton's other forays into science-fiction and fantasy include Sphere (1987) and Timeline (1999).
Several of Crichton's stories were adapted to film, including two versions of The Andromeda Strain, Timeline (2003), Sphere (1998), and, of course, Jurassic Park (1993); Crichton wrote a few screenplays as well, including Twister (1996) and Westworld (1973), a remake of which is scheduled for next year. Crichton also executive-produced and wrote for the television series ER.
Crichton's way of bringing out the potential problems involved in combining hubris with entropy spoke to me as a young man about the naivete of expecting the gee-whiz, all-progress future postulated by everyone from Asimov to Heinlein to come without cost and failure. His carefully reasoned and developed scenarios were that much more frightening for being so easy to enter into, confident and capable, unaware of what you've begun.
Crichton was a master of using crisp and clear writing to draw readers into an unfolding and deepening story about the dangers of increasingly complex systems. His influence is wide-ranging, inspiring countless other writers (one who recently mentioned Crichton's effect on his work was J. J. Abrams).
Crichton's other forays into science-fiction and fantasy include Sphere (1987) and Timeline (1999).
Several of Crichton's stories were adapted to film, including two versions of The Andromeda Strain, Timeline (2003), Sphere (1998), and, of course, Jurassic Park (1993); Crichton wrote a few screenplays as well, including Twister (1996) and Westworld (1973), a remake of which is scheduled for next year. Crichton also executive-produced and wrote for the television series ER.
Crichton's way of bringing out the potential problems involved in combining hubris with entropy spoke to me as a young man about the naivete of expecting the gee-whiz, all-progress future postulated by everyone from Asimov to Heinlein to come without cost and failure. His carefully reasoned and developed scenarios were that much more frightening for being so easy to enter into, confident and capable, unaware of what you've begun.
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