Jurassic Park writer dies unexpectedly

Bestselling author Michael Crichton, 66, died on November 4th. His family released a statement to the press, saying that Crichton’s death came “unexpectedly… after a courageous and private battle with cancer”.

Though Crichton wrote a total of 23 published books in his career, the writer is more widely known as the creator of ER and the Jurassic Park movies. Crichton wrote just three episodes of ER, but is credited as one of the show’s executive producers, and was heavily involved in the casting process.
Steven Spielberg, director of the Jurassic Park trilogy, said of Crichton: “Michael’s talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park…there is no-one in the wings that will take his place”.

Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942 and was one of four children. His father was a journalist and Crichton was encouraged to write from an early age, beginning with a nine-page play at age eight.
Crichton graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1969. He wrote and published his first novel The Andromeda Strain while still a medical student. The book was picked up by Universal in Hollywood shortly after its publication.

After graduating, Crichton rarely used his medical knowledge, except to feed his novels. This was a very profitable choice- the writer’s yearly income was estimated at $100 million in 2007. The New York Times described Crichton as “a global brand in his own right”.

The success of Crichton’s science novels was due to his ability to tap into the fears of the public. He believed that science was working towards something more sinister than the good of mankind, and explored this in novels like Jurassic Park, Disclosure and more recently State of Fear.

Crichton wrote State of Fear in 2004. The book was heavily criticised by politicians and scientists for its suggestions that global warming is an unproven theory.

However, even at 62, Crichton showed himself fully capable of standing up to his sceptics, and arrived at press events for the novel armed with charts and graphs.

In an interview with Associated Press he said: “I have a lot of trouble with things that don’t seem true to me”.

In their statement, Crichton’s family said that the author left behind “the wisdom to use our minds to better the world.”