The Andromeda Strain (1969), his first bestseller, was published under his own name. The movie rights for The Andromeda Strain were bought in February of his senior year at Harvard Medical School.
Crichton also pursued an early interest in computer modeling, and his multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090, was published by the Peabody Museum in 1966.
After graduation, Crichton was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he researched public policy with Dr. Jacob Bronowski. He continued to write and published three books in 1970: his first nonfiction book, Five Patients, and two more John Lange titles, Grave Descend and Drug of Choice. He also wrote Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues with his brother Douglas, and it was later published under the pseudonym Michael Douglas.
After deciding to quit medicine and pursue writing full-time, he moved to Los Angeles in 1970, at the age of twenty-eight. In addition to books, he wrote screenplays and pursued directing as well. His directorial feature film Westworld (1973), involving an innovative twist on theme parks, was the first to employ computer-generated special effects.
Crichton continued his technical publications, writing an essay on medical obfuscation published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 1975 and a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma published in Metabolism in 1980.
He maintained a lifelong interest in computers and his pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1995. Crichton also won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writers Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered dinosaur of the ankylosaur group was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini.
His groundbreaking, fast-paced narrative combined with meticulous scientific research made him one of the most popular writers in the world. His novels have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and thirteen have been made into films. Known for his techno-thrillers, he has sold more than 200 million books. He also published four nonfiction books, including an illustrated study of artist Jasper Johns, and two screenplays, Twister and Westworld.
Crichton remains the only person to have a number one book, film, and television series in the same year.
He is survived by his wife, Sherri; his daughter, Taylor; and his son, John Michael.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Portions of this book first appeared in Playboy Magazine.
Copyright © 1970 by Centesis Corporation and Douglas Crichton
Cover design by Andrea C. Uva
Cover illustration by Omar F. Olivera and Theresa Burke
978-1-4532-9932-6
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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