View Bigger Picture
Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A Michael Crichton Timeline
Amazon.com reveals a few facts about the 'father of the techno-thriller.'
1942: John Michael Crichton is born in Chicago, Illinois on Oct. 23.
1960: Crichton graduates from Roslyn High School on Long Island, New York, with high marks and a reputation as a star basketball player. He decides to attend Harvard University to study English. During his studies, he rankles under his writing professors' criticism. As an act of rebellion, Crichton submits an essay by George Orwell as his own. The professor doesn’t catch the plagiarism and gives Orwell a B-. This experience convinces Crichton to change his field of study to anthropology.
1964: Crichton graduates summa cum laude from Harvard University in anthropology. After studying further as a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University and receiving the Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellowship, which allowed him to travel in Europe and North Africa, Crichton begins coursework at the Harvard School of Medicine. To help fund his medical endeavors, he writes spy thrillers under several pen names. One of these works, A Case of Need, wins the 1968 Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award.
1969: Crichton graduates from Harvard Medical school and is accepted as a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, Calif. However, his career in medicine is waylaid by the publication of the very first novel under his own name, The Andromeda Strain. The novel, about an apocalyptic plague, climbs high on bestseller lists and is later made into a popular film. Crichton said of his decision to pursue writing full time: 'To quit medicine to become a writer struck most people like quitting the Supreme Court to become a bail bondsman.'
1972: Crichton's second novel under his own name The Terminal Man, is published. Also, two of Crichton's previous works under his pen names, Dealing and A Case of Need are made into movies. After watching the filming, Crichton decides to try his hand at directing. He will eventually direct seven films including the 1973 science-fiction hit Westworld, which was the very first film ever to use computer-generated effects.
1980: Crichton draws on his anthropology background and fascination with new technology to create Congo, a best-selling novel about a search for industrial diamonds and a new race of gorillas. The novel, patterned after the adventure writings of H. Ryder Haggard, updates the genre with the inclusion of high-tech gadgets that, although may seem quaint 20 years later, serve to set Crichton's work apart and he begins to cement his reputation as 'the father of the techno-thriller.'
1990: After the 1980s, which saw the publication of the underwater adventure Sphere (1987) and an invitation to become a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988), Crichton begins the new decade with a bang via the publication of his most popular novel, Jurassic Park. The book is a powerful example of Crichton's use of science and technology as the bedrock for his work. Heady discusion of genetic engineering, chaos theory, and paleontology run throughout the tightly-wound thriller that strands a crew of scientists on an island populated by cloned dinosaurs run amok. The novel inspires the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, and together book and film will re-ignite the world’s fascination with dinosaurs.
1995: Crichton resurrects an idea from his medical school days to create the Emmy-Award Winning television series ER. In this year, ER won eight Emmys and Crichton received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Set in an insanely busy an often dangerous Chicago emergency room, the fast-paced drama is defined by Crichton's now trademark use of technical expertise and insider jargon. The year also saw the publication of The Lost World returning readers to the dinosaur-infested island.
2000: In recognition for Crichton's contribution in popularizing paleontology, a dinosaur discovered in southern China is named after him. 'Crichton's ankylosaur' is a small, armored plant-eating dinosaur that dates to the early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago. 'For a person like me, this is much better than an Academy Award,' Crichton said of the honor.
2004: Crichton’s newest thriller State of Fear is published.
Amazon.com's Significant Seven
Michael Crichton kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.
A: Prisoners of Childhood by Alice Miller
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Witter Bynner version)
Symphony #2 in D Major by Johannes Brahms (Georg Solti)
Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: Surely you're joking.
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: Small room. Shades down. No daylight. No disturbances. Macintosh with a big screen. Plenty of coffee. Quiet.
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I don't want an epitaph. If forced, I would say 'Why Are You Here? Go Live Your Life.'
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Benjamin Franklin
Q: If you could have one superpower what would it be?
A: Invisibility
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
- Driven and well argued, a novel with an argument to make
I've read all of Crichton's novels except for this. The man died a few days ago and that prompted me to pick this off my shelf after a few years in waiting. It is his most controversial novel, casting serious doubts over the validity of scientific claims about global warming and the many claims of environmental groups.
It is one of Crichton's better novels. He uses multiple plot lines that coalesce quickly to resolve themselves into a pacey and driven narrative. There is less of a science lesson up front than Crichton often feeds us - this is broken down into chunks throughout the novel so that the thriller element takes its grip early.
Crichton's characters are usually fairly two-dimensional and this is no exception. Intelligent, educated, white, middle class with little depth and no family or emotional background - they seem to be miniaturised versions of him, there to articulate a position or argument. He shares that trait with English master John Wyndham a man whose novels I feel often have characteristics in common with Crichton's. Having said that, one or two of the minor characters work well: the eco-actor Ted Bradley, for instance. His primary characters are Peter Evans, a rather ill-informed lawyer who is the reader's eyes and ears and asks the stooge questions we are thinking - and John Kenner, who is a know-it-all `Zellaby' character (cf, The Midwich Cuckoos).
The premise is intriguing - eco-terrorism and climate interference. I wondered when somebody would get around to this as a serious subject. Nobody is better suited than Crichton to tackle big complex issues and turn them into racing thrillers.
Crichton is unashamedly critical of the conventional wisdom, and stacks his knowledgeable characters on the side of the anti-environmentalists spouting references while the idiots and hypocrites and terrorists are all environmentalists who spout fluffy junk. It's effective, if unfair. We should judge this as a novel and not as a treatise.
Lively settings, constantly evolving plot and information, tight writing, credible threats and well-managed material make this a very effective story. The lack of depth in the characters does not hold it back or truly matter, Crichton wants to challenge you, to stun you with the enormity of the conspiracy and to put his case through a compelling fiction. He does so expertly.
He has been gathered in before his personal harvest realised its vast potential.
Rated by buyers 
- Exciting fiction with a bibliography...
This exciting plot reminescent to Clive Cussler is backed up with an impressive bibliography to rival most research thesis. Definitely a must read for those not satisfied with being fed half-truths by the media because you can check out the documentation. Suggested follow-up reading is Dixie Lee Ray's "Trashing the Planet" and "Environmental Overkill". In the words of Paul Harvey "...and that's the other side of the story..."
Rated by buyers - Educational
The Margin
State of Fear by Crichton was a disappointment in terms of story telling. This author stands alone when it comes to weaving a great yarn around science. His novels have kept me entertained and enlightened for years but this one falls short. If you are interested in learning more about global climate change and not just opinion based on anectodal evidence then I recommend it, however if you want an exciting well crafted thriller along the lines of The Andromeda Strain you might be disappointed too.
Marvin Wiebener, author of The Margin, a novel about a modern day treasure discovery and the consequences that befall the discoverer.
Rated by buyers - Very Engaging Read
"State of Fear" is a book which grabs the reader from the start, never letting go until the last page is turned. Crichton weaves factual information around a fictional story very skillfully in creating an environmentally-oriented mystery novel. The plot keeps you guessing from the beginning as to who really are the good guys and who are the nefarious ones. In the end, I do not feel that Crichton was trying to convince anyone whether or not human-caused global warming is really happening. I believe his intent is to convey to the reader enough counter-evidence and contradiction to at least initiate some critical thinking on the matter. The issue has become entirely political and many people are profiting immensely from the cause. In this sense, "State of Fear" is merely attempting to balance out the conventional wisdom of the day. The book does have its drawbacks. It does fall into techno-babble on a few occasions and the main characters could have been fleshed out a little more. Also, the romantic relationship between the characters, which was teased as heading somewhere, is left completely unfinished when the book ends. It is as if Crichton got so caught up in the global warming theme that he forgot to finish out what he started with the characters themselves. These are minor issues, though. This is a very entertaining book from start to finish, even if it doesn't solve the global warming debate once and for all.
Rated by buyers 
- Coco the clowns guide to climate change
Hmm, I feel like an interrogator pulling on my thin leather gloves wondering which part of a particularly corpulent and repulsive individual to punch first.
Ok, as a scientific effort into repudiating climate change, this book makes the dinosaur cloning in Jurassic Park look believable.
This book provides a charter for all of those out there who want a "get out of jail free card" to wave so they can continue to lead lifestyles that feature conspicuous consumption and a lack of personal and moral accountability, with respect to our poor planet and the less fortunate individuals that inhabit the "poor bits", the "hot bits", the "not very nice bits" and the "prone to war and famine bits".
The science is selective and poor, and flies in the face of actual experts in the field (myself being one of them). The worrying thing is that people actually believe this stuff, and when I read he was asked to address Congressional Committees I was flabbergasted. I can only presume they were committees that were looking into cloning a mega-army of semi-intelligent dinosaurs, who ironically would probably be too intelligent to read this book.
Phew, thats better, and if this review gets published, I'll be a monkeys uncle (possibly one of the monkeys in "Next", his tirade into the world of genetic engineering, and considering where his dinosaurs come from, I mean, talking about biting the hand that feeds you!!!)
Edit - Ok Mr Amazon, send me some bananas!
Find other books like this one: