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阅读迈克尔·克莱顿 Michael Crichton在小说之家的作品!!! |
迈克尔·克莱顿写作生涯
迈克尔·克莱顿出生于伊利诺州芝加哥，在纽约州长岛长大。有两个姊姊，一个弟弟。有过5次婚姻纪录，生有一女。
1964年就读哈佛大学文学系，后来转念人类学系，并选修医学预科课程，隔年重新就读哈佛医学院。克莱顿自承大学时期曾经抄袭乔治·欧威尔，将他的文章当作自己的报告交了出去，后来还只得了个“B”，克莱顿宣称那是对学校的测试，绝非刻意欺瞒。就读文学系时，克莱顿缴交的报告总是拿低分，他认为是教授有意刁难，才以此举来测试教授的水准，而后对哈佛文学系的失望，使他转念人类学系。1969年医学院毕业后，担任加州沙克生物研究中心（SalkInstituteforBiologicalStudies）博士后研究员，1988年成为麻省理工学院客座作家。
就读医学院期间，以笔名JohnLange及JefferyHudson开始撰写小说，1969年《死亡手术室》获得的爱伦坡最佳小说奖。他与弟弟道格拉斯（Douglas）用笔名MichaelDouglas合著的小说《Dealing:OrtheBerkeley-to-BostonForty-BrickLost-BagBlues》后来也被好莱坞改编成电影。他的两个笔名，都在暗示他的身高。据他自己所述，1997年时他大约有206厘米。Lange这个字在德文、丹麦语跟荷兰语里，都有“身材高大”的意思，而杰弗瑞·哈德逊爵士（JeffreyHudson）则是17世纪有名的侏儒，是英格兰亨莉雅妲·玛利亚王后的廷臣。
1969年他用本名出版的畅销书《天外病菌》（又译《安德洛墨达品系》），卖出了电影版权，巨大的成功使他下定决心弃医从文。这部作品使他成为美国最成功的小说家之一。从此迈克尔·克莱顿写出了一部又一部畅销小
迈克尔·克莱顿
说。
克莱顿早年在非文学领域的研究为他积累了人类学、医学、生物学和神经学等渊博的知识，为他日后的文学创作奠定了坚实的基础。他也导演过几部电影，如他1979年与史恩·康纳莱合作，执导了自己1975年的作品《火车大劫案》。克莱顿声望达到最高是在20世纪90年代，他的作品《侏罗纪公园》被好莱坞导演史蒂芬·史匹柏搬上银幕。另外他还创作并制片了获得艾美奖的电视连续剧《急诊室的春天》。
克莱顿的兴趣十分广泛，他的才华不仅体现在文学上，所导演的影片《钻石宫》（又译《西方世界》），《八号房禁地》（又译《昏迷》）、《火车大劫案》等获得了巨大成功。他是个计算机业的行家里手，拥有自己的FilmTrack软件公司，于20世纪80年代开始为电影拍摄设计多种电脑程序，他所执导的《钻石宫》，就是世界上首部应用电脑特技的电影。他还写过关于信息技术的书《ElectronicLife》，自己甚至还设计了一套叫《亚马逊》的电子游戏。克莱顿在这些领域的涉猎，也为他的文学创作提供了丰富的源泉。
迈克尔·克莱顿同时在美国作家协会、美国导演协会、电影艺术和科学学会等多家行业协会中任职，他是美国唯一一个同时在畅销书、电影、电视剧三个领域取得非凡成就的人。1992年的《时人》（People）杂志将他评为全球50位最高雅人士（FiftyMostBeautifulPeople）之一。
迈克尔·克莱顿 - 主要成就
小说类
仅以罗列迈克尔·克莱顿本名出版的小说作品有：《死亡手术室》、《安德洛墨达品系》、《终端人》、《火车大劫案》、《乘著夜雾的恶魔食尸者》、《刚果惊魂》、《神秘之球》、《侏罗纪公园》、《升起的太阳》、《叛逆性骚扰》、《失落的世界》、《最高危机机身》、《重返中世纪》、《杀猎物》、《恐惧状态》、《危基当前》等
迈克尔·克莱顿
非小说类
除小说外，克莱顿尚有几部以科学为题材的著作，其中《迈克尔·克莱顿旅行开麦拉》一书，则有片断的自传内容。克莱顿与新达达主义艺术家贾斯培·琼斯（JasperJohns）私交甚笃，他将琼斯的作品收集成册，出版一本同名的精装图文书《JasperJohns》，此书还曾增订改版过一次。
克莱顿出版过一本书，是介绍BASIC电脑程序语言的《ElectronicLife》，曾言，将电脑程序化就像一种解放：“以我的经验，要控制电脑，让它晓得谁是老大，就得透过一种独特的方法，就是程序化…花几个小时将一台新的机器程序化，会带给你一种焕然一新的感受。”
当然他在说这句话时，电脑不过是现成电子零件的组合，只要学习几十个指令就能用内建的BASIC语言写程序。当时的读者不难骑到电脑头上。而为了证明自己的观点，克莱顿在书中附上许多自己用BASIC语言写的程序。克莱顿考虑过要增订这本书，不过后来似乎打消了主意。
影视作品
《钻石宫》（又译《西方世界》）是首部以二维电脑生成图像技术（2DCGI）为卖点的电影，而首部应用三维电脑生成图像技术（3DCGI）的电影，恰巧又是这部片的续集《翡翠窝大阴谋》（又译《未来世界》）。那些以电脑生成的手脸图像，是由犹他大学毕业生艾德温·卡谬（EdwinCatmull，皮克斯总裁）和佛列德·帕克所制作的。
克莱顿执导过改编自罗宾·库克（RobinCook）小说的电影《八号房禁地》。就某方面来说，两者俱有不少共同点，实际上库克和克莱顿都是医师出身，年纪相当，作品类型也相当。克莱顿为电影《ExtremeCloseUp》和《龙卷风》（与当时的妻子合作编剧）写过剧本。克莱顿一手打造监制了电视剧《急诊室的春天》，不过他只为《急诊室的春天》编写过第一季前三集的剧本。
1994年12月，他一举达成特殊的卓越成就，拥有第一名的电影《桃色危机》，第一名的电视剧《急诊室的春天》跟第一名的畅销书《桃色危机》（又译《大暴光》）。其他主要影视作品包括：《西方世界导演》、《昏迷》、《火车大劫案》、《霹雳追魂弹》、《陷阱边缘》、《侏罗纪公园》、《旭日追凶》、《仁心仁术》、《龙卷风》等。
电脑游戏
《亚马逊》（Amazon）是一款迈克尔·克莱顿创造的图像文字冒险游戏，以AppleII、AtariST、Commodore64和DOS系统作为执行平台，1984年由Trillium公司的约翰·威尔斯（JohnWells）负责发行。《亚马逊》为文字冒险游戏加入彩色图像和音效的作法，在当时相当罕见，因此大卖十万份，可以说相当的成功。
到了1999年，克莱顿与大卫·史密斯（DavidA.Smith）共同创立时间线电脑娱乐公司（TimelineComputerEntertainment），尽管跟EidosInteractive签定了不少发行计划，但最后只出过一款游戏《时间线》，2000年12月8日发行于个人电脑，可惜这款游戏不管在评价上或是销售数字都相当的难看。
迈克尔·克莱顿 - 作品特色
迈克尔·克莱顿作品的一个首要主题是科学成就的取得有时是不负责任的。科学家和技术人员取得了惊人、不可思议但却极端危险的成果往往并不被质疑。这些成果使我们人类获得了权力但却带来了问题。所以科学在克莱顿的作品中，经常扮演走火入魔的角色，即使是按步就班完成的科学成就，他也能举出最糟糕的应用范例。
迈克尔·克莱顿的小说有一些共同点：首先，他特别擅长以一个尚存争议的理论和技术来构思一部小说，围绕著这种理论刻画人物形象。其次，他的小说情节诡秘，悬念不断，高潮迭起，扣人心弦。第三就是纵横驰骋的想象力。
用作品表达个人意见，也逐渐成为克莱顿的特色，在他用笔名发表的推理小说《死亡手术室》中，克莱顿用第一人称扮演一位波士顿的病理学家，为挽救朋友的名誉，介入调查一椿堕胎致死所衍生的医疗疏失案件。这本书在1968年出版，远早于1973年美国全国性堕胎合法化辩论的罗对韦德案（Roev.Wade）。他花了160页追查秘密帮人堕胎的主嫌犯，这个角色的登场就是为了表达作者个人的意见，然后，克莱顿用3页让这个角色为他的非法行为辩护。
迈克尔·克莱顿
克莱顿的部份小说也使用假造文书的文学技法。例如，《终极奇兵》（又译《食尸者》）就是古英格兰史诗《贝奥武夫》的玩笑版，他以学术的表现方式，重新诠释阿玛德·伊本法德兰（AhmadibnFadlan）西元十世纪的手稿。
而在其它小说，如《天外病菌》跟《侏罗纪公园》里，也有不少以图表、电脑信息、DNA序列、注解与参考书目的形式呈现，跟小说混合在一起的科学文件。
读迈克尔·克莱顿的小说，扑面而来的是美国文化兼收并蓄的包容性。这种包容性不仅体现在他的小说与科学联姻，大量引用有关物理学的、医学的、遗传学的、天文学的科学知识，而且杂揉了各类小说的品种优势，提炼出他的小说特有的那种神奇、大胆的想象风格，尖锐、透彻的思维路线，开阔、宏大的叙事手法和简洁、有力的语言特色。他走的是流行与通俗的路线，却又能跳出通俗，在高科技想象领域沉淀下一些有关人类、科学、未来等问题的思考，在触及现实题材时多能透过人物、事件的表象，去摇撼美国社会中一些似乎是不可动摇的制度与准则，具有严肃的现实批判精神。克莱顿是西方少数几个能将通俗小说的惊险、火爆与高雅文学的思想意蕴熔为一炉的作家。克莱顿在作品中为我们展示了一幅幅高新科技的生动景象，其所涉领域之广，描述之精确，令人叹为观止。这些作品对科技文化产生了不可忽视的影响。
迈克尔·克莱顿 - 得奖纪录
1969年，爱伦坡最佳小说奖（《死亡手术室》，以JeffreyHudson为笔名）
1970年，美国医疗作家协会奖（《FivePatients》）
1980年，爱伦坡最佳电影剧本奖（《火车大劫案》）
2006年，美国石油地质学家协会新闻奖（《恐惧之邦》）
迈克尔·克莱顿 - 演讲纪录
异形引起全球暖化
2003年，克莱顿在加州理工学院进行了一次富有争议的演讲“异形引起全球暖化”。他表示担忧“舆论科学”的危险性，特别是那些普遍流行，但是仍在争论中的理论，例如核冬天、二手烟的威胁及全球暖化争议。对于一般外星生命和幽浮的普遍看法，他也表达了不满，他指出目前并无外星人存在的决定性证据。克莱顿说：“德瑞克公式无法被检验，因此搜寻地外文明计划（SETI）不是科学，只能算是狂热者的爱好。”克莱顿评论，相信没有事实作依归的科学理论，跟拿科学当信仰并没有两样。
环保只是信仰
克莱顿在加州联邦俱乐部（CommonwealthClubofCalifornia）又进行了一次相关的演讲“环境保护只是信仰”，克莱顿表示，不少现代都市的无神论者，对大自然和我们的过去有著不切实际的看法，他们相信伊甸园、人类有罪和审判日，这跟某些宗教组织的观点（特别是犹太基督教义）相当类似。他明白的说，现代环保人士政治团体，无视于相对的科学证据，顽固墨守他们的信仰。克莱顿也以大家对DDT、二手烟和全球暖化的误解为例，进行了一番辩论。
迈克尔·克莱顿
媒体的泛滥推论
2002年在国际领导论坛（InternationalLeadershipForum）的演讲“为什么要推论？”中，克莱顿批评媒体哗众取宠，空洞的推论报导远多于传达事实。他拿纽约时报3月6日的头版标题为例，内容推测了美国总统乔治·布什对钢铁进口增加关税后的可能影响。克莱顿引述苏珊·法乐蒂（SusanFaludi）的书《Backlash》说：“垫基于一个立场，制作上百页的统计资料来说明主张，这种做法根本就是造假，说了等于没说。”他用“默里·盖尔曼健忘症后群”来形容一种大众趋势：明明以自己的相关知识，知道报上某个新闻可能是假的，可是却采取漠视的态度，继续去相信同一张报纸上他们不熟悉的议题。克莱顿用拉丁俚语“falsusinuno,falsusinomnibus”（意思是“一字之差，满盘皆疑”）来说明他认为应该要有的正确态度。
迈克尔·克莱顿 - 花絮
20世纪70年代末，中国人峰涌进入中国影院，去看一部叫《未来世界》的科幻片。那是中国人第一次看到科幻电影。而这部电影则是另一部科幻电影《西方世界》的续集，制作人就是克莱顿。
2000年，全球发现恐龙数最多的中国著名古生物学家董枝明曾将一个在云南发现的恐龙种属以克莱顿的姓氏命名，以赞扬他“在《侏罗纪公园》及其续集《失落的世界》中对恐龙栩栩如生的刻画”。他还说：“克莱顿所作的，是对许许多多人赋予恐龙以生命。我们这些与恐龙打交道的人，都应该感激克莱顿，因为他使我们的工作众所周知。”克莱顿自豪的说：“对像我这样的人来说，这可比奥斯卡奖好得多。”，“相信我，当我还是一个站在博物馆的恐龙的巨大骨架下凝望的孩童时，从未想到过有一天其中的一种将以我的名字来命名。”但次年，董将这种恐龙重新归类成为禄丰卞氏龙的一种。几乎每一本克莱顿的小说里，都会有一个角色叫莱文（Levine）。
His literary works are usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomise the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. Among others, he was the author of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Travels, Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear, Next (the final book published before his death), Pirate Latitudes (published November 24, 2009), and a final unfinished techno-thriller yet to be released. Forbes listed Crichton in tenth place in its list of "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities" of 2009.
Early life and education
John Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois, to John Henderson Crichton, a journalist, and Zula Miller Crichton, on October 23, 1942. He was raised on Long Island, in Roslyn, New York, and had three siblings: two sisters, Kimberly and Catherine, and a younger brother, Douglas. Crichton showed a keen interest in writing from a young age and at the age of just 14 had a column related to travel published in The New York Times. Crichton had always planned on becoming a writer and began his studies at Harvard College in 1960. During his undergraduate study in literature, he conducted an experiment to catch out a professor[citation needed] who he believed was giving him abnormally low marks and criticizing his literary style. Informing another professor of his suspicions,[citation needed] Crichton plagiarized a work by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. The paper was returned by his unwitting professor with a mark of "B−". His issues with the English Department led Crichton to switch his course to biological anthropology as an undergraduate, obtaining his bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1964. He was also initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellow from 1964 to 1965 and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1965.
Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School when he began publishing work. By this time he had become unusually tall. By his own account, he was approximately 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 meters) tall in 1997. In reference to his height, while in medical school, he began writing novels under the pen names "John Lange" and "Jeffery Hudson" ("Lange" is a surname in Germany, meaning "long", and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th-century dwarf in the court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England). In "Travels", he recalls overhearing doctors discussing the flaws in his book "The Andromeda Strain", unaware that he was its author. "A Case of Need", written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-authored "Dealing" with his younger brother Douglas under the shared pen name "Michael Douglas". The back cover of that book carried a picture, taken by their mother, of Michael and Douglas when very young.
Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970.
At Harvard he developed the belief that all diseases, including heart attacks, are direct effects of a patient's state of mind. He later wrote: "We cause our diseases. We are directly responsible for any illness that happens to us." Eventually he came to believe in auras, spoon bending, and clairvoyance.
In 1988, Crichton was a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[edit]Writing career
[edit]Fiction
Odds On was Michael Crichton's first published novel. It was published in 1966 under the pseudonym of John Lange. It is a 215-page paperback novel which describes an attempt of robbery in an isolated hotel on Costa Brava. The robbery is planned scientifically with the help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way. The following year he published Scratch One. The novel relates the story of Roger Carr, a handsome, charming and privileged man who practices law, more as a means to support his playboy lifestyle than a career. Carr is sent to Nice, France where he has notable political connections, but is mistaken for an assassin and finds his life in jeopardy, implicated in the world of terrorism. In 1968 he published two novels, Easy Go and A Case of Need, the second of which was re-published in 1993 under his real name. Easy Go relates the story of Harold Barnaby, a brilliant Egyptologist who discovers a concealed message while translating hieroglyphics, informing him of an unnamed Pharaoh whose tomb is yet to be discovered. A Case of Need, on the other hand was a medical thriller in which a Boston pathologist, Dr. John Berry, investigates an apparent illegal abortion conducted by an obstretrician friend which caused the early demise of a young woman. The novel would prove a turning point in Crichton's future novels, in which technology is important in the subject matter, although this novel was as much about medical practice. The novel earned him an Edgar Award in 1969.
In 1969 Crichton published three novels. The first, Zero Cool, dealt with an American radiologist on vacation in Spain who becomes caught in a murderous crossfire between rival gangs seeking a precious artifact. The second, The Andromeda Strain, would prove to be the important novel in his career that established him as a best selling author. The novel documented the efforts of a team of scientists investigating a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism that fatally clots human blood, infecting the sufferer and causing death within two minutes. The microbe, code named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biologic properties. The novel became an instant success, and it was only two years before the novel was sought after by film producers and turned into the eponymous 1971 film under the direction of Robert Wise and featuring Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid as Leavitt, and David Wayne. In September 2004, the Sci Fi Channel would announce a production of a miniseries, executive-produced by Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Frank Darabont, premiering on May 26, 2008. Crichton's third novel of 1969, The Venom Business relates the story of a smuggler who uses his exceptional skill as a snake handler to his advantage by importing snakes to be used by drug companies and universities for medical research. The snakes are simply a ruse to hide the presence of rare Mexican artifacts. In 1969 Crichton also wrote a review for the New Republic (as J. Michael Crichton), critiquing Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
In 1970 Crichton again published three novels: Drug of Choice, Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues and Grave Descend. Grave Descend earned him an Edgar Award nomination the following year.
In 1972 Crichton published two novels. The first, Binary, relates the story of a villainous middle-class businessman who attempts to assassinate the President of the United States by stealing an army shipment of the two precursor chemicals that form a deadly nerve agent. The second, The Terminal Man is about a psychomotor epileptic sufferer, Harry Benson, who in regularly suffering seizures followed by blackouts, conducts himself inappropriately during seizures, waking up hours later with no knowledge of what he has done. Believed to be psychotic, he is investigated, electrodes are implanted in his brain, continuing the trend in Crichton's novels with machine-human interaction and technology. The novel was adapted into a film directed by Mike Hodges and starring George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard A. Dysart and Donald Moffat, released in June 1974. However neither the novel nor the film were well received by critics.
In 1975, Crichton ventured into the nineteenth century with his historical novel The Great Train Robbery, which would become a bestseller. The novel is a recreation of the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, a massive gold heist, which takes place on a train traveling through Victorian era England. A considerable proportion of the book was set in London. The novel was later made into a 1979 film directed by Crichton himself, starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. The film would go on to be nominated for Best Cinematography Award by the British Society of Cinematographers, also garnering an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture by the Mystery Writers Association of America.
In 1976, Crichton published Eaters of the Dead, a novel about a 10th century Muslim who travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement. Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old manuscript and was inspired by two sources. The first three chapters retelling Ahmad ibn Fadlan's personal account of his journey north and his experiences in encountering the Rus', the early Russian peoples, whilst the remainder is based upon the story of Beowulf, culminating in battles with the 'mist-monsters', or 'wendol', a relict group of Neanderthals. The novel was adapted into film as The 13th Warrior, initially directed by John McTiernan, who was later fired with Crichton himself taking over direction.
In 1980, Crichton published the novel Congo, which centers on an expedition searching for diamonds in the tropical rain forest of Congo. They discover the legendary lost city of Zinj and an unusual race of barbarous gorillas. The novel was loosely adapted into a 1995 film, starring Laura Linney, Tim Curry, and Ernie Hudson. Seven years later, Crichton published Sphere, a novel which relates the story of psychologist Norman Johnson, who is required by the U.S. Navy to join a team of scientists assembled by the U.S. Government to examine an enormous alien spacecraft discovered on the bed of the Pacific Ocean, believed to have been there for over 300 years. The novel begins as a science fiction story, but rapidly transforms into a psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human imagination. The novel was adapted into the film Sphere in 1998, directed by Barry Levinson, with a cast including Dustin Hoffman as Norman Johnson, (renamed Norman Goodman), Samuel L. Jackson, Liev Schreiber and Sharon Stone.
Crichton's novel Jurassic Park and its sequels made into films would become a part of popular culture, with related parks established in places as far afield as Kletno, Poland.
In 1990, Crichton published the novel Jurassic Park. Crichton utilized the presentation of "fiction as fact", used in his previous novels, Eaters of the Dead and The Andromeda Strain. In addition, chaos theory and its philosophical implications are used to explain the collapse of an amusement park in a "biological preserve" on Isla Nublar, an island west of Costa Rica. Paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student, Ellie Sattler, are brought in by billionaire John Hammond to investigate. The park is revealed to contain genetically recreated dinosaur species, including Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. They have been recreated using damaged dinosaur DNA, found in mosquitoes that sucked Saurian blood and were then trapped and preserved in amber.
Crichton had originally conceived a screenplay about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur, but decided to explore his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the novel. Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and Crichton were discussing a screenplay that would become the television series ER. Before the book was published, Crichton demanded a non-negotiable fee of $1.5 million as well as a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante bid for the rights, but Universal eventually acquired them in May 1990 for Spielberg. Universal paid Crichton a further $500,000 to adapt his own novel, which he had completed by the time Spielberg was filming Hook. Crichton noted that because the book was "fairly long", his script only had about 10–20 percent of the novel's content. The film, directed by Spielberg, was eventually released in 1993, starring Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm (the chaos theorist) and Richard Attenborough as the billionaire CEO of InGen. The film would become extremely successful.
A mosquito preserved in amber. A specimen of this sort was the source of dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park.
In 1992, Crichton published the novel Rising Sun, an international best-selling crime thriller about a murder in the Los Angeles headquarters of Nakamoto, a fictional Japanese corporation. The book was instantly adapted into a film, released the same year of the movie adaption of Jurassic Park in 1993 and starring Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Tia Carrere and Harvey Keitel. His next novel, Disclosure, published in 1994, addresses the theme of sexual harassment previously explored in his 1972 Binary. Unlike that novel however, Crichton centers on sexual politics in the workplace, emphasising an array of paradoxes in traditional gender functions, by featuring a male protagonist who is being sexually harassed by a female executive. As a result, the book has been harshly criticized by feminist commentators and accused of anti-feminism. Crichton, anticipating this response, offered a rebuttal at the close of the novel which states that a "role-reversal" story uncovers aspects of the subject that would not be as easily seen with a female protagonist. The novel was made into a film the same year under the helm of Barry Levinson, and starring Michael Douglas, Demi Moore and Donald Sutherland.
Crichton then published The Lost World in 1995 as the sequel to Jurassic Park. It was made into a film sequel two years later in 1997, again directed by Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn and Pete Postlethwaite. Then, in 1996, Crichton published Airframe, an aero-techno-thriller which relates the story of a quality assurance vice-president at the fictional aerospace manufacturer Norton Aircraft, as she investigates an in-flight accident aboard a Norton-manufactured airliner that leaves three passengers dead and fifty-six injured. Again, Crichton uses the false document literary device, presenting numerous technical documents to create a sense of authenticity. In the novel, Crichton draws from real life accidents to increase its sensation of realism, including American Airlines Flight 191 and Aeroflot Flight 593; the latter flew from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) and crashed on its way to Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport in 1994. Crichton challenges the public perception of air safety and the consequences of exaggerated media reports to sell the story. The book also continues Crichton's overall theme of the failure of humans in human-machine interaction, given that the plane itself worked perfectly and the accident would not have occurred had the pilot reacted properly.
In 1999, Crichton published Timeline, a science fiction novel which tells the story of a team of historians and archaeologists studying a site in the Dordogne region of France where the medieval towns of Castelgard and La Roque stood. They time-travel back to 1357 to uncover some startling truths. The novel, which continues Crichton's long history of combining technical details and action in his books, addresses quantum physics and time travel directly. The novel quickly spawned Timeline Computer Entertainment, a computer game developer that created the Timeline PC game published by Eidos Interactive in 2000. A film based on the book was released in 2003 by Paramount Pictures, with a screen adaptation by Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi, under the direction of Richard Donner. The film stars Paul Walker, Gerard Butler and Frances O'Connor.
In 2002, Crichton published Prey, a cautionary tale about developments in science and technology; specifically nanotechnology. The novel explores relatively recent phenomena engendered by the work of the scientific community, such as artificial life, emergence (and by extension, complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing. Reiterating components in many of his other novels, Crichton once again devises fictional companies, this time Xymos, a nanorobotics company which is claimed to be on the verge of perfecting a revolutionary new medical imaging technology based on nanotechnology and a rival company, MediaTronics. Elements of the novel were utilized in the 2008 film The Day the Earth Stood Still[citation needed], in which a swarm of nanobots escape from a secure military facility.
In 2004, Crichton published State of Fear, a novel concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. Global warming and climate change serve as a central theme to the novel, and in Appendix I of the book, Crichton warns both sides of the global warming debate against the politicization of science. He provides two examples of the disastrous combination of pseudo-science and politics, the early 20th-century idea of eugenics, which allowed for the Holocaust, and Lysenkoism. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for one week in January 2005.
The last novel published while he was still living was Next, printed in 2006. The novel follows many characters, including transgenic animals, in the quest to survive in a world dominated by genetic research, corporate greed, and legal interventions where government and private investors spend billions of dollars every year on genetic research.
His last novel, Pirate Latitudes, was originally scheduled for a release date of December 2, 2008. However, it was postponed until November 24, 2009. Additionally, an unfinished untitled novel is tentatively scheduled for publication in late 2010.
[edit]Non-fiction
Crichton's first published book of non-fiction, Five Patients recounts his experiences of practices in the late 1960s at Massachusetts General Hospital and the issues of costs and politics within the American Healthcare Service.
Aside from fiction, Crichton wrote several other books based on medical or scientific themes, often based upon his own observations in his field of expertise. In 1970 he published Five Patients, a book which recounts his experiences of hospital practices in the late 1960s at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The book follows each of five patients through their hospital experience and the context of their treatment, revealing inadequacies in the hospital institution at the time. The book relates the experiences of Ralph Orlando, a construction worker seriously injured in a scaffold collapse; John O'Connor, a middle aged dispatcher suffering from fever that has reduced him to a delirious wreck; Peter Luchesi, a young man who severs his hand in an accident; Sylvia Thompson, an airline passenger who suffers chest pains; and Edith Murphy, a mother of three who is diagnosed with a life threatening disease. In Five Patients, Crichton examines a brief history of medicine up to 1969 to help place hospital culture and practice into context, and addresses the costs and politics of the national healthcare service. As a personal friend to the artist Jasper Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table book, published as Jasper Johns. It was originally published in 1970 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art and again in January 1977, with a second revised edition published in 1994.
In 1983, Crichton authored Electronic Life, a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. The book, written like a glossary, with entries such as "Afraid of Computers (everybody is)," "Buying a Computer," and "Computer Crime", was intended to introduce the idea of personal computers to a reader who might be faced with the hardship of using them at work or at home for the first time. It defined basic computer jargon and assured readers that they could master the machine when it inevitably arrived. In his words, being able to program a computer is liberation; "In my experience, you assert control over a computer—show it who's the boss—by making it do something unique. That means programming it....If you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever afterwards". In the book, Crichton predicts a number of events in the history of computer development, that computer networks would increase in importance as a matter of convenience, including the sharing of information and pictures that we see online today which the telephone never could. He also makes predictions for computer games, dismissing them as "the hula hoops of the '80s", and saying "already there are indications that the mania for twitch games may be fading." In a section of the book called "Microprocessors, or how I flunked biostatistics at Harvard," Crichton again seeks his revenge on the medical school teacher who had given him abnormally low grades in college. Within the book, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles) programs. He once considered updating it, but the project was canceled.
Then, in 1988, he published Travels, which also contains autobiographical episodes covered in a similar fashion to his 1970 book Five Patients.
[edit]Literary techniques
Crichton's novels, including Jurassic Park, have been described by The Guardian as "harking back to the fantasy adventure fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Edgar Wallace, but with a contemporary spin, assisted by cutting-edge technology references made accessible for the general reader". According to The Guardian, "Michael Crichton wasn't really interested in characters, but his innate talent for storytelling enabled him to breathe new life into the science fiction thriller". Like The Guardian, The New York Times has also noted the boys adventure quality to his novels interfused with modern technology and science. According to The New York Times,
All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little frisson of fear and suspense: that’s what kept you turning the pages. But a deeper source of their appeal was the author’s extravagant care in working out the clockwork mechanics of his experiments — the DNA replication in Jurassic Park, the time travel in Timeline, the submarine technology in Sphere. The novels have embedded in them little lectures or mini-seminars on, say, the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition software or medieval jousting etiquette ...
The best of the Crichton novels have about them a boys’ adventure quality. They owe something to the Saturday-afternoon movie serials that Mr. Crichton watched as a boy and to the adventure novels of Arthur Conan Doyle (from whom Mr. Crichton borrowed the title The Lost World and whose example showed that a novel could never have too many dinosaurs). These books thrive on yarn spinning, but they also take immense delight in the inner workings of things (as opposed to people, women especially), and they make the world — or the made-up world, anyway — seem boundlessly interesting. Readers come away entertained and also with the belief, not entirely illusory, that they have actually learned something"
— The New York Times on the works of Michael Crichton
Crichton's works were frequently cautionary; his plots often portrayed scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether biological (Jurassic Park), military/organizational (The Andromeda Strain), technical (Airframe) or cybernetic (Westworld). This theme of the inevitable breakdown of "perfect" systems and the failure of "fail-safe measures" can be seen strongly in the poster for Westworld (slogan: "Where nothing can possibly go worng ..." (sic) ) and in the discussion of chaos theory in Jurassic Park.
The use of author surrogate was a feature of Crichton's writings from the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need, one of his pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's death from a hack-job abortion.
Some of Crichton's fiction used a literary technique called false document. For example, Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholarly translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th century manuscript. Other novels, such as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, incorporated fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA sequences, footnotes and bibliography. Some of his novels included authentic published scientific works to illustrate his point, such as in The Terminal Man and State of Fear.
At the prose level, one of Crichton's trademarks was the single word paragraph: a dramatic question answered by a single word on its own as a paragraph.
[edit]As a film director and screenwriter
Crichton wrote or directed several motion pictures and episodes of TV series. In the 1970s in particular he was intent on being a successful filmmaker. His first film, Pursuit (1972), was a TV movie both written and directed by Crichton that is based on his novel Binary.
Westworld was the first feature film that used 2D computer-generated imagery (CGI) and the first use of 3D CGI was in its sequel, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by then University of Utah graduate students Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.
Crichton directed the film Coma, adapted from a Robin Cook novel. There are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton had medical degrees, were of similar age, and wrote about similar subjects.
Other major releases directed by Crichton include The Great Train Robbery (1979), Looker (1981), Runaway (1985), and Physical Evidence (1989). The middle two films were science fiction, set in the very near future at the time, and included particularly flashy styles of filmmaking, for their time.
He wrote the screenplay for the movies Extreme Close Up (1973) and Twister (1996), the latter co-written with Anne-Marie Martin, his wife at the time. Although Jurassic Park and The Lost World were both based on Crichton's novels, Jurassic Park III was not.
Crichton was also the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER. ER was originally slated to be a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg. However, during the early stages of pre-production, Spielberg asked Michael Crichton what his current project was. Crichton said he was working on a novel about dinosaurs and DNA. Spielberg subsequently dropped what he was doing to film this project. Afterwards, he returned to ER and helped develop the show, serving as a producer on season one and offering advice (he insisted on Julianna Margulies becoming a regular, for example). It was also through Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment that John Wells was contacted to be the show's executive producer. In 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having a #1 movie, Jurassic Park,[citation needed] a #1 TV show, ER,[citation needed] and a #1 book, Disclosure, atop the paperback list.
Crichton wrote only three episodes of ER:
Episode 1-1: "24 Hours"
Episode 1-2: "Day One"
Episode 1-3: "Going Home"
[edit]Computer games
Amazon is a graphical text adventure game created by Michael Crichton and produced by John Wells under Trillium Corp. Amazon was released in the United States in 1984 and it runs on Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and the DOS systems. It sold more than 100,000 copies, making it a significant commercial success at the time. It featured plot elements similar to those later used in Congo.
In 1999, Crichton founded Timeline Computer Entertainment with David Smith. Despite signing a multi-title publishing deal with Eidos Interactive, only one game was ever published, Timeline. Released on December 8, 2000 for the PC, the game received poor reviews and sold poorly.
[edit]Speeches
Crichton delivered a number of notable speeches in his lifetime.
[edit]Intelligence Squared "Global Warming is Not a Crisis" debate
On March 14, 2007, Intelligence Squared held a debate entitled Global Warming is Not a Crisis. Crichton was on the for the motion side along with Richard Lindzen and Philip Stott against Gavin Schmidt, Richard Somerville, and Brenda Ekwurzel. Before the debate, the audience were largely on the Against the motion side at 57% vs 30% in favor of the for side, with a 12% undecided. At the end of the debate, there was a notable shift in the audience vote at 46% vs 42% in favor of the for the motion side leaving the debate with the conclusion that Crichton's group won.
In the debate, although he admitted that man must have at some point contributed to Global Warming but not necessarily caused it, Crichton argued that most of the media and attention of the general public are being dedicated to the uncertain Anthropogenic Global Warming scares instead of the more urgent issues like poverty. He also suggested that private jets be banned as they add more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the benefit of the few who could afford them.
Global Warming is Not a Crisis Intelligence Squared debates March 14, 2007
[edit]Genetic research and legislative needs
While writing Next, Crichton concluded that laws covering genetic research desperately needed to be revised, and spoke to Congressional staff members about problems ahead. A Talk to Legislative Staffers Washington, D.C. September 14, 2006
[edit]Complexity theory and environmental management
In previous speeches, Crichton criticized environmental groups for failing to incorporate complexity theory. Here he explains in detail why complexity theory is essential to environmental management, using the history of Yellowstone Park as an example of what not to do. Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy Washington, D.C. November 6, 2005
[edit]Testimony before the United States Senate
Crichton argued for independent verification of research used for public policy, and criticized the so-called "hockeystick" study, for reasons that were the subject of intense debate by U.S. Legislators Committee on Environment and Public Works Washington, D.C.
[edit]Caltech Michelin Lecture
"Aliens Cause Global Warming" January 17, 2003. In the spirit of his science fiction writing Crichton details the fallacy of Carl Sagan's nuclear winter and SETI Drake equations relative to Global Warming alarmism.
[edit]The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming
Crichton's detailed explanation of why he criticizes global warming scenarios. Using published UN data, he reviews why claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; why reducing CO2 is vastly more difficult than we are being told; and why we are morally unjustified to spend vast sums on this speculative issue when around the world people are dying of starvation and disease. National Press Club Washington, D.C January 25, 2005
[edit]Science Policy in the 21st Century
We need better mechanisms to determine science policy. Crichton outlined several issues before a joint meeting of liberal and conservative think tanks. Joint Session AEI-Brookings Institution Washington, D.C. January 25, 2005
[edit]Environmentalism as Religion
This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Crichton explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect. Commonwealth Club San Francisco, California September 15, 2003
[edit]Why Speculate?
In recent years, media has increasingly turned away from reporting what has happened to focus on speculation about what may happen in the future. Paying attention to modern media is thus a waste of time. International Leadership Forum La Jolla, California April 26, 2002
[edit]Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media
The AAAS invited Crichton to address scientists' concerns about how they are portrayed in the media. American Association for the Advancement of Science Anaheim, California January 25, 1999
[edit]Mediasaurus: The Decline of Conventional Media
A 1993 speech which predicted the decline of mainstream media. National Press Club, Washington, D.C. April 7, 1993
[edit]Reception
[edit]Criticism of Crichton's Environmental Views
Many of Crichton's publicly expressed views, particularly on subjects like the global warming controversy, have been contested by a number of scientists and commentators. An example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters' review of State of Fear:
Flawed or misleading presentations of Global Warming science exist in the book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based temperature measurements for the urban heat island effect, and satellite vs. ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected to increase in mass over the next 100 years due to increased precipitation, according to the IPCC."
Peter Doran, author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of Nature which reported the finding referred to above that some areas of Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece in the July 27, 2006 New York Times in which he stated "Our results have been misused as 'evidence' against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear." Al Gore said on March 21, 2007 before a U.S. House committee: "The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor [...] if your doctor tells you you need to intervene here, you don't say 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem'." This has been recognized by several commentators as a reference to State of Fear.
[edit]Michael Crowley
In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28 of that year), Crichton introduced a character named "Mick Crowley" who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. "Crowley" was portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a small penis. From page 227 as quoted in the New York Times: “Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers.” The character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.
A real person named Michael Crowley is also a Yale graduate, and a senior editor of The New Republic, a liberal Washington D.C.-based political magazine. In March 2006, the real Crowley had written an article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in State of Fear. Crowley responded by saying that he was “strangely flattered” by his reference in Crichton’s novel. “To explain why, let me propose a corollary to the small penis rule,” he wrote. “Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he’s conceding that the critic has won.”
[edit]Awards
Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Novel, 1969 — A Case of Need
Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970
Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Motion Picture, 1980 — The Great Train Robbery
Named to the list of the "Fifty Most Beautiful People" by People magazine, 1992
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Achievement Award, 1995
Writers Guild of America Award, Best Long Form Television Script of 1995
George Foster Peabody Award, 1994 — ER
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, 1996 — ER
Ankylosaur named [[Crichtonsaurus bohlini]], 2002
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journalism Award, 2006
[edit]Associations
Phi Beta Kappa
Author's Guild
Writers Guild of America
P.E.N. America Center
Directors Guild of America
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Board of Directors, International Design Conference at Aspen, 1985–91
Board of Trustees, Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, La Jolla, 1986–91
Board of Overseers, Harvard University, 1990–96
Board of Directors, Drug Strategies, 1994–2008
Author's Guild Council, 1995–2008
Board of Directors, Gorilla Foundation, 2002–2008
Board of Trustees, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2006–2008
[edit]Personal life and death
Wikinews has related news: American author Michael Crichton dies at age 66
As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (at 6'9"). As an adult he was acutely aware of his intellect which often left him feeling alienated from the people around him. During the 1970s and 1980s he consulted psychics and enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to improve his karma. As a result of these experiences, Crichton practiced meditation throughout much of his life. Crichton was a workaholic. When drafting a novel which would typically take him six or seven weeks, Crichton withdrew completely to follow what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial. As he neared writing the end of each book, he would rise increasingly earlier each day, meaning that he would sleep for less than 4 hours by going to bed at 10pm and waking at 2am.
In 1992 Crichton was ranked among People magazine's 50 most beautiful people. Crichton married five times, four of the marriages ending in divorce. He was married to Suzanna Childs, Joan Radam (1965–1970), Kathy St. Johns (1978–1980), and actress Anne-Marie Martin (1987–2003), the mother of his daughter Taylor Anne (born 1989). At the time of his death, Crichton was married to Sherri Alexander, who was six months pregnant with their son. John Michael Todd Crichton was born on February 12, 2009.
Crichton had an impressive collection of 20th Century American Art, which was auctioned by Christie's in May 2010.
In Nov 2006 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Crichton jokingly considered himself an expert in intellectual property law. He had been involved in several lawsuits with others claiming credit for his work. In 1985, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard Berkic v. Crichton, 761 F.2d 1289 (1985). Plaintiff Ted Berkic wrote a screenplay called "Reincarnation Inc.," which he claims Crichton plagiarized for the movie Coma. The court ruled in Crichton's favor stating the works were not substantially similar. In 1996, Williams v. Crichton, 84 F.3d 581 (2d Cir. 1996), Geoffrey Williams claimed that Jurassic Park violated his copyright covering his dinosaur themed children's stories published in the late 1980s. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Crichton. In 1998, A United States District Court in Missouri heard the case of Kessler v. Crichton that actually went all the way to a jury trial, unlike the other cases. Plaintiff Stephen Kessler claimed the movie Twister was based on his work "Catch the Wind." It took the jury about 45 minutes to reach a verdict in favor of Crichton. After the verdict, Crichton refused to shake Kessler's hand. At the Press Club in 2006, Crichton summarized his intellectual property legal problems by stating, "I always win."
Given the private way in which Crichton lived his life, his battle with throat cancer was not made public until his death. According to Crichton's brother Douglas, Michael was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2008. He was undergoing chemotherapy treatment at the time of his death. Crichton's physicians and family members had been expecting him to make a recovery. He unexpectedly died of the disease on November 4, 2008.
Michael’s talent outscaled even his own dinosaurs of 'Jurassic Park.' He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth. In the early days, Michael had just sold 'The Andromeda Strain' to Robert Wise at Universal and I had recently signed on as a contract TV director there. My first assignment was to show Michael Crichton around the Universal lot. We became friends and professionally 'Jurassic Park,' 'ER,' and 'Twister' followed. Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place.
—Steven Spielberg on Michael Crichton's death.
[edit]Works
[edit]Fiction
Year Title Notes
1966 Odds On as John Lange
1967 Scratch One as John Lange
1968 Easy Go as John Lange (also titled as The Last Tomb)
A Case of Need as Jeffery Hudson (re-released as Crichton in 1993)
1969 Zero Cool as John Lange
The Andromeda Strain
The Venom Business as John Lange
1970 Drug of Choice as John Lange
Dealing as Michael Douglas (with brother Douglas Crichton)
Grave Descend as John Lange
1972 Binary as John Lange (re-released as Crichton in 1993)
The Terminal Man
1975 The Great Train Robbery
1976 Eaters of the Dead
1980 Congo
1987 Sphere
1990 Jurassic Park
1992 Rising Sun
1994 Disclosure
1995 The Lost World
1996 Airframe
1999 Timeline
2002 Prey
2004 State of Fear
2006 Next
2009 Pirate Latitudes posthumous publication
2012 Title not yet revealed (Techno-thriller) posthumous publication
[edit]Non-fiction
Year Title
1970 Five Patients
1977 Jasper Johns
1983 Electronic Life
1988 Travels
[edit]Film and television
[edit]Novels adapted into films
Year Title Filmmaker/Director
1971 The Andromeda Strain Robert Wise
1972 Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues Paul Williams
1972 The Carey Treatment (A Case of Need) Blake Edwards
1974 The Terminal Man Mike Hodges
1979 The First Great Train Robbery Himself
1993 Jurassic Park Steven Spielberg
1993 Rising Sun Philip Kaufman
1994 Disclosure Barry Levinson
1995 Congo Frank Marshall
1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park Steven Spielberg
1998 Sphere Barry Levinson
1999 The 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead) John McTiernan
2003 Timeline Richard Donner
2008 The Andromeda Strain (TV miniseries) Mikael Salomon
[edit]As a screenwriter and/or director
Year Title Notes
1972 Pursuit (TV film) Co-Writer/Director
1973 Westworld Writer/Director
1978 Coma Writer/Director
1979 The First Great Train Robbery Writer/Director
1981 Looker Writer/Director
1984 Runaway Writer/Director
1989 Physical Evidence Director
1993 Jurassic Park Co-Writer
1993 Rising Sun Co-Writer
1996 Twister Co-Writer/Producer
[edit]TV series
Year Title Notes
1980 Beyond Westworld Creator/Writer
1994–2009 ER Creator/Writer/Executive Producer