Michael Crichton, pronounced /ˈkɹaɪtən/ [1], (born October 23, 1942) is an American
author, film producer, film director, and television producer. His books sold over
150 million copies worlds wide, and among his best-known works are techno-thriller
novels, films and television programs. His works are
usually based on the action genre and heavily feature
technology. Many of his future history novels have
medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical
training and science background.
Biography
Crichton was born in Chicago,[2] Illinois, to John Henderson Crichton and Zula
Miller Crichton, and raised in Roslyn, Long
Island, New York.[1] Crichton has two sisters, Kimberly and Catherine, and a younger brother, Douglas.
He attended Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as an undergraduate, graduating summa cum laude in 1964.[3] Crichton 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 England in 1965. He graduated from
Harvard Medical School, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and did post-doctoral fellowship study at the
Jonas Salk Institute for Biological
Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970. In 1988, he was Visiting Writer at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. While in medical school, he wrote novels under the pen names John Lange
and Jeffery Hudson. A Case of Need, written under the latter pseudonym, won the
1969 Edgar Award for Best Novel. He also co-authored Dealing with his younger brother
Douglas under the shared pen name Michael Douglas. The back cover of
that book contains a picture of Michael and Douglas at a very young age taken by their mother.
His two pen names were both created to reflect his above-average height. According to his own words, he was about 2.06
meters (6 feet 9 inches) tall in 1997.[4] Lange means "tall one" in German, Danish and Dutch, and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th-century dwarf in the court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England.
Crichton has admitted to having once, during his undergraduate study, plagiarized a work by George Orwell and submitted it as his
own. According to Crichton the paper was received by his professor with a mark of "B−". Crichton has claimed that the plagiarism
was not intended to defraud the school, but rather as an experiment. Crichton believed that the professor in question had been
intentionally giving him abnormally low marks, and so as an experiment Crichton informed another professor of his idea and
submitted Orwell's paper as his own.[5]
Crichton has been married five times and divorced four times. He has been married to Suzanna Childs, Joan Radam (1965-1970), Kathy St. Johns (1978-1980) and Anne-Marie Martin, the mother of his only child, daughter
Taylor. Crichton is currently married to Sherri Alexander.
Literary techniques
Crichton's works are frequently cautionary in that his plots often portray 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") 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.
Contrary to certain perceptions, Crichton is not anti-technology. Although his works often portray scientists and engineers as arrogant and closed-minded to the potential threat a technology
represents, there is always a well-educated author surrogate who states that failures
are simply part of the scientific process and one should simply maintain a state of awareness and preparation for their
inevitable occurrence.
The use of author surrogate has been a feature of Crichton's writings since 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.
That book was written in 1968, nearly five years before the Supreme Court's landmark decision that
legalized abortion nationwide in the United States,
Roe v. Wade (1973). It took the hero about 160 pages to
find the chief suspect, an underground abortionist, who was created to be the author surrogate.
Then, Crichton gave that character three pages to justify his illegal practice.
Some of Crichton's fiction uses 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, incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams,
computer output, deoxyribonucleic acid sequences, footnotes and bibliography. However, some of his novels actually include authentic published scientific works to
illustrate his point, as can be seen in The Terminal Man and the more recent
State of Fear.
Fiction
Non-fiction
Apart from fiction, Crichton has written several other books based on scientific themes,
amongst which is Travels, which also contains autobiographical episodes.
As a personal friend to the Neo-Dadaist artist Jasper
Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table book also named
Jasper Johns. That book has been updated once.
Crichton is also the author of Electronic Life, a book that introduces BASIC
programming to its readers. 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....[I]f you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever
afterward.[6]
To prove his point, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for
Apple II) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles) programs in that book. Crichton once considered updating it, but the project
seemed to be canceled.
His non-fiction works are:
Movies and television
Crichton has written and directed several motion pictures:
Pursuit is a TV movie 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 are physicians, are of similar age, and write about
similar subjects.
Many of his novels have been filmed by others:
He has written 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).
Crichton is also the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER.
In December 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having the #1 movie (Jurassic Park), the #1 TV show (ER),
and the #1 book (Disclosure, atop the paperback list). Crichton has written only three episodes of ER:
- Episode 1-1: "24 Hours"
- Episode 1-2: "Day One"
- Episode 1-3: "Going Home"
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 ST,
Commodore 64, and the DOS systems. Amazon was considered by some to be a breakthrough in the way it updated
text adventure games by adding color graphics and music. It sold more than 100,000
copies, making it a significant commercial success at the time.
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 8 December 2000 for the PC, the game received poor reviews and
sold poorly.
Awards
Speeches
"Aliens Cause Global Warming"
In 2003 he gave a controversial lecture at Caltech entitled
"Aliens Cause Global Warming"[8] in which he expressed his
views of the danger of "consensus science" — especially with regard to what he regards as popular but disputed theories such as
nuclear winter, the dangers of second-hand
smoke, and the global warming controversy. Crichton has been critical
of widespread belief in ETs and UFOs, citing the fact that there is no conclusive proof of their existence. Crichton stated
that "The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion." Crichton has commented that belief in purported scientific
theories without a factual basis is more akin to faith than science.
Environmentalism as a religion
In a related speech given to the Commonwealth Club of California,
called "Environmentalism as a religion"[9] (see Radical environmentalism),
Crichton described what he sees as similarities between the structure of various religious views (particularly Judeo-Christian
dogma) and the beliefs of many modern urban atheists who he asserts have romantic ideas about Nature and our past, who he thinks believe in the initial "paradise", the human "sins",
and the "judgment day". He also articulates his belief that it is the tendency of modern environmentalists to cling stubbornly to elements of their faith in spite of what he would contend is
evidence to the contrary. Crichton cites what he contends are misconceptions about DDT, second-hand
smoke, and global warming as examples.
Widespread speculation in the media
In a speech entitled "Why Speculate?",[10] delivered in
2002 to the International Leadership Forum, Crichton criticized the media
for engaging in what he saw as pointless speculation rather than the delivery of facts. As an example, he pointed to a front-page
article of the March 6 New York Times that
speculated about the possible effects of U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to impose tariffs on imported steel. Crichton also singled out Susan Faludi's book Backlash for criticism, saying that it "presented hundreds of
pages of quasi-statistical assertions based on a premise that was never demonstrated and that was almost certainly false". He
referred to what he calls the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" to describe the public's tendency to discount one story in a newspaper they may know to be false
because of their knowledge of the subject, but believe the same paper on subjects with which they are unfamiliar. Crichton used
the Latin expression falsus in uno, falsus in
omnibus, which he translated as "untruthful in one part, untruthful in all", to describe what he thought should be a
more appropriate reaction. The speech also made several references to Crichton's skepticism of environmentalists' assertions
about the possible future ramifications of human activity on the Earth's environment.
Role of science in environmental policy-making
In September 2005 Crichton testified at a Congressional hearing on climate change, having been called by global warming
skeptic Senator James Inhofe[11] to advise the Environment and Public Works Committee. In introducing himself to the committee,
Crichton gave his credentials:
I am Michael Crichton, known to most people as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of the television series ER. My
academic background includes degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School; I was a visiting lecturer in Physical
Anthropology at Cambridge University; and a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, where I worked on media and science
policy with Jacob Bronowski.
Crichton spoke on issues such as the role of science in policy making, criticisms of climate-change researcher
Michael Mann and what Crichton claimed was the deliberate obstruction of
research into the subject by some in the scientific community.[12]
Criticism
Many of Crichton's publicly expressed views, particularly on subjects like the global warming controversy, have caused heated debate. An example is meteorologist
Jeffrey Masters' review of State of Fear:
- "[F]lawed 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."[13]
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".[14] Crichton himself states in the book that though he uses a
number of studies to support his stance, the authors of these studies do not necessarily agree with his interpretations.
Additionally, some of the characters in the novel caution that they do not necessarily claim that global warming is not an issue,
but only that more research is necessary before we make any definition conclusions[citation needed].
Al Gore is reported as having said on March 21
2007 before a US 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, in Dave Langford's opinion, is a reference to State of
Fear.[15]
Next controversy
In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28th), Crichton introduces a character
named "Mick Crowley" who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. "Crowley" is portrayed by Crichton
as a child molester. The character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.[16]
A real person named Michael Crowley is also a Yale graduate, and a senior editor of
The New Republic, a Washington D.C.-based political magazine. In March 2006, the
real Crowley wrote an article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in State of Fear.[17]
References
- ^ a b - Crichton, Michael. "For Younger Readers",
michaelcrichton.com, 2005. Retrieved Dec. 11, 2005.
- ^ "Michael Crichton’s Mark on the Science Fiction World"; "Michael Crichton"; [1]; Profile by IGN; see the IMDB entry here
- ^ http://www.michaelcrichton.com/aboutmc/biography.html
- ^ http://www.adara-interactive.com/crichton/ow_transcripts2.htm
- ^ King of
the techno-thriller, The Observer, December 3, 2006
- ^ Crichton, Michael. Electronic
Life, Knopf, 1983, p. 44. ISBN 0-394-53406-9
- ^ Michael Crichton Official Site
- ^ www.crichton-official.com
- ^ Crichton, Michael (September 15, 2003). Environmentalism as Religion. Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Retrieved on
2007-10-13.
- ^ www.crichton-official.com
- ^ Inhofe's senate page
- ^ U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing Statements September 2005
- ^ Masters, Jeffery M.. Review of Michael Crichton's
State of Fear. Weather Underground. Retrieved on
2007-10-14.
- ^ Cold, Hard Facts Dorna, Peter The New Your Times July 2006
- ^ http://news.ansible.co.uk/a237.html
- ^ Lee, Felicia. "Columnist Accuses Crichton of
‘Literary Hit-and-Run’", The New York Times, December 14, 2006.
- ^ Cock and Bull Crowley, Michael The New Republic December 2006
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