Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, in 1942. After graduating from the Harvard Medical School, Michael Crichton embarked on a career as a writer and filmmaker. Called "the father of the techno-thriller," his novels include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, and Timeline. He has also written four books of non-fiction, including Five Patients, Travels, and Jasper Johns.

His books have been translated into thirty languages. Eleven have been made into films, including Jurassic Park and most recently, Thirteenth Warrior. He is also the creator of the television series ER. Crichton has directed six films, among them Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery. Always interested in computers, he once ran a software company, FilmTrack, and made a computer game, Amazon. His film, Westworld, has the distinction of being the first feature film to employ digitized images in 1973.

In 1965 Crichton was a visiting lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge University, in England. Crichton also won a Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship and got to travel in Europe and North Africa for a year.

Upon his return to the States, Crichton began training as a doctor. He eventually graduated with his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969, but never became a licensed practitioner of medicine.

Crichton paid his way through medical school by writing thrillers under different names. Under the name John Lange he wrote Odds On, Scratch One, Easy Go, Zero Cool, Venom Business, Grave Descend, and Drug of Choice, all spy thrillers. Another book written during his medical days under the name of Jeffery Hudson, A Case of Need, had many lightly disguised references to people at Harvard, and they were not all complementary. So, Crichton was in trouble when the book won the Edgar Award for the Best Mystery of the Year. He claims that grades at Harvard were given according to people’s informal opinion of the student.

During Crichton's final year at medical school The Andromeda Strain was published. It was a best-seller and Crichton sold it to Hollywood.

Crichton then served (1969-70) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, California, before taking up writing full time.

His tightly plotted, briskly written stories immerse the reader in the cutitbusng edge of science, technology, and culture. He is meticulous in his research, and he makes excellent use of it. As Time Magazine wrote, "Michael Crichton didn't really have to get the science right to make sure The Lost World would be a bestseller. But he got the science right anyway."

Besides the Edgar Award for A Case of Need, Crichton also won the Mystery Writer's of America Edgar Award in 1980 for The Great Train Robbery.

Crichton has also directed seven movies, including Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery. In 1972 two of Crichton’s books were made into films. One, called Dealing was co-written with his brother Douglas and made into the movie Dealing. A Case of Need was released in film as The Carey Treatment. After watching the filming of these two movies, Crichton decided to try his hand at directing. Other books of his that have been made into movies include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Rising Sun. He has also written many screenplays, including the hit Twister, which was co-written by his wife.

Crichton is also the Creator and Executive Producer of the television series ER, which he actually created right after his medical days. In 1995, ER won eight emmys and Crichton himself received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Later that year, he also was honored with the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for ER.

Crichton is a computer expert who wrote one of the first books about information technology (Electronic Life, 1983). Crichton once indulged his interest in computers by operating a software company, FilmTrack, which has been used by major studios to perform budgeting and scheduling functions for film and television projects. He also created a computer game called Amazon in 1982. His 1973 film Westworld was one of the first feature films to use digitized images. In 1994, Crichton also won an Oscar for Technical Achievement (Scientific and Technical Award).

Crichton is also a collector of modern art and an accomplished traveler. In fact, he has written a non-fiction biography of Jasper Johns, a contemporary artist, and a partial auto-biography, called Travels, about his many travels across the globe.

Links:

• The Official Michael Crichton Web Site

Novels:

• The Andromeda Strain (1969)
• The Terminal Man (1972)
• The Great Train Robbery (1975)
• Eaters of the Dead (1976)
• Congo (1980)
• Sphere (1987)
• Jurassic Park (1990)
• Rising Sun (1992)
• Disclosure (1993)
• The Lost World (1995)
• Airframe (1996)
• Timeline (1999)
• The terminal man (2002)
• Prey (2002)
• Turbulences (2004)
• Next (2006)

Novels written under pseudonyms:

• Odds On (1966)
• Scratch One (1967)
• Easy Go (1968)
• The Venom Business (1969)
• Zero Cool (1969)
• Grave Descend (1970)
• Drug of Choice (1970)
• Binary (1972)
• A Case of Need (1968)
• Dealing (1971)

Non-Fiction:

• Five Patients (1970)
• Jasper Johns (1977)
• Electronic Life (1983)
• Travels (1988)

Movies:

• The Andromeda Strain (1971)
• Westworld (1973)
• Terminal Man (1974)
• Coma (1977)
• The Great Train Robbery (1978)
• Looker (1981)
• Runaway (1984)
• Rising Sun (1993)
• Jurassic Park (1993)
• Disclosure (1995)
• Congo (1995)
• Twister (1996)
• The Lost World (1997)
• Sphere (1997)
• Physical Evidence (1989)
• Thirteenth Warrior (1999)
• The Carey Treatment (1972)
• Pursuit (1972)
• Dealing (1972)