R.I.P., Michael Crichton

The bestsellling author is dead at the age of 66 following a long and private battle with cancer. Wow.

UPDATE: Obits from HarperCollins Canada, Wired News, Phoenix New Times, AP, NYT, National Post, TIME, and io9.

Tributes from David Montgomery, John Scalzi, Frank Wilson, Marjorie Kehe, Chip McGrath, and a statement from Steven Spielberg. Here's Crichton spending an entire hour on Charlie Rose. Jaime Weinman also sums up what made Crichton work well in TV:

You can fault him for a lot of things...but he had a real gift for imaginative concepts that people would respond to. Not just premises, but concepts; ER and Jurassic Park and Westworld don’t necessarily have the most original premises in the world, but they’re thought out conceptually in ways that makes them feel new. ER in particular showed how the stale concept of the medical drama could become fresh if fleshed out with more specific details and a greater sense of intensity than previous, more leisurely-paced (and less jargon-filled) doctor shows.

UPDATE TWO: Before Crichton broke out with THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and while still a medical student, he wrote several pulp novels under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffery Hudson. Two of the Lange novels, GRAVE DESCEND and ZERO COOL, were reissued by Hard Case Crime in the last couple of years, and HCC publisher Charles Ardai had this to say by email earlier this afternoon:

I did hear earlier today about John Lange's death (perversely on the very same day Michael Crichton passed away -- a double tragedy for fans of great genre fiction).  Lange was a very generous man and deeply involved with every step of the process on both of the books we did together, even to the point of writing new bookend chapters for our edition of ZERO COOL.  He worked with us on the cover art, the cover text, revising the books line by line to polish old imperfections...he was a consummate pro and a real joy to work with.  He even signed our 50-copy limited edition of FIFTY-TO-ONE just a few weeks ago, along with nearly all our other living authors.  And we were talking with him about possibly bringing out a third of his books.  Who knows whether we'll do it now...but even if we do, it won't be the same.  I miss him already.  (Michael, too.  I miss them both.)

Comments

[Lawrence Tate]

Any obit-quotes yet from Bob Gottlieb who edited nearly all of Crichton's books?

[Xavier Lechard]

One of the "pulp novels" he wrote as Jeffery Hudson, A CASE OF NEED, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969, and deservedly so.

He'll be missed. RIP

[Jason Pinter]

You can make a case that he was the most influential thriller writer of all time. There are really few novels in any genre that not only had the popular appeal but also the cultural impact of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and JURASSIC PARK.