Most Popular Books by Michael Crichton

Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There''s a new genetic cure for drug addiction—is it worse than the disease? We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it''s possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies. We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes . . . Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect. The future is closer than you think.

From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes an electrifying thriller in which a shocking accusation of sexual harassment triggers a gripping psychological game of cat and mouse and threatens to derail a brilliant career. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A fresh and provocative story.”—People An up-and-coming executive at the computer firm DigiCom, Tom Sanders is a man whose corporate future is certain. But after a closed-door meeting with his new boss—a woman who is his former lover and has been promoted to the position he expected to have—Sanders finds himself caught in a nightmarish web of deceit in which he is branded the villain. As Sanders scrambles to defend himself, he uncovers an electronic trail into the company’s secrets—and begins to grasp that a cynical and manipulative scheme has been devised to bring him down. “Crichton writes superbly. . . . The excitement rises with each page.”—Chicago Tribune “A heart-stop story running on several tracks at once. Disclosure is up to [Crichton’s] usual locomotive speed.”—The Boston Globe “Expertly crafted, ingenious and absorbing.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

In this thriller from the author of Jurassic Park, Sphere, and Congo, a group of young scientists travel back in time to medieval France on a daring rescue mission that becomes a struggle to stay alive. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Compulsive reading . . . brilliantly imagined.”—Los Angeles Times In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival—six hundred years ago. “Exciting . . . classic adventure . . . [a] swashbuckling novel . . . Crichton delivers.”—USA Today “More screams per page . . . than Jurassic Park and The Lost World combined . . . The pace will leave many breathlessly grasping for oxygen masks.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “One of his best . . . [a] nonstop roller coaster of a novel.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Michael Crichton, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Jurassic Park, comes an astounding, eye-opening look at the world of genetics as it’s happening now, told as only Michael Crichton can tell it, with lightening fast pacing and thrilling chases. Welcome to our genetic world. Fast, furious, and out of control. This is not the world of the future—it’s the world right now. Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why an adult human being resembles a chimp fetus? And should that worry us? There’s a new genetic cure for drug addiction—is it worse than the disease? We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps; a time when it’s possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars; test our spouses for genetic maladies and even frame someone for a genetic crime. We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes... Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems, and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.

From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a deeply personal memoir full of fascinating adventures as he travels everywhere from the Mayan pyramids to Kilimanjaro. Fueled by a powerful curiosity—and by a need to see, feel, and hear, firsthand and close-up—Michael Crichton''s journeys have carried him into worlds diverse and compelling—swimming with mud sharks in Tahiti, tracking wild animals through the jungle of Rwanda. This is a record of those travels—an exhilarating quest across the familiar and exotic frontiers of the outer world, a determined odyssey into the unfathomable, spiritual depths of the inner world. It is an adventure of risk and rejuvenation, terror and wonder, as exciting as Michael Crichton''s many masterful and widely heralded works of fiction.

From the creator of Jurassic Park and ER Two patients in comas, not expected to live: when they both recover, sharing the same bizarre symptom of blue urine, it’s a medical miracle that Dr. Roger Clark cannot explain. One of the patients happens to be Sharon Wilder, a beautiful Hollywood starlet. When she offers Dr. Clark the chance to accompany her to the private Caribbean island called Eden, he has to accept—if only to learn more about the bioengineering company Advance, Inc., and their promise to make your wildest dreams come true. What he discovers there will be the most shocking discovery of his life, on an island paradise where nothing is as it seems. With a new introduction by Sherri Crichton

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The novel that redefined the science fiction genre, starring a team of scientists who must uncover what killed the citizens of a sleepy desert town—and stop the deadly contagion before it creates a catastrophe. "I love anything Michael Crichton writes."—Stephen King A military space probe, sent to collect extraterrestrial organisms from the upper atmosphere, is knocked out of orbit and falls to Earth. Twelve miles from the crash site, an inexplicable and deadly phenomenon terrorizes the residents of a sleepy desert town in Arizona, leaving only two survivors: an elderly addict and a newborn infant. The United States government is forced to mobilize Project Wildfire, a top-secret emergency response protocol. Four of the nation’s most elite biophysicists are summoned to a clandestine underground laboratory located five stories beneath the desert and fitted with an automated atomic self-destruction mechanism for cases of irremediable contamination. Under conditions of total news blackout and the utmost urgency, the scientists race to understand and contain the crisis. But the Andromeda Strain proves different from anything they’ve ever seen—and what they don’t know could not only hurt them, but lead to unprecedented worldwide catastrophe.

A man suffering from violent seizures enters a Los Angeles hospital, where soothing pulses are sent into his brain. But then he discovers how to get the pulses with increasing frequency, escapes from the hospital, and lapses into murderous rampages. By the author of Jurassic Park .

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Timeline, Sphere, and Congo comes the sequel to the smash-hit Jurassic Park, a thriller that’s been millions of years in the making. “Fast and gripping.”—The Washington Post Book World It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end—the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, and the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived. . . . “Harrowing thrills . . . fast-paced and engaging.”—People “A very scary read.”—Entertainment Weekly “Action-packed.”—New York Daily News “An edge-of-the-seat tale.”—St. Petersburg Times

New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton delivers another action-packed techo-thriller in State of Fear. When a group of eco-terrorists engage in a global conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters, its up to environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team to uncover the subterfuge. From Tokyo to Los Angeles, from Antarctica to the Solomon Islands, Michael Crichton mixes cutting edge science and action-packed adventure, leading readers on an edge-of-your-seat ride while offering up a thought-provoking commentary on the issue of global warming. A deftly-crafted novel, in true Crichton style, State of Fear is an exciting, stunning tale that not only entertains and educates, but will make you think.

It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to the north. Fadlan belatedly discovers that his job is to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings--but just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea....

A cloud of nanoparticles programmed as a predator and capable of self-reproduction escapes from a Nevada laboratory and makes the human population its target.

From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Congo comes a psychological thriller about a group of scientists who investigate a spaceship discovered on the ocean floor. In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface, a huge vessel is unearthed. Rushed to the scene is a team of American scientists who descend together into the depths to investigate the astonishing discovery. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship, but apparently it is undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old, containing a terrifying and destructive force that must be controlled at all costs.

From the creator of Jurassic Park and ER, a classic techno thriller brimming with high-stakes action and heart-pounding suspense In an age of political unrest, one man aims to bring the government to its knees—and there’s only one agent who can stop him. Wealthy political radical John Wright has taken aim at the US government, believing that only he can make things right. State Department Agent John Graves has been watching Wright for months, studying him, gathering intel, trying to determine his next move before he makes it. Now, after hacking a government computer for secret files and stealing a shipment of VZ nerve gas, a binary agent, Wright has gathered everything he needs to unleash mass destruction on a million people—including the US president. As the clock winds down, Wright and Agent Graves play a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with the fate of the government and a million innocent people hanging in the balance. With a new introduction by Sherri Crichton “The Crichton strain is unmistakable.”—Time magazine

In a locked office building in Honolulu, three men are found dead, with no sign of struggle except for ultrafine, razorsharp cuts covering their bodies. In the lush rain forests of Oahu, groundbreaking technology has ushered in a revolutionary era of biological prospecting. Here seven brilliant graduate students, recruited by a pioneering microbiology start-up company, are thrust into a hostile wilderness that reveals profound and surprising dangers at every turn. Prey to a technology of radical and unbridled power—armed only with their knowledge of the natural world—they must harness the inherent forces of nature itself to survive. Melding scientific fact with pulse-pounding fiction in vintage Michael Crichton fashion—completed by visionary science writer Richard Preston—Micro is an instant classic of sophisticated, cutting-edge entertainment.

For use in schools and libraries only. A breakthrough in genetic engineering leads to the development of a technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA, a method that brings about the creation of Jurassic Park, a tourist attraction populated by creatures extinct for eons.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes this extraordinary thriller about airline safety, business intrigue, and a deadly cover-up. “The pacing is fast, the suspense nonstop.”—People Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin is virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane. At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies is paramount in the public mind, a lethal midair disaster aboard a commercial twin-jet airliner flying from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation. Airframe is nonstop reading, full of the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that are the hallmarks of Michael Crichton. “A one-sitting read that will cause a lifetime of white-knuckled nightmares.”—The Philaelphia Inquirer “The ultimate thriller . . . [Crichton’s] stories are always page-turners of the highest order. . . . [Airframe] moves like a firehouse dog chasing a red truck.”—The Denver Post “Dramatically vivid.”—The New York Times

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR MICHAEL CRICHTON’S EDGAR AWARD-WINNING NOVEL The author of cutting-edge bestsellers like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton captivated millions of fans by skillfully blending medical and scientific fact with pulse-pounding fiction. Written shortly after Crichton completed his medical internship, A Case of Need depicts the ever-building pressure and pace of a large Boston medical center. Tensions flare—and explode—when a surgical operation tragically ends in death, raising countless questions. Was it accidental malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic oath? Or cold-blooded murder? Supplemented with the author’s fascinating appendices on the ethics of modern medicine, A Case of Need is powerful, compelling, informative, and suspenseful—classic Crichton at his best.

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! The biggest thriller of the year: A history-making eruption is about to destroy the Big Island of Hawaii. But a secret held for decades by the US military is far more terrifying than any volcano. “The book is a classic summer beach read...Eruption will revive the art of speed-reading...told with a singular voice that is a compelling amalgam of the two writers.”—USA Today “Eruption is an epic thriller…fast-paced and deeply considered…a cinematic story rooted in science and infused with plenty of heart, tackling big themes like love and loss.” –Time The master of the techno-blockbuster joins forces with the master of the modern thriller to create the most anticipated mega bestseller in years. Michael Crichton, creator of Jurassic Park, ER, Twister, and Westworld, had a passion project he’d been pursuing for years, ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. Knowing how special it was, his wife, Sherri Crichton, held back his notes and the partial manuscript until she found the right author to complete it: James Patterson, the world’s most popular storyteller. “Explosive…the summer’s ultimate literary mashup.” —Washington Post "Takes readers on a thrilling journey." —BBC "Beachbag-ready." —Boston Globe “A seismic publishing event…all the elements of a summer blockbuster…it’s a thrill and the pages practically turn themselves.” —Associated Press “Eruption is this summer’s literary version of a blockbuster action movie.” –Los Angeles Times "Breakneck and plausible." —Publishers Weekly

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes this riveting thriller of corporate intrigue and cutthroat competition between American and Japanese business interests. “As well built a thrill machine as a suspense novel can be.”—The New York Times Book Review On the forty-fifth floor of the Nakamoto tower in downtown Los Angeles—the new American headquarters of the immense Japanese conglomerate—a grand opening celebration is in full swing. On the forty-sixth floor, in an empty conference room, the corpse of a beautiful young woman is discovered. The investigation immediately becomes a headlong chase through a twisting maze of industrial intrigue, a no-holds-barred conflict in which control of a vital American technology is the fiercely coveted prize—and in which the Japanese saying “Business is war” takes on a terrifying reality. “A grand maze of plot twists . . . Crichton’s gift for spinning a timely yarn is going to be enough, once again, to serve a current tenant of the bestseller list with an eviction notice.”—New York Daily News “The action in Rising Sun unfolds at a breathless pace.”—Business Week

"Crichton has an extraordinary capacity to seize upon, then make real and personal, the new and the complex, the intriguing and the frighening." THE NATION In this incisive, detailed survey of five patients, famous thriller author and doctor Michael Crichton explores the dramatic workings of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston''s oldest and most prestigious. This readable account covers not only the history of the hospital''s place in society, but also the actual minute-to-minute functions of Mass General, where health professionals wage their daily battle against disease and death. Crichton''s insightful look at the changes in medicine and surgery caused by technological strides of recent years makes for amazing reading.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Jurassic Park comes classic historical thriller about Victorian London’s most notorious gold heist. London, 1855, when lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side, one mysterious man navigates both worlds with perfect ease. Edward Pierce preys on the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of his century. Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England’s industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, but studded with all the suspense and style of fiction, here is a classic historical thriller, set a decade before the age of dynamite—yet nonetheless explosive…

The legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj have seen an eight-person field exhibition die. After startling discoveries, a new expedition is sent back into the Congo--its mission, to descend into the secret world where the only way back out may be through the grisliest death....

From the creator of Jurassic Park and ER Egyptologist Harold Barnaby has just made the discovery of the century. While retranslating some old hieroglyphs, he has found clues to the location of a pharaoh''s lost tomb. But this discovery leads him to make the ultimate choice: rather than share his find with the rest of the world, Professor Barnaby is determined to locate the tomb and keep whatever treasure he finds inside for himself. But to pull off the greatest heist in the archaeological history, Barnaby will need help. Enter Robert Pierce, a transient freelance writer looking for excitement. They put together a five-man team, including a smuggler, an international thief, and the fifth Earl of Wheatston to bankroll the project, and set out to plunder the pharaoh''s lost tomb. But can this ragtag team survive the perils of the Egyptian desert and uncover what the centuries have kept hidden? And even if they find the treasure, can they escape with it alive? With a new introduction by Sherri Crichton

From the creator of Jurassic Park and ER For American radiologist Peter Ross, it sounded like the perfect vacation: deliver one study in Spain and then spend the rest of his time on a Mediterranean beach. But he wasn’t planning on meeting Angela Locke, a dark-haired beauty with a big problem—she’s on the run from two warring gangs, each dead set on finding a mysterious artifact, and they’ll kill anyone who stands in their way. It’s a desperate fight for survival across the European continent as Peter and Angela race to uncover a centuries-old secret before they become its next victim. With a new introduction by Sherri Crichton