Saturday, September 20, 2008

New Book Update 9/20/08

Wikipedia has deleted the information about Crichton’s new novel. Now it simply lists:
"2008 - unreleased novel - to be released on December 2"

So we’re still waiting for the official announcement. It should be soon, I would think. As far as the subject matter goes, I wonder about something. In the June 3, 2007 New York Times Sunday Book Review there was a survey titled “Read Any Good Books Lately?”which featured different celebrities giving their recommendations. Michael Crichton was one of them. He recommended three books. One was fiction: Bone in the Throat by Anthony Bourdain.

The other two were nonfiction and therefore could possibly be connected to the research Crichton was doing for his upcoming book. Here are the titles and Crichton’s comments:

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“The second volume by the author of Fooled by Randomness continues his theme — our blindness to the randomness of life — in an even more provocative, wide-ranging and amusing mode. A book that is both entertaining and difficult.”

Problems of Empiricism (Philosophical Papers), Vol. 2
By Paul K. Feyerabend
"From 1981, a brisk reminder that the conflicts of contemporary science are not in any way new or unique. The author is reviled in many quarters, mostly by those who have not read him. He is invariably provocative."

Sunday, September 7, 2008

New Book Update - 9/7/08


Something new on the Wikipedia link:

It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern:

Unsourced content and, as best as I can tell, an unverifiable title. There is a Michael Crichton untitled novel coming up, just no reliable source for this title and summary.

If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to its deletion for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced.

The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for five days.Prod, concern: Unsourced content and, as best as I can tell, an unverifiable title. There is a Michael Crichton untitled novel coming up, just no reliable source for this title and summary. This template was added 2008-09-06 05:55; five days from then is 2008-09-11 05:55.

If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy.
Author(s) notification template: {{subst:prodwarning|Final Day of Happiness (novel)}} ~~~~


We should be getting an announcement on Crichton’s website soon, so we’ll know one way or another. I wonder if there’s a leak at Harper Collins

Taking a look back, Next was announced on or around September 12, 2006. So hang on everyone!

Crichton speech from May 21, 2007
On May 21, 2007, there was a conference in Chicago on "Legal and Ethical Issues raised by Michael Crichton's Next." Here’s a link to the speech Dr. Crichton made there. I just discovered this on Crichton’s website in the Next section. It isn’t listed in the speeches section. This must have been added fairly recently to his website.

What I Have Learned From Reactions to My Books

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

And the title is...

According to Wikipedia, the title of Michael Crichton's new book is Final Day of Happiness and is about scientists working on an advanced Super-collider who inadvertently create an artificial black hole threatening all of humankind.

Final Day of Happiness - Wikipedia

There should be a formal announcement on Crichton's website soon. The new book sounds extremely interesting! (But, of course, what else would we expect from Michael Crichton?) Back in March, this article appeared in the New York Times:

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More

By DENNIS OVERBYE, NY Times, March 29, 2008

More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice.

None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html

I emailed the story to a friend and commented:


“Does Michael Crichton know about this? LOL! Scientific hubris strikes again!”

How did I know? (Twilight Zone music plays)


It is now possible to pre-order Michael Crichton’s new book online. However, things could still change before December. Everything is tentative for now. Here’s the online info, and as you can see, there are some discrepancies.

At Barnes and Noble:

Untitled Crichton Novel #4

By Michael Crichton

* $27.95 List price

* $20.96 Online price (Save 25%)

* $18.86 Member price

Available for Pre-Order; This item will be available on December 2.

* Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

* Pub. Date: December 02, 2008

* ISBN-13: 9780060873028

* 464pp

At Amazon:

Michael Crichton Thriller Two (Hardcover)

By Michael Crichton

Product Details

* Hardcover: 400 pages

* Publisher: Harper Collins (December 1, 2008)

* Language: English

* ISBN-10: 0007241011

* ISBN-13: 978-0007241019


Search

Copyright