Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Travels, Eight Novels Now Available As Ebooks


Michael Crichton’s autobiography Travels (1988) is now available as an ebook, along with eight of his novels:

Rising Sun (1992)

Jurassic Park (1990)

Sphere (1987)

Congo (1980)

Eaters of the Dead (1976)

The Great Train Robbery (1975)

The Terminal Man (1972)

The Andromeda Strain (1969)

Nine of Crichton’s novels have been available in digital form for some time now:

Micro (2011)

Pirate Latitudes (2009)

Next (2006)

Next (enhanced ebook)

State of Fear (2004)

Prey (2002)

Timeline (1999)

Airframe (1996)

The Lost World (1995)

Disclosure (1994)

Travels is my favorite of all of Michael Crichton’s books. (See the letter I wrote to him.)

And it was Crichton’s favorite as well:
The book that I most enjoyed writing was TRAVELS, because it was autobiographical (so I knew the subject matter very well.) As I finished each chapter, I had a sense of relief, as if a weight was lifted from my shoulders. And I wrote in a very slow and orderly way, over a five month period. I really enjoyed looking back on my life and writing out sections. It was like no other book I've worked on. But they're all different. Every writing experience is different.
I’m delighted to have an ebook (in addition to the many editions I already have). But here’s something strange.

From the copyright page of Travels ebook:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

That’s a very peculiar disclaimer for an autobiography. The ebook of The Andromeda Strain has an identical disclaimer. As most of the new ebooks were novels, I imagine that the people responsible for creating the digital editions just assumed that Travels was fictional as well.

Fascinating Fact: Jurassic Park was first released as an ebook in 1992. More on that soon!

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