Michael Crichton News 4/25/12

(Please accept my apologies for not posting for so long. Personal circumstances have presented quite a challenge as of late. I’m looking forward to picking up the pace.)

Jurassic Park in 3D
Universal Pictures has slated a 3D re-release of Jurassic Park for July 19, 2013.

In a Dec. 2011 interview, Steven Spielberg said:

“The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first 'Jurassic Park,' which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.”

Raise your hand if you’re looking forward to seeing the T-Rex in 3D.

Though I think it’s good that the original film was not in 3D. Jurassic Park was scary enough in 2D. A friend of mine almost yanked her husband’s arm off the first time they saw the movie.

Micro in Paperback
Micro, the novel began by Michael Crichton and finished by Richard Preston, is coming out in paperback.

The Trade Paper edition (the bigger paperback) will be released on April 25, 2012.

The Mass Market edition (the smaller paperback) will be available on September 25, 2012.

The Michael Crichton Message Board is Gone
The Message Board on the Official Michael Crichton website appears to be gone. The link that used to lead to it now reads:

“Please join the conversation at The Official Michael Crichton Facebook Page. You'll find the link on the Official Website Homepage.”

Such a shame. I made so many friends on that board over the years. Though it wasn't very busy as of late, it was a good resource for fans. (Thank God I've made a habit of downloading everything on the board--and website--for quite some time.) I can understand closing it down, but I can't understand deleting it. Many of the threads have valuable insights and links.

Fortunately, the message board can be viewed in a web archive. Unfortunately, the most recent version is from July 2011 and so does not contain the recent posts about Micro.

I’ll never forget the State of Fear glory days on the board. That was a special time. In May 2007, the State of Fear section was closed to any new posts. (I think the powers that be got tired of breaking up the fights.)

**********************

Here’s a treat: a photo of Michael Crichton in surgical scrubs on the set of The Andromeda Strain film. Crichton had a non-speaking role as a back-up surgeon in the film.

Micro News 2/7/12

Hello again!

The Courier Mail published an interview with Richard Preston On Jan. 7:

Richard Preston was so captivated by Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain he feigned illness so he could stay home from school to finish reading the book.

"I was trying to figure out how to make all the blood in my body clot up like it did in the book, but that didn't really work with my mother," Preston (pictured above) says. "So I faked coughing instead."

A transcript is now available for the Nov. 27 NPR interview with Preston.

On his Facebook page, Preston has been posting some photos of Hawaii that inspired some of the descriptions in Micro. Check it out!

The winners have been chosen for the Micro photo contest. Yours truly is thrilled to be one of the third place winners. The photos that won the grand, first, and second place prizes were photos that I had voted for. Glad to see my judgment validated. Congratulations to all the winners! More details coming soon…

Richard Preston Radio Interview 1/9/12

There’s a fantastic radio interview of Richard Preston on Some Books Considered. The Jan. 9 program is quite informative about the process of writing Micro.

What’s Up with Micro

Michael Crichton’s Last Stand
What the Jurassic Park author’s posthumous novel Micro tells us about how scientists talk to the public.
By David Guston, Slate, Dec. 5, 2011

Micro: The new Gulliver’s travel adventure
By Neil Lee Ambasing, Sun Star Baguio, Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Michael Crichton's 'Micro' is a major success
By Sean Quinn, Staff Writer, The Setonian, December 7, 2011

Remember to vote for your favorite photos in the Micro Yourself Photo Contest!

Micro Yourself Photo Contest

Finally finished my entry for the Micro Yourself Photo Contest.

Do butterflies have teeth??!!

Take a look and see what you think. I would greatly appreciate any votes for my photo, should you deem it worthy. I had fun creating it.

And there are many fabulous photos in this contest. Here are some I found particularly impressive. (I used to work as a photographer, so I’m looking at them from that point of view.)

Daniel Owens – Making my way through Travels

Gunner Geezer - Flea, Myself and I

Trent Ford - Atomic Tennis!!!

Belinda Kay Snow – Soothing Our Wild Beast

Jason Thornton - Myself contemplating upon a quote from Jasper Johns…

Graham Bradley - My best version

Kevin H. - Avoid spiders and frogs while climbing

Aaron TheIcon Spriggs - Not only did I shrink, but I went back in time…

Brad Hesse – Micro-Managing Money

Melody Scott - Strange things from the deep!

C.S Skates - Tiny Dancer

Carl Scott - Man, I hope that's decaf!

Melissa Lucero Diaz - Who say's little brother's aren't pests?

According to the rules of the contest:

Voting Period: Up to Fifty (50) Finalists eligible for the grand prize, first prize, second prize, and third prize winners will be selected by public voting from among the eligible entries. The voting period will begin at 9:00AM (ET) on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 and end at 11:59pm on Tuesday, December 20, 2011. Users will be able to vote for each submission only once and should base their vote on the following criteria: i) how successful the photo is at making its subject look miniaturized; and ii) creativity and originality.

Judging Period: A team of HarperCollins employees will deliberate over the finalists chosen via public voting from December 20th, 2011 – January 4, 2012, and one (1) grand prize winner, one (1) first prize winner, five (5) second prize winners and twenty (20) third prize winners will be selected from the fifty (50) finalists on or about January 5, 2011. Judges will evaluate the photos based on the following criteria: i) how successful the photo is at making its subject look miniaturized; ii) creativity and originality; and iii) how well the photo captures the spirit of Michael Crichton’s body of work.

So if you can make it into the top 50 based on votes, you’ve got a shot at the Grand Prize. The judges take it from there.

Good luck to everyone who entered!

Micro in the News

Micro has been in the news quite a bit lately. I didn’t read or post links to any of the articles prior to reading the book as I wanted to avoid spoilers.

INFORMATIVE PIECES
These articles and programs explore how Micro came into being and include quotes from Richard Preston.

Wall Street Journal – “Deciphering Michael Crichton's Clues”

The Telegraph – “Michael Crichton and the Mystery of the Posthumous Thriller”

USA TODAY – “The Novel Crichton Started, Longtime Fan Preston Finished”

NPR Weekend Edition – Interview with Richard Preston

BOOK REVIEWS

The Telegraph – Mark Sanderson

Washington Post - Patrick Anderson

Los Angeles Times - Jeff VanderMeer

NPR - Alan Cheuse

Amazon - James Rollins

Publishers Weekly

Entertainment Weekly - Keith Staskiewicz

NPR Interview with Richard Preston

Richard Preston appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition today and spoke of the challenge of finishing Michael Crichton’s novel Micro. The interview is [5:58].

Micro – First Thoughts

Just a few thoughts for now. As I wrote Thursday, Micro is the most enjoyable Crichton novel since Prey.

I was very happy to read the introduction Michael Crichton wrote, even if it was unfinished. I always wished he wrote more nonfiction.

By the end of Micro, I knew I wasn’t reading a Michael Crichton novel anymore. But I was enthralled by the story, and didn’t care. (How I knew I wasn’t reading a Michael Crichton novel is a discussion I’ll save for another time.)

The novel has been compared to Jurassic Park, even by Michael Crichton himself. But Micro is far more reminiscent of Timeline than Jurassic Park or Prey.

Micro is like a ship that changes direction so gently that you don’t notice. Then dawn comes and the sun rises in a different spot than expected.

You can gripe about the change or you can enjoy the sunrise.

Richard Preston took over as captain of Micro after Michael Crichton died. As the new captain, he had to sail the ship as best he could, using the former captain’s log to navigate.

Captain Preston gave the passengers a pleasantly exciting voyage, and then brought the ship safely into harbor.

What more could one ask?

Happy Thanksgiving from Musings!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We have much to be thankful for with the release of Micro. I’m still collecting my thoughts on the book, but I will say that I found it the most enjoyable Crichton novel since Prey.

Here’s a post I wrote for last year’s Thanksgiving:

Michael Crichton – Favorite Holiday Recipes

Micro Has Escaped!

Today Micro has escaped, and may be sneaking into your home as you read this. Micro will creep up to you and settle under your skin. (Makes you itch just thinking about it, doesn’t it?) Symptoms of Micro infection include obsessive reading and temporarily diminished internet activity.

It will probably take me a day to read Micro, so I’ll be posting about it sometime tomorrow. I’ll also post links to the various reviews and articles about the novel.

For those of you in the New York area, a reminder that Richard Preston will be making an appearance at the Barnes & Noble at 86th & Lexington Ave:

“Science journalist Jonathan Weiner joins Richard Preston, bestselling author of scientific works of narrative nonfiction and fiction, to discuss the iconic works of Michael Crichton, including his posthumous new release, Micro. Tuesday November 22, 2011 7:00 PM”

Video of this event will be available soon.

I am now going into seclusion to read my copy of Micro. Talk to you soon!

More about Micro

We have a little more info about Micro. While I very much want to read the book now, I wouldn’t have the time even if I got a hold of a copy. But I cleared my calendar for a few days starting next Tuesday, so I’ll have the chance to devour and digest Micro. Stay tuned!

Micro contains:

• Maps of Oahu on the endpapers (as Pirate Latitudes had maps)

• One epigraph by E. O. Wilson

• A unfinished introduction by Michael Crichton, dated 8/28/08

• A five-page bibliography (Hurrah! I was hoping for one!)

And here’s a little morsel to hold us for now:

The audio edition of Micro, is read by John Bedford Lloyd. Harper Collins UK has a brief audio sample featuring the Wilson epigraph and some of Crichton’s introduction.

Six days until Micro….

Micro News

From Richard Preston’s blog:
Micro Enhanced E-book

HarperCollins will release an enhanced e-book edition of MICRO. Yesterday a film crew was here at my house shooting an interview with me for the e-book. In it, I talk about poking around the rain forest on Oahu, learning the biology of micro-monsters, and doing the detective work with Michael’s notebooks and materials, figuring out what Michael intended for the story. There will be footage of Michael, and lots of scientific stuff, too. Good for an iPad or Kindle Fire or Nook, etc.

Richard Preston has a page on Facebook. I “like” Richard Preston. Now you can “like” him, too.

Micro review on Amazon
Author James Rollins has written a review of Micro for Amazon.

It's nice that he gave the much anticipated book a good review, but I'm disappointed that Harper Collins let him review Micro so far ahead of its release. (Which has not been the case with Michael Crichton's recent novels--reviews have not been published prior to the day of the book's release.) Perhaps Harper Collins feels less secure that Crichton's readers will want to read a novel that he himself was unable to finish.

I myself don't need to read a review to decide to read anything by Michael Crichton (or, for that matter, anything by Richard Preston). I won't read this review or any others before I read Micro.

Reviews tend to contain spoilers, which is why I’m not linking to the Amazon review. I’m officially declaring this blog a Micro spoiler-free zone. (So please don’t post anything until after the novel is released.)

Let’s Get Small!
Harper Collins is celebrating the release of Micro with a fun contest.

MICRO Yourself: The Photo Contest

To enter, you submit up to three photos of yourself in micro size, between Nov. 1 and Dec. 6. The public will vote for their favorites, and the top 50 will make it to the finals. A team of judges from Harper Collins will select the final winners.

List of Prizes:

Grand Prize
- Limited edition leather-bound copies of Jurassic Park and The Lost World from The Easton Press. Jurassic Park is signed by Michael Crichton himself and includes a certificate of authenticity!

- An e-reader of your choice (iPad2 Wi-Fi, any Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or Sony reader, etc.) with a $100 gift certificate to the corresponding e-book retailer

- One limited edition Micro tee-shirt

- One hardcover copy of Micro

First Prize
- An e-reader of your choice (iPad2 Wi-Fi, any Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or Sony reader, etc.) with a $100 gift certificate to the corresponding e-book retailer

- One limited edition Micro tee-shirt

- One hardcover copy of Micro

Second Prize
- One hardcover copy of Micro

- One limited edition Micro tee-shirt

Third Prize
- One hardcover copy of Micro

- One mass market paperback edition each of the following books: The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Eaters of the Dead, The Great Train Robbery, Next, Pirate Latitudes, Prey, Sphere, State of Fear, and The Terminal Man

Micro UK Video Trailer and Excerpt

The marketing department at Harper Collins UK sent me the link for a video trailer for Micro. There’s also a 10-page excerpt of the novel.



I am happy to note that the UK release is on Nov. 22, the same date as the US. Two years ago, I threw a minor hissy fit when Pirate Latitudes was released in the UK and Europe eight days before being released in the US.

32 days until the release of Micro.

Richard Preston on Micro

Richard Preston, who completed Michael Crichton’s unfinished novel Micro, has been blogging about the project. He’s written four posts so far, and I’ve commented on three of them. There are no comments from anyone yet, so I’m assuming my comments are in comment moderation limbo for the time being. For my readers, I’m posting my comments here.

June 8, 2011
I’m working on Micro

Right now I’m polishing the final draft of MICRO. Should have it done in a few days. This has been a fun ride.

My comment:

I’m looking forward to reading Micro. When I heard that another writer would be finishing Michael Crichton’s final novel, I racked my brain thinking of who would be a good match. When your name was announced, I thought, “Perfect”. I didn’t think of you (even though I have admired your work for a long time and own several of your books) because you’ve written more nonfiction than fiction. But I realized that’s what made you a great fit to this project.

July 1, 2011
Added a scene

I’m polishing the manuscript for Micro, working with my editor at HarperCollins. I just added a “whoa!” scene — some cool visuals at a certain moment in the story.

For me, this kind of tinkering is one of the most fun parts of writing. The book’s almost done and looking good, and now I get to cherry it up.

My comment:

One thing that you and Michael Crichton share is the ability to write excellent descriptions.

August 2, 2011
Jacket cover available

HarperCollins has just released the jacket of MICRO. Here it is.

My comment:

The UK edition book cover has been released as well.
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/49927/micro-michael-crichton-richard-preston-9780007350032

September 27, 2011
Maps in MICRO

We’re putting two maps in MICRO. With hand-drawn topography by a great cartographer. Just finalizing the maps today. I’ve hidden a tiny Latin inscription in one of the maps. Had to check my Latin with Princeton professor to make sure I got it right. Fortunately I did. This is the fun part of publishing.

More on Richard Preston soon.

Micro Book Cover - UK Edition

Harper Collins UK has revealed the UK edition book cover of Micro.



It is customary for novels to have different covers when they are published abroad, even when published in English. As a 2010 Guardian article explains, book covers are part of the marketing of a novel and each campaign must be created to be effective in a particular country’s culture.

(Sidenote: It is interesting that the Harry Potter novels are published in the UK with different covers for children and adults—the idea being that adults want a more subdued cover that doesn’t look like a children’s book. As the American editions of Harry Potter have only one cover for all ages, it would seem that Americans are not as easily embarrassed as our friends in the UK.)

The official Michael Crichton website displays the foreign covers for many of Crichton’s books.

The Andromeda Strain (1969)

Five Patients (1970)

The Terminal Man (1972)

The Great Train Robbery (1975)

Eaters of the Dead (1976)

Congo (1980)

Electronic Life (1983)

Sphere (1987)

Travels (1988)

Jurassic Park (1990)

Rising Sun (1992)

Disclosure (1994)

The Lost World (1995)

Airframe (1996)

Timeline (1999)

Prey (2002)

State of Fear (2004)

My friend, Pavel Frčka, who alerted me to the UK Micro cover, has created a website showing the Czech edition book covers of Crichton’s works

Micro Cover Revealed!

The cover of Michael Crichton’s upcoming novel Micro has been revealed:



Crichton’s name is at the top as usual, with the name of Richard Preston (who completed the unfinished novel) at the bottom.

The cover’s colors are red, black, and white—the colors that have been used for the covers of several Michael Crichton novels.

Now you know what inspired the colors on my blog.

Next (2006)



State of Fear (2004)



Prey (2002)



Timeline (1999)



Airframe (1996)



The Lost World (1995)



Disclosure (1994)

What Michael Crichton Said About Micro

Michael Crichton was reticent about whatever project he was currently writing. In a 1997 online discussion he said, “I never discuss what I am working on until it is done. It's a superstition of mine. Many writers share it.”

Prior to a Crichton book release, the only information readers usually had was the description provided by the publisher. (Speculation abounded, but that was part of the fun.)

After a book’s release, Crichton would give many interviews, and that is something I missed very much when Pirate Latitudes was published.

Now we’re awaiting the November 22 release of Micro, the technothriller Crichton was working on when he died, completed by science writer Richard Preston. Publisher HarperCollins has described the novel as "a high concept thriller in the vein of Jurassic Park."

HarperCollins isn’t just trying to market Micro by associating it with Crichton’s most popular work. Crichton himself made the connection in two interviews.

From a December 2006 interview with the Sunday Times:

As far as his next books are concerned, it's time to lighten up. "I've decided to do something that's just fun to do. I think I'm always concerned about becoming a scold. I'll just do something closer to Jurassic Park."

And in the March 2007 interview “Seven Answers From Michael Crichton” when asked what he was working on now, Crichton replied:

“An adventure story like Jurassic Park. I'm enjoying myself.”

In addition, we have valuable information from a Harper Collins press release:

In an unfinished introduction to MICRO, [Crichton] wrote, "Perhaps the single most important lesson to be learned by direct experience is that the natural world, with all its elements and interconnections, represents a complex system and therefore we cannot understand it and we cannot predict its behavior...Interacting with the natural world, we are denied certainty. And always will be."

To better understand the meaning of Crichton’s words, it is useful to examine what he said in his June 2008 radio interview with Dennis Miller. (This was the last interview Michael Crichton gave, so far as I have been able to discover.)

Miller asked about the topic of his forthcoming book, and Crichton said:

“The last few books have shown me how many people really don’t have good information about the environment. So I thought I’d try and write a book that wouldn’t rile everybody up but would be informative in a way that would be fun, and would give them some information about how our environment really is structured.” (Part 1 at 9:07)

Now let’s take a closer look at what Crichton wrote in his unfinished intro to Micro.

“…the single most important lesson to be learned by direct experience…”

Crichton’s autobiography Travels contains a chapter titled “Direct Experience” where he writes:

“One of the most difficult features of direct experience is that it is unfiltered by any theories and expectations. It’s hard to observe without imposing a theory to explain what we’re seeing, but the trouble with theories, as Einstein said, is that they explain not only what is observed, but what can be observed. We start to build expectations based on our theories. And often those expectations get in the way.” (p. 351)

“…the natural world, with all its elements and interconnections, represents a complex system, therefore we cannot understand it and we cannot predict its behavior.”

Crichton addressed this topic in a November 2005 speech:

We live in a world of complex systems. The environment is a complex system. The government is a complex system. Financial markets are complex systems. The human mind is a complex system. Most minds anyway.

By a complex system, I mean one in which the elements of the system interact among themselves such that any modification we make to the system will produce results that we can’t predict in advance.

In addition, a complex system is sensitive to initial conditions. You can get one result from it on one day, but the identical interaction the next day will yield a different result. We cannot know with certainty how the system will respond.

Third, when we do something to a complex system, we may get downstream consequences that emerge weeks or even years later. We have to be watchful for delayed and untoward consequences.

“Interacting with the natural world, we are denied certainty. And always will be."

Crichton wrote of this issue in his Author's Message from State of Fear:

“We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history, to its present state, to how to conserve and protect it. In every debate, all sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty….I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”

So will Micro create the controversy that State of Fear did? Will Crichton’s views on the environment come through clearly in the novel? With great anticipation, we wait and watch.

Book Description of Micro

The Harper Collins catalog now has a detailed description of Michael Crichton’s upcoming novel Micro:

Three men are found dead in the locked second floor office of a
Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except ultra-fine,
razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly unrecognizable to the human eye….more

(Many thanks to Pavel Frčka for discovering this!)

Micro, which was completed by Richard Preston, will be released on November 22, 2011.

More on Michael Crichton’s Micro

A few more details have come out about Michael Crichton’s new novel Micro.

As I posted Sunday, science writer Richard Preston completed the novel Crichton had begun. Reuters reported:

“Besides the unfinished manuscript, Preston also had access to the outline, a bibliography of nearly 100 books and DVDs, as well as notes and research.”

I’m looking forward to seeing that bibliography. The last four novels Crichton published while he was still living—Next, State of Fear, Prey, and Timeline—all had bibliographies. I missed seeing one in Pirate Latitudes.

But the real treat comes from a Harper Collins press release:

The subject of the tension between modern man and the natural world was one to which Crichton repeatedly returned throughout his career. In an unfinished introduction to MICRO, he wrote, "Perhaps the single most important lesson to be learned by direct experience is that the natural world, with all its elements and interconnections, represents a complex system and therefore we cannot understand it and we cannot predict its behavior...Interacting with the natural world, we are denied certainty. And always will be."

Reading the first new words from Crichton since Pirate Latitudes put a lump in my throat. I hope the introduction will be published with Micro, even if it is unfinished.

New Michael Crichton Novel "Micro" in November

Word just came out that Michael Crichton's technothriller novel, Micro, will be published November 22, 2011. According to an Associated Press story, Micro, which Crichton had written a third of before he died, has been completed by science writer Richard Preston. The novel will be "a thriller about a biotech company in Hawaii and the graduate students who end up stranded and endangered in a rain forest. Preston, known for his best-selling nonfiction work about the Ebola virus, 'The Hot Zone,' used Crichton’s outline, reference materials and notes to finish the book."

Preston commented:

“Michael was writing at the top of his game, with a grand sense of adventure, into an eerie world that seems almost beyond imagining,” Preston said. “For me, it was an irresistible challenge to finish the novel, and I was driven by a desire to honor the work and imagination of one of our time’s most visionary and creative authors.”

Related Posts:
New Michael Crichton Novel Slated for November Release?