CRICHTON, Michael

(1942-)

   US writer and film director; he graduated with an MD from Harvard Medical School. He began publishing sf under the pseudonym John Lange with Drug of Choice (1968). Most of the Lange books are thrillers; A Case of Need (1968), published as by Jeffery Hudson, won an Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel of the year. Some of MC's Lange books, like Zero Cool (1969) and Binary (1972), make perfunctory use of sf devices in a way typical of the modern post-James-Bond thriller. Binary was filmed for tv in MC's directorial debut as PURSUIT (1972). Of greater interest are the novels he has written under his own name, many of which are sf or fantasy, beginning with The Andromeda Strain (1969), an immediate bestseller soon filmed as The ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), in which microscopic spores from space attack the US West (DISASTER). MC's medical background is evident in much of his work (MEDICINE). The Terminal Man (1972) speculates fascinatingly on the morality and effects of electronic brain implants as a control device, and was the basis of the film The TERMINAL MAN (1974), dir Mike Hodges. Eaters of the Dead (1976) recounts a savage conflict between Vikings and strange Neolithic people; it is in fact a retelling of the Beowulf legend. Congo (1980) is a LOST-WORLD story set in Africa, and reads like updated H. Rider HAGGARD. Sphere (1987) is an UNDER-THE-SEA thriller about the discovery of a long-sunken spacecraft, anticipating The ABYSS (1989). JURASSIC PARK (1990) is a return to the theme of WESTWORLD (discussed below): it effectively argues the risks inherent in uncontrolled GENETIC ENGINEERING, "done in secret, and in haste, and for profit", though the plot itself - dinosaurs reconstituted from genetic scraps cause havoc in the theme park they have been created to stock - is little more than a MCGUFFIN; it was filmed as JURASSIC PARK (1993) by Steven SPIELBERG. All of these novels read a little like film treatments.After Pursuit, MC determined to exercise artistic control over screen adaptations of his work and though he did not do so in the case of The Terminal Man, he both scripted and directed WESTWORLD (1973), an intelligent and cleverly commercial film about a ROBOT-manned reconstruction of the Old West (see also LEISURE) that falls apart at the seams when a robot gunslinger runs amuck; the screenplay was published as Westworld (1974). He scored his biggest commercial hit as a director with COMA (1978), based on Robin COOK's marginally sf novel, a further exploration of MC's technophobic, PARANOID vision, drawing on his medical background for a conspiracy thriller about a high-tech organ-transplant business that draws its raw material from hospital beds. After a meticulous and underrated period re-creation, The Great Train Robbery (1979; vt The First Great Train Robbery), adapted from his own novel - not sf - of the same title, MC has rather lost ground as a director, with LOOKER (1981) and RUNAWAY (1984) both failing at the box-office. However, these films, for all their plot failings, are interesting explorations of his fascination with and distrust of an increasingly mechanized society. Looker deals with image-generation technology, while Runaway casts Tom Selleck as a future policeman whose speciality is tackling dangerously malfunctional household robots. Physical Evidence (1989), a non-sf thriller, is his least interesting or personal film to date.An efficient and intelligent writer and director, MC is capable of producing remarkable work.

   JC/PN/KN

   See also: APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); CINEMA; HORROR IN SF; MYTHOLOGY; VILLAINS.