Michael Crichton Revisited

I received an interesting email this week from Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime about a new project for that ambitious small house. It seems that Michael Crichton (author of such thrillers as Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain), back in the days when he was still a medical student, wrote (and had published) eight thrillers, under the pen name of "John Lange." The public never knew about those early Crichton works - he jealously guarded the secret of John Lange's identity - and the books eventually went out of print and disappeared from the market.

Until now.

Before Crichton passed away recently, Charles Ardai and Hard Case were in touch with him about reissuing those eight John Lange books. Crichton's family has continued working on the project - and has given permission for the new editions to reveal Crichton as the author. They'll be published this fall. You can read more about the series at Hard Case Crime's web page. Here's how Ardai describes it in his email:

The books are terrific reads, really delicious examples of Michael experimenting
with the genres he would become famous for in later life – you’ll find sinister
consequences of bioengineering (on a secret island vacation resort, no less!),
you’ll find a race-against-the-clock political thriller penned long before the
TV series “24,” you’ll find an archaeology professor hunting for a lost tomb in
the Egyptian desert decades before Harrison Ford ever donned a fedora…plus a
heist of a luxury hotel planned with the aid of a computer, a case of mistaken
identity that pits an innocent man against a league of assassins, and more, all
presented behind the gorgeous painted cover art of Greg Manchess and Glen Orbik.

If you're a Crichton fan, you may want to take a closer look at the information at Hard Case Crime's site.

Comments

[Margot Kinberg]

Les - Thanks for sharing the great news. It's interesting that Chrichton used different names, although of course that's not uncommon. And of course, after he became famous, some of his other work (I'm thinking for instance of A Case of Need, which he wrote as Jeffery Hudson) was later re-released with the author listed this way: Michael Crichton, writing as.....

[Les Blatt]

That's how these books are being released as well, Margot. But apparently, during his lifetime, Crichton routinely refused requests to republish the Lange books under his name - in fact, Ardai says, his initial agreement with Crichton was to republish as Lange WITHOUT revealing Crichton's name. Only after the author's untimely death did the family relent and give permission for his name to be used.