Ten novels, written while the multimillion-selling author was a medical student, due back in print in July
A series of 10 novels penned by the late Michael Crichton while the Jurassic Park author was at Harvard Medical School will be brought back into print next month.
Crichton died in 2008, leaving behind him bestselling techno-thrillers including his story of dinosaurs genetically engineered back to life, Jurassic Park, and State of Fear, an environmental thriller featuring eco-terrorists which depicted climate change as a hoax. He sold more than 150m books worldwide, but began his writing career under a pseudonym while studying medicine at Harvard.
During his student years, Crichton supported himself by publishing eight thrillers as John Lange – he chose the name because Lange means "long" in German, and he was 2.1m tall. His rapid output – he could write 10,000 words a day – forced him to adopt another pseudonym. He chose Jeffery Hudson, after the famous 17th-century dwarf, for the award-winning medical thriller A Case of Need, and also went on to write Dealing with his brother Michael, under the name Michael Douglas.
All long out of print – except for A Case of Need – the novels are set to be released for the first time in years by Open Road, and for the first time as ebooks.
"These early Michael Crichton novels foreshadow the talent that made him one of the most successful novelists of his time," said Jane Friedman, co-founder of Open Road, announcing the deal. "I was fortunate enough to work with him for more than 30 years. What a joy it is to bring the young Michael Crichton to life for his millions of fans and to introduce him to a generation that has not as yet discovered him."
The eight Lange thrillers, from Odds On to Binary, A Case of Need and Dealing, will all be digitally published on 23 July, said Open Road.
In 2011, the novel Crichton left unfinished at his death, Micro, was completed by Richard Preston and published by HarperCollins. "His characters are mere puppets," said a Telegraph review at the time . "Not that this matters: no one ever read a Michael Crichton novel for the prose style either. As Martin Amis once said: 'Out there, beyond the foliage, you see herds of clichés, roaming free.' Richard Preston has done a fine job of maintaining the low standard. You can't see the join."
via Books: Fiction | guardian.co.uk
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