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John Michael Crichton , MD (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American best-selling author, physician, producer, director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted into films. In 1994, Crichton became the only creative artist ever to have worked simultaneously charting at No. 1 in US television (''ER''), film (''Jurassic Park''), and book sales (''Disclosure''). His literary works are usually within the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. He authored, among other works, ''The Andromeda Strain'' (1969), ''Congo'' (1980), ''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), ''Next'' (2006; the final book published before his death), ''Pirate Latitudes'' (2009), and a final unfinished techno-thriller, ''Micro'', which was published in November 2011. ==Early life and education== John Michael Crichton (which rhymes with ''frighten'')〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Q & A with Michael Crichton )〕 was born on October 23, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois,〔("Michael Crichton's Mark on the Science Fiction World" )〕〔("Michael Crichton" )〕〔(Featured Filmmaker: Michael Crichton ). IGN. May 19, 2003.〕 to John Henderson Crichton, a journalist, and Zula Miller Crichton. He was raised on Long Island, in Roslyn, New York,〔 and showed a keen interest in writing from a young age; at 14, he had a column related to travel published in ''The New York Times''.〔 Crichton had always planned on becoming a writer and began his studies at Harvard College in 1960.〔 During his undergraduate study in literature, he conducted an experiment to expose a professor who he believed was giving him abnormally low marks and criticizing his literary style.〔 Informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton submitted an essay by George Orwell under his own name. The paper was returned by his unwitting professor with a mark of "B−". His issues with the English department led Crichton to switch his undergraduate concentration; he obtained his bachelor's degree in biological anthropology ''summa cum laude'' in 1964〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=About Michael Crichton )〕 and was initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society.〔 He received a Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellowship from 1964 to 1965 and was a visiting lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1965.〔 Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School, when he began publishing work. By this time he had become exceptionally tall; by his own account he was approximately tall in 1997.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf )〕 In reference to his height, while in medical school, he began writing novels under the pen names "John Lange"〔 and "Jeffrey Hudson"〔(【引用サイトリンク】url =http://www.famousauthors.org/michael-crichton )〕 ("Lange" is a surname in Germany, meaning "long", and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th-century dwarf in the court of Queen consort Henrietta Maria of England). He later described his Lange books in the following way: "My feeling about the Lange books is that my competition is in-flight movies. One can read the books in an hour and a half, and be more satisfactorily amused than watching Doris Day. I write them fast and the reader reads them fast and I get things off my back."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=John Lange Archive )〕 In ''Travels'' he recalls overhearing doctors, who were unaware that he was the author, discussing the flaws in his book ''The Andromeda Strain''.〔 ''A Case of Need'', written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-authored ''Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues'' (1970) with his younger brother Douglas, under the shared pen name "Michael Douglas". The back cover of that book carried a picture, taken by their mother, of Michael and Douglas when very young. During his clinical rotations at the Boston City Hospital, Crichton grew disenchanted with the culture there, which appeared to emphasize the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients. He graduated from Harvard, obtaining an MD in 1969,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/education/lectures_workshops/ )〕 and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970. He never obtained a license to practice medicine, devoting himself to his writing career instead. Reflecting on his career in medicine years later, Crichton concluded that patients too often shunned responsibility for their own health, relying on doctors as miracle workers rather than advisors. He experimented with astral projection, aura viewing, and clairvoyance, coming to believe that these included real phenomena that scientists had too eagerly dismissed as paranormal.〔 In 1988, Crichton was a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=MichaelCrichton.net )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Crichton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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