Editing Michael Crichton (section)

===Early novels and screenplays (1969–1974)===
[[File:Slaughterhouse-Five (first edition) - Kurt Vonnegut.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Crichton critiqued [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]'' (1969) in ''[[The New Republic]]''.]]

Crichton says after he finished his third year of medical school: "I stopped believing that one day I'd love it and realized that what I loved was writing."<ref name="chicago"/> He began publishing book reviews under his name.<ref>{{cite news|title=Life, Death And the Doctor|author=J. MICHAEL CRICHTON|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=November 10, 1968|page=BR28}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Be careful, it's not my heart|author=Crichton, Michael|work=Chicago Tribune|date=December 22, 1968|page=m3}}</ref> In 1969, Crichton wrote a review for ''[[The New Republic]]'' (as J. Michael Crichton), critiquing [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s recently published ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]''.<ref name="Slaughterhouse">{{cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/114833/michael-crichton-sci-fi-and-vonnegut |title=Michael Crichton's 1969 Review of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse-Five' |magazine=New Republic |date=September 25, 2013 |access-date=April 12, 2016 |author=Crichton, Michael |archive-date=April 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421002618/https://newrepublic.com/article/114833/michael-crichton-sci-fi-and-vonnegut |url-status=live }}</ref> He also continued to write Lange novels: ''[[Zero Cool]]'' (1969), dealt with an American radiologist on vacation in Spain who is caught in a murderous crossfire between rival gangs seeking a precious artifact. ''[[The Venom Business]]'' (1969) relates the story of a smuggler who uses his exceptional skill as a snake handler to his advantage by importing snakes to be used by drug companies and universities for medical research.<ref name="chicago"/>

The first novel that was published under Crichton's name was ''[[The Andromeda Strain]]'' (1969), which proved to be the most important novel of his career and established him as a bestselling author. The novel documented the efforts of a team of scientists investigating a deadly [[extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] [[microorganism]] that fatally clots human blood, causing death within two minutes. Crichton was inspired to write it after reading ''[[The IPCRESS File]]'' by [[Len Deighton]] while studying in England. Crichton says he was "terrifically impressed" by the book – "a lot of ''Andromeda'' is traceable to ''Ipcress'' in terms of trying to create an imaginary world using recognizable techniques and real people."<ref name="israel"/> He wrote the novel over three years.<ref name="israel" /> The novel became an instant hit, and film rights were sold for $250,000.<ref name="scalpel"/> It was adapted into a [[The Andromeda Strain (film)|1971 film]] by director [[Robert Wise]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Screen: Wise's 'Andromeda Strain' |first=Roger |last=Greenspun |author-link=Roger Greenspun |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 22, 1971 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/22/archives/screen-wises-andromeda-strain.html |access-date=May 2, 2020 |archive-date=March 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329192840/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/22/archives/screen-wises-andromeda-strain.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

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.<ref name="Travels">{{cite book|author=Crichton, Michael|title=Travels|date=1989|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing |isbn=978-0804171274}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=September 2015}} He graduated from Harvard, obtaining an MD in 1969,<ref>{{cite web|title=Michael Crichton, novelist and filmmaker, Harvard College (Anthropology, 1964) and Harvard Medical School (1969) graduate|url=http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/education/lectures_workshops/|website=Harvard University Department of Global Health & Social Medicine|access-date=April 22, 2011|archive-date=August 7, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807162358/http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/education/lectures_workshops/|url-status=live}}</ref> and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the [[Salk Institute for Biological Studies]] in [[La Jolla, San Diego|La Jolla, California]], from 1969 to 1970.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michaelcrichton.com/biography/|title=Biography|work=michaelcrichton.com|year=2018|access-date=January 25, 2018|archive-date=February 11, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180211142020/http://www.michaelcrichton.com/biography|url-status=live}}</ref> He never obtained a [[license to practice medicine]], devoting himself to his writing career instead.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Southern Medical Journal|title='The Falling Sickness' in Literature|first=Jeffrey M.|last=Jones|year=2000|volume=93|issue=12|pages=1169–72|doi=10.1097/00007611-200093120-00006|pmid=11142451|url=http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410682_8|access-date=March 21, 2016|archive-date=March 17, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317055031/http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410682_8|url-status=live}}</ref> 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 (paranormal)|aura]] viewing, and [[clairvoyance]], coming to believe that these included real phenomena that scientists had too eagerly dismissed as [[paranormal]].<ref name="Travels" />{{Page needed|date=September 2015}}

Three more Crichton books under pseudonyms were published in 1970. Two were Lange novels, ''[[Drug of Choice]]'' and ''[[Grave Descend]]''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Elliott Gould Will Ride a 'Tiger': Plenty For Pakula Full 'Speed' Ahead Elliott Gould Getting in 'Sync'|author=A. H. Weiler|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=October 18, 1970|page=D13}}</ref> ''Grave Descend'' earned him an Edgar Award nomination the following year.<ref name="urlEdgar Award: Best Paperback Original | Cozy-Mystery.Com">{{cite web|url=http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Edgar-Award-Best-Paperback-Original.html |title=Edgar Award: Best Paperback Original |work=Cozy-Mystery.Com |access-date=December 16, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219014943/http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Edgar-Award-Best-Paperback-Original.html |archive-date=December 19, 2008}}</ref> There was also ''[[Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues]]'' written with his younger brother Douglas Crichton. ''Dealing'' was written under the pen name "Michael Douglas", using their first names. Michael Crichton wrote it "completely from beginning to end". Then his brother rewrote it from beginning to end, and then Crichton rewrote it again.<ref name="israel" /> This novel was [[Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (film)|made into a movie in 1972]]. Around this time Crichton also wrote and sold an original film script, ''Morton's Run''.<ref name="israel" /> He also wrote the screenplay ''Lucifer Harkness in Darkness''.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite news |title=Hollywood Today: Mike Crichton, a Skyscraper in Any Form |author=Norma Lee Browning |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=August 30, 1970 |page=s2}}</ref>

[[File:MassGeneralHospital.jpg|thumb|right|Crichton's first published book of non-fiction, ''[[Five Patients]]'', recounts his experiences of practices in the late 1960s at [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] and the issues of costs and politics within American health care.]]

Aside from fiction, Crichton wrote several other books based on medical or scientific themes, often based upon his own observations in his field of expertise. In 1970, he published ''[[Five Patients]]'', which recounts his experiences of hospital practices in the late 1960s at [[Massachusetts General Hospital]] in Boston.<ref name="scalpel"/><ref>{{cite news|title=For Michael Crichton, Medicine is for Writing|author=John Noble Wilford|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=June 15, 1970|page=48}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Redlich |first1=F. C. |title=Five Patients |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/02/archives/five-patients.html |website=New York Times |access-date=February 2, 2020 |date=August 2, 1970 |archive-date=February 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200202002746/https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/02/archives/five-patients.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The book follows each of five patients through their hospital experience and the context of their treatment, revealing inadequacies in the hospital institution at the time. The book relates the experiences of Ralph Orlando, a construction worker seriously injured in a scaffold collapse; John O'Connor, a middle-aged dispatcher suffering from fever that has reduced him to a delirious wreck; Peter Luchesi, a young man who severs his hand in an accident; Sylvia Thompson, an airline passenger who suffers chest pains; and Edith Murphy, a mother of three who is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. In ''Five Patients'', Crichton examines a brief history of medicine up to 1969 to help place hospital culture and practice into context, and addresses the costs and politics of American healthcare. In 1974, he wrote a pilot script for a medical series, "[[24 Hours (ER)|24 Hours]]", based on his book ''[[Five Patients]]'', however, networks were not enthusiastic.<ref>{{cite book | last=Keenleyside | first=Sam | title=Bedside manners: George Clooney and ER |publisher=ECW Press | year=1998 | edition=Illustrated | page=129 | isbn=1-55022-336-4}}</ref>

As a personal friend of the artist [[Jasper Johns]], Crichton compiled many of Johns' works in a [[coffee table book]], published as ''[[Jasper Johns (book)|Jasper Johns]]''. It was originally published in 1970 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with the [[Whitney Museum of American Art]] and again in January 1977, with a second revised edition published in 1994.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3001846|title=Jasper Johns|date=August 15, 1977|oclc=3001846|via=Open WorldCat|access-date=August 15, 2020|archive-date=February 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217100816/https://www.worldcat.org/title/jasper-johns/oclc/3001846|url-status=live}}</ref> The psychiatrist Janet Ross owned a copy of the painting ''Numbers'' by Jasper Johns in Crichton's later novel ''[[The Terminal Man]]''. The [[technophobic]] antagonist of the story found it odd that a person would paint numbers as they were inorganic.<ref>{{cite book|author=Michael Crichton|title=[[The Terminal Man]]|location=New York|publisher=Avon Books|date=2002|page=181}}</ref> In 1972, Crichton published his last novel as John Lange: ''[[Binary (novel)|Binary]]'', relates the story of a villainous middle-class businessman, who attempts to assassinate the President of the United States by stealing an army shipment of the two precursor chemicals that form a deadly nerve agent.<ref>{{cite news|title=Criminals at Large|author=Newgate Callendar|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=August 20, 1972|page=BR26}}</ref>

''[[The Terminal Man]]'' (1972), is about a [[psychomotor epileptic]] sufferer, Harry Benson, who regularly suffers seizures followed by blackouts, and conducts himself inappropriately during seizures, waking up hours later with no knowledge of what he has done. Believed to be psychotic, he is investigated and electrodes are implanted in his brain. The book continued the preoccupation in Crichton's novels with machine-human interaction and technology.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> The novel was adapted into a [[The Terminal Man (film)|1974 film]] directed by [[Mike Hodges]] and starring [[George Segal]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/28/archives/director-michael-crichton-films-a-favorite-novelist.html | title=Director Michael Crichton Films a Favorite Novelist | first=Michael | last=Owen | work=The New York Times | date=January 28, 1979 | access-date=May 2, 2020 | archive-date=August 20, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820214401/https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/28/archives/director-michael-crichton-films-a-favorite-novelist.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Crichton was hired to adapt his novel ''The Terminal Man'' into a script by Warner Bros. The studio felt he had departed from the source material too much and had [[The Terminal Man (film)|another writer adapt it for the 1974 film]].<ref name="times">{{cite news|title=Director Michael Crichton Films a Favorite Novelist|author=Michael Owen|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=January 28, 1979|page=D17}}</ref> ABC TV wanted to buy the film rights to Crichton's novel ''[[Binary (novel)|Binary]]''. The author agreed on the provision that he could direct the film. ABC agreed provided someone other than Crichton write the script. The result, ''[[Pursuit (1972 American film)|Pursuit]]'' (1972) was a ratings success.<ref name="michael">{{cite news|title=Crichton Debuts as Film Director|author=Smith, Cecil|work=Los Angeles Times|date=December 11, 1972|page=d27}}</ref> Crichton then wrote and directed the 1973 low-budget science fiction western-thriller film ''[[Westworld (film)|Westworld]]'' about robots that run amok, which was his feature film directorial debut. It was the first feature film using 2D [[computer-generated imagery]] (CGI). The producer of ''Westworld'' hired Crichton to write an original script, which became the erotic thriller ''[[Extreme Close-Up (film)|Extreme Close-Up]]'' (1973). Directed by [[Jeannot Szwarc]], the movie disappointed Crichton.<ref name="pod">{{cite podcast|url=http://nashvillepubliclibrary.org/offtheshelf/paul-lazarus-legends-of-film/|title=Legends of Film: Paul Lazarus|date=December 27, 2004|access-date=July 4, 2018|archive-date=November 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191113112343/http://nashvillepubliclibrary.org/offtheshelf/paul-lazarus-legends-of-film/|url-status=live}}</ref>