--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
>
> "I asked because I didn't know. I've never read
Crichton and I don't
> know his career beyond seeing his name on bestseller
lists... and I
had
> never even heard of the "real" John
Lange."
>
> I'm with Mario here. I thought Crichton wrote
bestselling medical
> thrillers. (Wait, did he write Andromeda Strain? I
did read that.)
> Did he write any crime fiction under his own name?
Or just as
Lange?
Well, no, Crichton's output under his own name has almost
always been a sort of half-step between out-and-out sf and
technothrillers, which were arising as a self-conscious field
out of the tradition of Fu Manchu and such in the '60s when
Michael Crichton really got going...THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
comes to mind as the primary exception, unless we want to
count THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN or THE TERMINAL MAN as medical
thrillers for their biological McGuffins. JURASSIC PARK would
perhaps fit into the same mold. Perhaps, conveniently for how
this thread is evolving, you're thinking of medical-thriller
mascot Robin Cook? Or his creation of the television series
ER might've diverted your thought-train.
Meanwhile, apparently Crichton inadvertantly stole another
aspiring writer's real name with his pseudonym "Jeffrey
Hudson" (an sf fan named Jeffrey S. Hudson published a joke
story, in collaboration with Isaac Asimov, in the magazine IF
in 1974). To quote the WIKIPEDIA entry about the Crichton
pseuds:
"His two pen names were both created to reflect his
above-average height. According to his own words, he was
about 2.06 meters (6 feet 9 inches) tall in 1997. Lange means
"tall one" in Danish and Dutch, and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a
famous 17th century dwarf in the court of Queen Consort
Henrietta Maria of England."
I know he's tall, but wonder at that 6' 9" citation.
Todd Mason
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