Michael Crichton was a man I respected and admired, and his work was a major inspiration on my life. Through his books he encouraged me to read and to write, his style and technique very much influencing my own.

He went to great care to inject plenty of science and knowledge in his books (the only writer to use footnotes in fiction, as a critic once stated): whether it was genetic engineering and paleontology in Jurassic Park, extinction and evolution in The Lost World, nanotechnology in Prey, quantum physics in Timeline, or any number of other examples. Whether you agreed with his politics and scientific views or not, you had to admit he did his homework. His books got you thinking. A little science lesson never hurt anyone, and Crichton crafted it together seemlessly with captivating entertainment.

As a huge dinosaur enthusiast and movie buff, I was first introduced to Michael Crichton through Jurassic Park, and was instantly hooked. Who didn't make it through the 1990s without a paperback copy of Jurassic, Sphere or Congo ?

By tradition, whenever Crichton wrote a new novel, I would receive it from my family that Christmas. With the holidays approaching and Crichton's latest remaining unfinished, I am saddened that the world will never know another new work by this master who wrote some of the greatest novels and had a hand in creating some of the most popular movies of a generation.