Another great one gone

Whether you liked his stuff (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and a slew of other books, many of which became movies) or not, Michael Crichton was the writer of the 80s and 90s. Cancer, they say; bummer.
The New York Times, among many others, has an obituary:

Mr. Crichton’s fast-paced narratives often involved the arcana of medical technology, computer science, chaos theory or genetic engineering. But by combining old-fashioned storytelling with up-to-date, gee-whiz science, the books made for a compelling formula that was adapted easily by Hollywood. His books sold in the tens of millions and almost routinely became movies, many of them blockbusters like Jurassic Park and the sequel, The Lost World, as well as Rising Sun (good book, great movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes). Reviewers often complained that Mr. Crichton’s characters were wooden, that his ear for dialogue was tin and that his science was suspect. Environmentalists raged against his skeptical views on climate change, first expressed in the 2004 novel State of Fear, and subsequently in various public forums. Even his severest critics, however, confessed to being seduced by his plots and unable to resist turning the pages, rapidly.

Rico says there's a bunch of stuff he didn't know about Crichton; he was six foot seven, he graduated from Harvard (no great surprise there), he lived in La Jolla (so does Rico's dad) and went to the Salk Institute, and he wrote and directed Westworld (which was pretty terrible, truth be told). But he did write The Great Train Robbery, which became a delightful film starring Sean Connery. He was also married five times.