Biography
Crichton's works are frequently cautionary in that his plots often portray scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether biological ("Jurassic Park"), military/organisational ("The Andromeda Strain") or cybernetic ("Westworld"). This theme of the inevitable breakdown of "perfect" systems and the failure of "failsafe measures" can be seen strongly in the poster for "Westworld" (slogan: "Where nothing can possibly go worng .." (sic) ) and in the discussion of chaos theory in "Jurassic Park".
The use of author surrogate has been a feature of Crichton's writings since the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need, one of his pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's death from a hack job abortion.
That book was written in 1968, nearly five years before the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide in the US, Roe v. Wade (1973). It took the hero about 160 pages to find the chief suspect, an underground abortionist, who was created to be the author surrogate. Then, Crichton gave that character three pages to justify his illegal practice.
Some of Crichton's fiction uses a literary technique called false document. For example, Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholarly translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's tenth century manuscript. Other novels, such as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA sequences, footnotes and bibliography. However, some of his novels actually include authentic published scientific works to illustrate his point, as can be seen in 'State of Fear.'

Literary techniques

Fiction
Apart from fiction, Crichton has written several other books based on scientific themes, amongst which is Travels, which also contains autobiographical episodes.
As a personal friend to the Neo-Dadaist artist Jasper Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table book also named Jasper Johns. That book has been updated once.
Crichton is also the author of Electronic Life, a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. In his words, being able to program a computer is liberation:
In my experience, you assert control over a computer—show it who's the boss—by making it do something unique. That means programming it....[I]f you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever afterward.
To prove his point, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles) programs in that book. Crichton once considered updating it, but the project seemed to be canceled.
His non-fiction works are:

Non-fiction
Crichton has written and directed several motion pictures:
Pursuit is a TV movie written and directed by Crichton that is based on his novel Binary.
Westworld was the first feature film that used 2D computer-generated imagery (CGI) and the first use of 3D CGI was in its sequel, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by then University of Utah graduate students Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.
Crichton directed the film Coma, adapted from a Robin Cook novel. There are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton are physicians, are of similar age, and write about similar subjects.
Many of his novels have been filmed by others:
He has written the screenplay for the movies Extreme Close Up (1973) and Twister (1996) (the latter co-written with Anne-Marie Martin, his wife at the time).
Crichton is also the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER. In December 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having the #1 movie (Jurassic Park), the #1 TV show (ER), and the #1 book (Disclosure, atop the paperback list). Crichton has written only three episodes of ER:

Episode 1-1: "24 Hours"
Episode 1-2: "Day One"
Episode 1-3: "Going Home" Movies and television
Amazon is a graphical text adventure game created by Michael Crichton and produced by John Wells under Trillium Corp. Amazon was released in the United States in 1984 and it runs on Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and the DOS systems. Amazon was considered by some to be a breakthrough in the way it updated text adventure games by adding color graphics and music. It sold more than 100,000 copies, making it a significant commercial success at the time.
In 1999, Crichton founded Timeline Computer Entertainment with David Smith. Despite signing a multi-title publishing deal with Eidos Interactive, only one game was ever published, Timeline. Released on 8 December 2000 for the PC, the game received poor reviews and sold poorly.

Computer games

Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, 1969 (A Case of Need; written as Jeffrey Hudson)
Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 (Five Patients)
Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, 1980 (The Great Train Robbery)
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journalism Award, 2006 (State of Fear)
A dinosaur, Crichtonsaurus bohlini, was named after him in honor of Jurassic Park[3].
Crichton was named to the list of the "Fifty Most Beautiful People" by People magazine, 1992 Awards

Speeches
In 2003 he gave a controversial lecture at Caltech entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming" [4] in which he expressed his views of the danger of "consensus science" — especially with regard to what he regards as popular but disputed theories such as nuclear winter, the dangers of second-hand smoke, and the global warming controversy. Crichton has been critical of widespread belief in ETs and UFOs, citing the fact that there is no conclusive proof of their existence. Crichton stated that "The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion." Crichton has commented that belief in purported scientific theories without a factual basis is more akin to faith than science.

"Aliens Cause Global Warming"
In a related speech given to the Commonwealth Club of California, called "Environmentalism as a religion" [5] (see Radical environmentalism), Crichton described what he sees as similarities between the structure of various religious views (particularly Judeo-Christian dogma) and the beliefs of many modern urban atheists who he asserts have romantic ideas about Nature and our past, who he thinks believe in the initial "paradise", the human "sins", and the "judgment day". He also articulates his belief that it is the tendency of modern environmentalists to cling stubbornly to elements of their faith in spite of what he would contend is evidence to the contrary. Crichton cites what he contends are misconceptions about DDT, second-hand smoke, and global warming as examples.

Environmentalism as a religion
In a speech entitled "Why Speculate?", [6] delivered in 2002 to the International Leadership Forum, Crichton criticized the media for engaging in what he saw as pointless speculation rather than the delivery of facts. As an example, he pointed to a front-page article of the March 6 New York Times that speculated about the possible effects of U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to impose tariffs on imported steel. Crichton also singled out Susan Faludi's book Backlash for criticism, saying that it "presented hundreds of pages of quasi-statistical assertions based on a premise that was never demonstrated and that was almost certainly false". He referred to what he calls the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" to describe the public's tendency to discount one story in a newspaper they may know to be false because of their knowledge of the subject, but believe the same paper on subjects with which they are unfamiliar. Crichton used the Latin expression falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which he translated as "untruthful in one part, untruthful in all", to describe what he thought should be a more appropriate reaction. The speech also made several references to Crichton's skepticism of environmentalists' assertions about the possible future ramifications of human activity on the Earth's environment.

Widespread speculation in the media
In September 2005 Crichton testified at a Congressional hearing on climate change, having been called by Senator James Inhofe, a well-known disbeliever in global climate change (he's called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" [7]), to advise the Environment and Public Works Committee. In introducing himself to the committee, Crichton gave his credentials:
I am Michael Crichton, known to most people as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of the television series ER. My academic background includes degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School; I was a visiting lecturer in Physical Anthropology at Cambridge University; and a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, where I worked on media and science policy with Jacob Bronowski.
Crichton spoke on issues such as the role of science in policy making, criticisms of climate-change researcher Michael Mann and what Crichton claimed was the deliberate obstruction of research into the subject by some in the scientific community. [8]
Criticism
In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28th), Crichton introduces a character named "Mick Crowley" who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. "Crowley" is portrayed by Crichton as a child molester. The character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.[12]
A real person named Michael Crowley is also a Yale graduate, and a senior editor of The New Republic, a Washington D.C.-based political magazine. In March 2006, the real Crowley wrote an article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in State of Fear. [13]