Zero Cool by John Lange to be released Feb. 2008

[Kahlessa]

One of the novels Michael Crichton wrote under the pseudonym of John Lange, Zero Cool, is scheduled to be released February 2008. The publisher, Hard Crime Case, released another John Lange novel Grave Descend in October 2006. I have the new edition of Grave Descend and the copyright reads “Constant C Productions” which is the name of Michael Crichton’s company. (You can see it on the bottom of any page on his website.)

The admin on the Crichton board posted something about not listing the pseudonym novels on the website because Crichton no longer owned the copyrights to them. It looks like he may be reacquiring the copyrights, and perhaps wants to see how the books sell on their own without his name, before deciding whether to acquire the other copyrights.

[Lucidity]

Interesting, Kahlessa. Perhaps we stirred 'em up in the old room. I hope so. Never saw any REAL reason why he wouldn't want the world to know his other, early books, even if he didn't get any $$ from their sales.

[Kahlessa]

In an interview in the January 1999 issue of Playboy, Crichton had this to say about his pseudonym novels:

"I had been writing to pay my way through medical school. I wrote paperback thrillers on vacations and weekends at a furious pace because the bills were due. I wrote under pseudonyms. In retrospect, it was wonderful training. Most of the problems beginning writers have dealing with their egos, deciding if what they’re writing is good enough for them, didn’t affect me at all. No one knew I was doing it. It wasn’t under my own name. It was purely to make money to pay for my education. I wasn’t trying to be innovative. I was trying to do something that would sell and not require rewrites or discussions, because I didn’t have time. I mean, I just had to write it, it had to be bought and published and I had to get the money and go back to my classes."

[Kahlessa]

Zero Cool is out now and, like Grave Descend, the copyright reads “Constant C Productions” which is the name of Michael Crichton’s company. I wondered if he's acquired the copyright to any more of his pseudonym novels?

Keep them coming, Dr. Crichton! How about putting Odds On, your very first book (another John Lange title) out next? It's the only one of Crichton's books I don't have and the secondhand copies are astronomical in price.

[Lukaran]

admin said:

Zero Cool is out now and, like Grave Descend, the copyright reads “Constant C Productions” which is the name of Michael Crichton’s company. I wondered if he's acquired the copyright to any more of his pseudonym novels?

Maybe he just wants to know what people would think of them if they didn't know they were by him.

[Kahlessa]

I discovered a nice surprise! The new edition of Zero Cool includes two new sections at the beginning and end titled “Video Interview”. The main character, Peter Ross, is being interviewed by his grandson who is recording it on a DVD with a camcorder. This technology was not available when the book was released in 1969. Plus I have an original copy of the book and the sections aren’t in there. So it seems that not only is Michael Crichton reacquiring the rights to his books, he’s revising them as well. Perhaps with the new sections, he’s reflecting on his younger self who wrote Zero Cool. I wonder if he’ll do this again. I didn’t see anything modern in Grave Descend, but perhaps Crichton wanted to see how it sold before deciding to add something to the next John Lange novel to be re-released. We can only hope that he'll keep them coming and add something new for his readers.

[Kahlessa]

What's interesting is that three of the John Lange novels--Drug of Choice (1970), Grave Descend (1970), and Binary (1972)--were published after Michael Crichton published The Andromeda Strain (1969) under his own name. Binary and another John Lange novel, The Venom Business (1969), were published in hardcover, as was A Case of Need, the novel Crichton published in 1968 as Jeffery Hudson. So I think that's there's more to these novels than Crichton's official website claims. The admin spoke of them in a rather dismissive tone. I don't expect them to be as good as Crichton's later works, but they were an important stage of his development as a writer. Obviously there was a demand for the John Lange novels, otherwise why would Crichton have written them? Did he have a contract to deliver a certain number of novels?

[Lukaran]

Apr 19, 2008 21:32:09 GMT -5 Kahlessa said:

Obviously there was a demand for the John Lange novels, otherwise why would Crichton have written them? Did he have a contract to deliver a certain number of novels?

Good question! Hasn't anyone asked him about that in an interview?

[Kahlessa]

I just finished reading Scratch One, Crichton's second book as John Lange. It was very good and I was surprised to find it contained a love story. There hasn't been much romance in Michael Crichton's novels, though there was a hint of it between Andre and Lady Clare in Timeline.

[Kahlessa]

I've now read all of the John Lange novels except Odds On (which I don't have yet) and The Venom Business (which I do).

The nice thing about the John Lange novels, is without the intensive reseach and information put into his later novels, I am reminded of what a good storyteller Michael Crichton is. Even if he wrote these books quickly, they still reflect the knowledge and experience Crichton had at the time. So far my favorites of the John Lange novels are Binary (which was the basis for Pursuit, Crichton's directorial debut) and Easy Go (which was republished under the title The Last Tomb) I recently discovered that Easy Go was translated into German. I wonder how many of the John Lange novels were translated into foreign languages? This certainly challenges the notion that these were just quick and cheap thrillers, not worth reading. And if they're not worth reading, then why is Michael Crichton reacquiring the copyrights and releasing them again? As you said, Lukaran, maybe he just wants to see what people think of them without knowing that he wrote them. But from some of the reviews I've seen, it may be very difficult to keep that secret.

I've recently discovered a short story that "Jeffery Hudson" wrote for Playboy in 1968, the same year Crichton published the novel A Case of Need under that name.

How Does That Make You Feel?
What TV star married to what sex symbol pulled a gun on what $100-an-hour shrink?
By Jeffery Hudson, Playboy, November 1968, Vol. 15, No. 11, pp. 115, 156-159

I found it on Ebay, and after reading it, I'm sure Michael Crichton wrote it. I wonder if he published any short stories under the name John Lange?

[Lukaran]

I don't think Michael should be ashamed of his earlier books. First of all, everyone has to begin somewhere and someway. Second, his John Lange novels must have be pretty good because they kept getting published, even after Michael was writing under his own name. I wonder if he wrote all of the John Lange novels before Andromeda Stain, but they just weren't published until later. Michael said he wrote them very quickly. Did he stock up on them?

[Eleanor]

Anyone who wants to study Michael Crichton's writing in a scholarly manner would want to read his earlier writings. You can't understand where someone is now unless you understand how he got there.

[rassputin]

Jul 8, 2008 9:39:27 GMT -5 Kahlessa said:

I've recently discovered a short story that "Jeffery Hudson" wrote for Playboy in 1968, the same year Crichton published the novel A Case of Need under that name.

How Does That Make You Feel?
What TV star married to what sex symbol pulled a gun on what $100-an-hour shrink?
By Jeffery Hudson, Playboy, November 1968, Vol. 15, No. 11, pp. 115, 156-159

I found it on Ebay, and after reading it, I'm sure Michael Crichton wrote it. I wonder if he published any short stories under the name John Lange?

That's a cute story. And the introduction to the story actually says that it's done by the author of A Case of Need, so there's really no dispute.

Also, yes, Crichton published at least one short story under John Lange. It's actually about a 30 page novella. Incredibly rare and hard to find.

[Kahlessa]

Mar 16, 2010 2:46:28 GMT -5 rassputin said:

Also, yes, Crichton published at least one short story under John Lange. It's actually about a 30 page novella. Incredibly rare and hard to find.

Yes, I'm aware of it, but I'm not going to post any info on it until I find a copy of my own. Call me selfish.

If anyone has the story or thinks they do, please private message me.

[rassputin]

I'll be interested to see if anyone else has this or knows about it. Your site is still fantastic and I love going through all the posts I've missed to find rare Crichton nuggets.

Thank you!