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He's gone to join the dinosaurs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_en_ot/obit_crichton

I didn't realise he was so young. The Andromeda Strain (movie) was released in 1971. Crichton must have been 29.

Yes. I believe Strain was his first book.

No! That's such sad news. He was a great author with some superb books under his belt. The Jurassic Park books were clearly financially motivated, but he wrote some excellent scientific fiction. I recommend pretty much any of his novels, especially the earlier ones to anyone with even a passing interest in science.

It's a sad day in Literature. He wrote one of my all time favorite books, Eaters of the Dead (some might know it as the 13th Warrior). Damn, sucks that he went so young.

For this, I'm very sad. He had a lot of years to write a lot more good stuff.

This is really too bad, 66 is not old at all these days. I didn't like all his books, but the ones I did like I was very much in to.

Good memories too. I remember when I read Jurassic Park. I was maybe 14 or 15, and I brought it with me on fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. I would stay in the boat, read for a half hour or so, then go out and catch several fish. Then I did it again. It turned out that I had the biggest haul. I got some funny looks over that one, considering I spent half the trip in the cabin.