Micro - Couverture souple

HarperCollins is excited to announce the global publication of a new Michael Crichton novel, MICRO, to be released November 22, 2011. A high concept thriller in the vein of Jurassic Park, MICRO is co-written by Richard Preston, and follows a group of graduate students who are lured to Hawaii to work for a mysterious biotech company specializing in micro-robotics. Conflict with the head of the company leaves the group fighting for their lives when they find themselves physically transformed and cast out into the rain forest, with only their scientific expertise and wits to protect them. Sophisticated entertainment that draws on cutting edge research, MICRO explores the outer edges of new science and technology in vintage Crichton fashion.

Crichton was well into the writing of the book when he died in November 2008, leaving behind the first third of the manuscript, an outline, and a well-defined cast of characters. He also left a bibliography of close to 100 books and DVDs, as well as detailed notes and research.

In November 2009, the Crichton estate, working in collaboration with his publisher, selected Richard Preston as the ideal person to complete the novel. The bestselling writer of both scientific works of narrative nonfiction and suspense novels, Preston is perhaps best known for the Dark Biology books about viruses: The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event, and The Demon in the Freezer. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. The recipient of numerous awards, including the American Institute of Physics Award and the National Magazine Award, he is the only person who isn t a medical doctor ever to receive the Centers for Disease Control s Champion of Prevention Award for public health.

Jonathan Burnham, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Harper, said, Harper is honored and thrilled to be able to announce a new Crichton novel for the fall. Starting with a brilliant and wonderfully Crichton-esque concept and a substantial amount of early material, Richard Preston has taken Crichton's ideas and characters and woven them into a terrific entertainment. The result is a unique collaboration that should delight Crichton's many fans.

"When I first read Michael Crichton's unfinished manuscript, I could practically feel his excitement filling the pages, Richard Preston said. Michael was writing at the top of his game, with a grand sense of adventure, into an eerie world that seems almost beyond imagining. For me, it was an irresistible challenge to finish the novel, and I was driven by a desire to honor the work and imagination of one of our time's most visionary and creative authors."

Lynn Nesbit, Crichton s agent, added, Michael was exhilarated by his concept for this novel. He felt he was breaking new ground by introducing his readers to a fascinating, almost unimaginable landscape with real scientific underpinnings. Once again he was ahead of the curve.

The subject of the tension between modern man and the natural world was one to which Crichton repeatedly returned throughout his career. In an unfinished introduction to MICRO, he wrote, "Perhaps the single most important lesson to be learned by direct experience is that the natural world, with all its elements and interconnections, represents a complex system and therefore we cannot understand it and we cannot predict its behavior...Interacting with the natural world, we are denied certainty. And always will be."

In Jurassic Park, he created a terrifying new world. Now, in Micro, Michael Crichton reveals a universe too small to see and too dangerous to ignore.

In a locked Honolulu office building, three men are found dead, covered in ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot. In the lush forests of Oahu, trillions of microorganisms are being discovered, feeding a search for priceless drugs. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven graduate students are recruited by a microbiology start-up and dispatched to a mysterious lab in Hawaii. There they are promised access to tools that will open a whole new scientific frontier.

But once in the Oahu rain forest, the scientists are thrust into a hostile wilderness where they find themselves prey to a technology of radical and unbridled power. To survive, they must harness the inherent forces of nature itself.

An instant classic, Micro pits nature against technology in vintage Crichton fashion. Completed by visionary science writer Richard Preston, this boundary-pushing thriller melds scientific fact with pulse-pounding fiction to create yet another masterpiece of sophisticated, cutting-edge entertainment.