Best Michael Crichton Books Ranked
While many people think of him mostly as the man who wrote Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton wrote more than 26 novels in his lifetime, with more than a dozen of them being made into movies. His books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide as of this writing, and most of them are in the science fiction, medical fiction, and techno-thriller genres.
He became a medical doctor in 1969 but never practiced medicine because he wanted to write instead. Crichton was also a director, created the TV series ER, and wrote and directed a movie called Westworld, which was the first film to utilize 2D computer-generated imagery.
Here we rank Michael Crichton’s best books:
Try Audible Premium Plus and Get Up to Two Free Audiobooks
24. Five Patients: The Hospital Explained
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.48 | 2.93 | 3.21 |
Overview
This is a fact-based account of five different patients whose stories were featured on the TV show ER. They are based on Crichton’s brief stint as a doctor in various emergency rooms during his internship at places such as Massachusetts General Hospital.
23. The Terminal Man
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.37 | 3.23 | 3.30 |
Overview
Harry Benson has terrible seizures that even caused him to attack two people. When a doctor places electrodes in his brain, it seems that he is cured. But soon, Benson learns to control the impulses from the electrodes himself, which turns him into a murderer.
22. Micro
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.45 | 3.20 | 3.38 |
Overview
This is the story of a group of graduate students who go to Hawaii with the promise of jobs with a mysterious biotech company. But when they arrive, they are thrown out into the rain forests with nothing but their scientific knowledge to save them. Will they survive?
21. Drug of Choice
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.54 | 3.21 | 3.38 |
Overview
Bioengineers have designed the perfect getaway on a secret island in the Caribbean, Eden Island. Dr. Roger Clark starts to investigate their too-good-to-be-true claims and quickly realizes that the island isn’t really what it promises to be.
20. Binary
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.55 | 3.22 | 3.39 |
Overview
Federal agent John Graves is keeping a close eye on a radical named John Wright, who is planning an act of mass destruction. But Wright is slicker than he thought, so can Graves stop him before he kills a million people and even the U.S. president?
19. Next
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.53 | 3.24 | 3.39 |
Overview
This story blends fact and fiction and the results are both fascinating and frightening. It exposes the fast-paced genetic world that describes a world of the future, even though many of the things happening in it are happening right now.
18. Pirate Latitudes
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.45 | 3.33 | 3.39 |
Overview
It is 1665 in Jamaica and Capt. Charles Hunter is planning to raid an enemy island so that can get the gold from the galleon El Trinidad. But all doesn’t go as planned, and Hunter isn’t sure what to do next.
17. The Venom Business
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.57 | 3.29 | 3.43 |
Overview
Charles Raynaud is used to danger. After all, he is a smuggler of rare artifacts and an expert handler of venomous snakes. When a friend who’s about to receive a large sum of money hires him as a bodyguard, he thinks the job is a piece of cake, until someone tries to kill him and he becomes convinced that he is the real target.
16. Odds On
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.54 | 3.34 | 3.44 |
Overview
Three Americans visit Spain in order to rob an exclusive resort. They have every “what if” planned for and are convinced that they’ll succeed. But they weren’t counting on all of the femmes fatales at the infamous hotel, and the effect that these women will have on them.
15. Congo
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.61 | 3.27 | 3.44 |
Overview
In an African rainforest, eight American geologists are brutally killed in just minutes. In the U.S., a team of scientists go to the Congo to explore what happened, along with a gorilla named Amy who has some interesting capabilities. They’re all going even though they know that they may not get out alive.
14. Rising Sun
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.66 | 3.35 | 3.51 |
Overview
Highlighting the volatile relationship between the U.S. and Japan, this story starts out with a girl being murdered in the American headquarters of a Japanese corporation and tells an intriguing story that deals with both solving the murder and business moguls who are competing for control of the international electronics industry.
13. State of Fear
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.71 | 3.40 | 3.56 |
Overview
An intelligence agent in Tokyo is trying to figure out what to make of a physicist who dies after performing surgery, a mystery buyer who purchases deadly cavitation technology, and a research submarine that has been leased for use in the waters near New Guinea.
All of these events have happened in different parts of the world, and the agent is trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together to determine what it means.
12. Airframe
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.72 | 3.39 | 3.56 |
Overview
The pilots of Flight TPA 545 have to make an emergency landing and request 40 ambulances before they land. Medical workers are stunned to see the total carnage and wreckage found inside of the plane, including three dead and 94 injured. What exactly happened on this flight?
11. Easy Go
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.74 | 3.38 | 3.56 |
Overview
This is the story of a group of people trying to find the Pharoah’s lost tomb and the treasures they all feel is hidden there. But if they do find it, what happens next?
10. Eaters of the Dead
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.67 | 3.52 | 3.60 |
Overview
In the year 922 CE, Fadlan is an Arab courtier accompanying Viking warriors back to their home, and when he arrives, he is sickened by what he sees. When he is enlisted to combat the terrors that are there to slaughter the Vikings, he isn’t sure exactly how to go about the task, but he has to learn very quickly or they’ll all die.
9. Prey
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.76 | 3.44 | 3.60 |
Overview
When an experiment in the Nevada desert goes terribly wrong, it produces a large cloud that is just as alive as humans in many ways. People are trying to kill it because it is becoming more deadly with each hour. So far, they are not being successful.
8. Disclosure
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.79 | 3.42 | 3.61 |
Overview
Thomas Sanders is having a bad day. First, he gets passed over for a promotion. Then his new female boss makes a pass at him. The next day, he finds out that she is suing him for sexual harassment. She demands that he get transferred, but he just wants people to know the truth so he can get his life back.
7. The Lost World
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.80 | 3.51 | 3.66 |
Overview
Six years after the Jurassic Park catastrophe, things seem to be quiet and back to normal. That is until the rumors start that one of the dinosaurs may have survived.
6. Sphere
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.81 | 3.56 | 3.69 |
Overview
When a group of American scientists is rushed to a large vessel that has been found on the bottom of the ocean floor, they are shocked at what they see. It is a huge spaceship that seems to have suffered no damage as it fell from the sky; most interesting of all, it appears to be at least 300 years old.
5. Timeline
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.85 | 3.55 | 3.70 |
Overview
In Arizona, an incoherent man is wandering in the desert and then dies. On the other side of the world, archaeologists are about to enter another dimension, another land, another time. In fact, they are swept up to a world 600 years earlier.
4. Dragon Teeth
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.78 | 3.64 | 3.71 |
Overview
In the Wild West of 1876, a paleontologist and his student are on an expedition until the student is abandoned in Wyoming, where he then makes an amazing discovery that is both a hidden treasure and a dangerous object.
3. The Andromeda Strain
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.90 | 3.65 | 3.78 |
Overview
When satellites are sent into space to collect dust and organisms to study, one of them falls in a desert in Arizona. Suddenly, people start dropping dead in their tracks. What are these organisms that fell to Earth?
2. The Great Train Robbery
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 3.86 | 3.75 | 3.81 |
Overview
In Victorian London, the super-rich and super poor live side by side. Enter Edward Pierce, who seems accepted by both sides and is hearing rumors that England’s mighty steam locomotive will soon be stolen.
1. Jurassic Park
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | Overall |
| 4.05 | 3.92 | 3.99 |
Overview
In Jurassic Park, creatures who have been extinct come to life and people are starting to flock to see them — until something goes horribly wrong and threatens everything.
