(1)American Author Proposal

Michael Crichton
A man who brought innovation to publication
The main thing that draws me to Michael Crichton is his unique style of writing that I personally have never previously taken any interest in. Crichton writes in a mix of genre’s combining Action, Science Fiction, and the one that distinguished his books setting them apart from most other writers, Techno-thriller. He uses beautifully descriptive writing to create imaginative other worlds that easily accommodate the intricate plots and thrilling plot twists that his writing is so characterized by. It is this original and distinctive style that draws me to his writing, and is the reason for my choosing him as my American Author.
In regards to the criteria required of our selected author, I see no problem in Michael Crichton meeting all of the listed requirements. For starters Crichton is most definitely an American having been born in Chicago Illinois in the October of 1942, and lived in the United States all of his life. He has written well over twenty novels in his forty odd years of writing, many of which were made into major motion pictures. He has also written several non-fiction science based books, including a semi-autobiographical piece called Travels. The influence that technology has had in his life is present in all of his works not excluding the non-fiction pieces. It is the use of technology in his books that makes Crichtons works an important piece in the modern day development of literature. I plan to primarily use his pioneering use of modern technology in the thriller genre to argue his importance as an American Author.
Crichtons heavy use of technology coupled with his unique writing style give his writing a futuristic feel that would make for quite an intricate literary analysis. I plan to argue that his use of technology accompanied by the popularity of his books brought modern technology to the mainstream literary world. His broad base of books written over the long period of his career as a writer will allow me to show how his writing has developed and changed right alongside the change and development of technology. These changes and development of his writing will allow me to draw the lines between the effect of technology on his writing, and concurrently the affect that his writing has on the literary world. Arguing the importance of the connecting lines will be my primary approach in proving the influence that he holds and his overall importance as a writer in literature today.
As for the books that I plan on reading, I have chose to read three to four of his more famous fictional novels, as well as one containing autobiographical content. The first of his books that I plan to read is Prey. Published in 2002 it is one of his more current works, and one that I can more easily concern with todays technology that I am so familiar with. After this I will work my way backwards by date of publishing to Jurassic Park, followed by The Great Train Robbery, Binary, his semi-autobiographical book Travels, and then given enough time his first book Odds On. The logic behind this backwards progression is that I will begin reading books that I may more easily relate to and understand the technological aspect of; Then as I become more apt to looking for connections of or relating to technology, I can more throughly analyze his earlier works where the technological aspects of his writing are not as clearly apparent.