On the Shelf
Eruption
By Michael Crichton and James Patterson
Little Brown and Company: 432 pages, $32
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Michael Crichton, the mega-selling author and filmmaker best known for the novel āJurassic Park,ā died of lymphoma in 2008. But a glance at his body of work suggests he has remained prolific even after his death, with a string of posthumously published novels (the last of which, āDragon Teeth,ā was released in 2017) and a sequel to his bio-thriller āThe Andromeda Strainā arriving in 2019, written by Daniel H. Wilson but still bearing Crichtonās name, in big letters, on the front cover. His afterlife has been busy.
Now heās collaborating ā not with some young hotshot looking to make a name in publishing, but with an author whose books have sold hundreds of millions of copies and whose name might be a bigger brand than his. James Patterson, who has worked on books with everyone from Bill Clinton to Dolly Parton, has teamed up with Crichton as coauthor of āEruption,ā a volcano thriller set on the Big Island of Hawaii. The novel boasts traits familiar to any Crichton fan, including ample technical research, breakneck pacing and humans pushing the world toward extinction through scientific hubris.
With two of publishingās most popular (and wealthy) authors on the marquee, āEruptionā is this summerās literary version of a blockbuster action movie.
āI needed the money,ā Patterson quipped in a recent video interview, before pivoting to what really brought him to āEruption.ā āI was a big Michael Crichton fan. I think Iāve read everything that heās written. And when he died, itās one of those things where you just wish, āOh, no, no, please. I want another book.ā Like you wanted one more Hitchcock movie after he died.ā
(Little, Brown and Company)
The process actually began with Crichtonās widow, Sherri. Looking through his archives shortly after his death, she found a partial manuscript for a volcano novel set in Hawaii, a place Crichton first came to love when he moved to Los Angeles from the East Coast to pursue his filmmaking career. He had told her about his plans for āEruptionā during their long hikes on the trails of Kauai.
They had also visited Pompeii, the ancient Italian city buried under volcanic ash and pumice when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. When Sherri found the manuscript and other research including video Crichton shot near the top of Mauna Loa, Earthās largest active volcano, she knew she had something ā if she could find the right writer to carry out Crichtonās vision.
āI knew it required somebody of Michaelās magnitude, with his great storytelling skills and the ability to keep the pace up and keep the cliffhangers going,ā she said alongside Patterson on the video call. āWe needed somebody to really be able to finish the story, to take it from where it had stopped and to the finish line so we could live it and breathe it.ā
She and her business partner tossed some names around. Then she had an idea: āWhat about James Patterson? I mean, if weāre going to go big, letās go really big. Letās go to the top.ā Patterson signed on and started doing his own research, with the help of a volcanologist. And he began writing, picking up where Crichton left off, trying to create a unified writing voice that didnāt show seams on the page.
This posed a challenge. Crichton and Patterson may have a lot in common, particularly the ability to weave a ripping yarn that keeps the pages turning fast, but theyāre different writers. āIām a little pacier, maybe,ā Patterson said, āmaybe a little more of a wisecracker, dialogue-wise.ā And Crichton likes to get lost in the scientific weeds; āEruptionā offers details on everything from lava temperatures to a flyās digestive system. But āEruptionā doesnāt read like a stitched-together Frankenbook, a science experiment out of, well, a Crichton novel. It hits its beats, shows off its research and retains Pattersonās sense of humor.
The premise is classic Crichton: cautionary, speculative, happy to walk the line between far-fetched and vaguely plausible. Itās 2025, and Mauna Loa is fixing to blow, something that can be very destructive: the 1868 eruption killed 77 Hawaiians and brought landslides and a tsunami. The good news is that the lava is projected to head toward an unpopulated region of the island. The bad news is that the military has used the mountain to store vast amounts of radioactive herbicide. Hey, it could happen. Itās up to caustic, can-do geologist John MacGregor and a team of scientists, soldiers and island residents to prevent a good old fashioned extinction-level event.
The novel is laden with Hawaiian language, lingo and culture. Here we learn that if something makes you āhoāopailua,ā you want to throw up. āMichael loved the people of Hawaii,ā Sherri Crichton said. āHe loved the culture of Hawaii. He loved the Aloha spirit. He was very respectful. It was really important to him because Hawaii is this gorgeous petri dish of nature.ā
But in a Crichton novel, that petri dish must be messed with.
āIf the human influence gets in there, it can absolutely be weaponized,ā she said. āAnd thatās the story that Michael and Jim tell with this book.ā
For Patterson, Crichtonās scientific bent was a major appeal ā a frontier he hadnāt yet crossed.
āI liked the challenge of writing with science, which I hadnāt done before,ā Patterson said. āI usually just make [stuff] up. So this was just very exciting for me.ā