Bestselling author Michael Crichton died yesterday at the age of 66; although he had been struggling with cancer for some time, family describe the death as "unexpected."

Although best known in recent years as the creator of Jurassic Park (and ER), Crichton first came to fame in the late 1960s with the success of The Andromeda Strain, and became one of the first novelists to direct the Hollywood adaptations of his own work with the 1972 TV-movie Pursuit. He then went on to write and direct five more movies over the next twelve years, including a film version of the Robin Cook medical thriller Coma (as seen above). Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park adapation kicked off a string of films based on Crichton novels such as Disclosure and Rising Sun.

Amazon.com currently shows a listing for an untitled Crichton work in audiobook and large print formats to be released in early December. We will try to determine whether this does in fact represent one final novel. (UPDATE: A representative from HarperCollins explains, "Amazon has it wrong—they are trying to fix..this is not releasing next month.")