Two posthumous books from Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton's fans will be thrilled to learn that there are two more Crichton novels in the works. Apparently when the bestselling author died last November he left behind one completed and one partial manuscript. Crichton's website calls "Pirate Latitudes," the completed work, "an adventure story about piracy in the New World ... [s]et in 1665, when Jamaica was a British colony holding out against Spanish dominance." Apparently the novel was written contemporaneously with "Next," Crichton's 2006 thriller on the dangers of genetic experimentation.

"Pirate Latitudes" is scheduled for release on Nov. 24,  2009.

The partial manuscript is a "techno thriller" which "explores the outer edges of new science and technology."

Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins and Crichton's publisher, told the New York Times that the company is searching for a writer to complete the work and hopes to release the book in the fall of 2010.

“We want a high-level thriller writer, somebody who understands Michael’s work,” Burnham told the Times. “From what I gather, there are notes and indications of which direction the novel was going, so the writer has material to work from apart from the actual material that was finished.”

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