Get ready for a new dinosaur novel from Michael Crichton

When Michael Crichton passed away in 2008, he left behind a massive collection of papers: outlines, notes, and several incomplete novels. In the years since his death, Crichton’s widow Sherri has been combing through those files, and recently discovered a new manuscript calledDragon Teeth, which is now set to be published by HarperCollins in 2017.

The new novel returns to a topic for which Crichton is most famous: dinosaurs. The novel follows the intense rivalry between two prominent, real-life paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh as they try and out-discover one another in 1878. The book takes place in the American West from the perspective of a fictional apprentice, William Johnson, as he makes monumental discoveries of his own.  Sherri Crichton believed that the book was partially inspired by his correspondence with the late Professor Edwin H. Colbert, a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Two books have emerged from Crichton’s files over the years. The first was a completed book:Pirate Latitudes, about 17th century Caribbean pirates, which was released in 2009. A second was Micro, a partial manuscript that was completed by Richard Preston (author The Hot Zone), published in 2011. Unlike Micro, Dragon Teeth appears to be largely finished, and won’t require the use of an additional author.

Dragon Teeth is set to be published by HarperCollins in May 2017.