Lava flowing from Kīlauea, a shield volcano in Hawaii Tomas Micek/Alamy
Michael Crichton and James Patterson (Century (UK) Little, Brown (US))
If you were the person behind the long-running TV show ER, and also had the idea for Jurassic Park, you would be pretty proud of yourself, right? Now imagine you came up with those, plus Westworld, Twister and a host of other blockbusters.
That would make you Michael Crichton, of course. And what a spectacularly creative person he was. In 1995, he could lay claim to (The Lost World), number one movie (Congo…
