I've read alot of reviews about Pirate Latitudes being a poor ending for Michael Crichton's literary career. It got me wondering, was this story even fully completed by Crichton and was it ever SUPPOSED to see the light of day? In his book Travels, Crichton writes about going to Jamaica because he wanted to write a story about it set in the 17th century. That was in the late 70s/early 80s. I would think if he wanted it published he would have done so many years ago. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

From what I guess (mind you) there was a book supposed to be published in October 2008, but the of course that did not happen because MC got ill and even unexpectedly died. From what I know it was all within a short time span.
It could be that the book due to get published (in 2008) was Pirate Latitudes even then and that they postponed the whole thing to November 2009 for obvious reason.
Also the fact that Spielberg was already there (sort off) so quickly, made me think this was all cooked up much earlier.

I just finished reading Pirate Latitudes and I must admit I have similiar feeling about this book as daviglen above...

To me the entire story is well thought yet not enough developed though... The characters are mostly underdeveloped, each one requires a bit more background in my opinion. Hunter's a great example of strong, intelligent character with high self-esteem. The story starts with couple of scenes where Hunter's description and actions are tend to build such a person. Unfortunately there is too much doubt involved in his later decisions there, just like MC couldn't decide how to play each scene with Hunter making up his mind. Then some scenes could be easly extended with more action instead of being just described in "they saw it so they ran off..." style... Some other adventures are (mind, in my opinion) too long in terms of story timing... I will skip the examples here since this is no spoiler forum, but you may want to focus on some of the dynamic scenes to see whether they are passing too quickly while some other, "waiting" episodes, do not match with timing to the rest since they just take too long to get through... There should be more of Port Royal descriptions and scenes involving the background of that time in the part of the world (very exotic to most of us even today).

There is also a couple of places where typical beginner writer errors are made... Which I do not think MC was at all.

So the question comes why was all that?

There may be a couple of explanations (or speculations rather) here.

The first that comes to my mind is that PL has been written a while ago and was not supposed to be published since MC could see all its flaws and realized that it requires a lot of work to polish and be public ready.

The other one is that it was just written to get down the idea and left for some other time to maybe develop it to the shape of being published.

If it is true that it is MC's late work (few years back) it is definitely one that was expected to be edited alot before going public.

Any reason is fine by me but in every there is additional work assumed to be made on PL to make it a story worth to be among other MC's books. I just cannot imagine alternate approach from such a perfectionist as MC was.

So, Pirate Latitudes is a great adventure story with a strong background of early Carribean lifestyle (not enough exposed in that book though), fast pace action and twist and turns on every second page. Once edited, fixed in couple of places and polished a bit more, could be easly one of my favorites among all Michael Crichton stories. It makes me so sad Michael couldn't do that....

Ouch... you are right.
Tough I really enjoyed and loved the book, I have a feeling it was not nearly completed.
It is such a shame we have to miss such a brilliant author like MC

I don't really miss anything in the book.

What is it that gives the unfinished feel?

Let me first say that I totally love this book... it was great from beginning to end (and I really mean it).
But when I think how it would have been when MC still lived...
some parts (like the Carib village, the raid at Matanceros and the end) feel a bit rushed to me...

Perhaps I am a bit greedy... but after this book I wanted more of MC

I know how that feels Juroc.
But I'm also thankful I was part of this board when MC was still there on the other side of the computer screen and I'm also thankful he left us PL.

I enjoyed reading that book a lot!
It often seems easier to say what could be done better than to simply appreciate what is there.

Ingrid, if you're a creafeul reader, you'll get through PL once again looking for flaws and I am pretty sure you'll find few or more of those there.

I will not let the examples loose here since this is NO SPOILERS forums and thread, but as I said before, there are several basic issues experience reader can easly find (character under(over)development, timing issues etc.). To make the things clear - these types of errors are a standard thing, if you work on something, whenever you're a writer, computer programmer or any other kind of a creative worker, you make mistakes, mistypes etc. All the authors do that. That's what correction and editing is for - to polish what's been once written to a market standards.

The last part seems to be missing in case of PL, just like it was a shelf project that was supposed to get dust off in a future to be edited and prepared for a release to public.

Of course, it's still very nice book I love MC

You all are right about the novel not really being completed. Probably it was complete, but not edited carefully yet.
I re-read Timeline. And Pirates, though entertaining, does not have the same level of writing.
I personally think, Michael C. if alive would have worked more on it, before sending it to publisher.
Having said that, I agree with Ingrid, that after a tragic loss we have the chance to read him again.
Cheers, to all.