Robin Cook (novelist)

]

Dr. Cook has been remarked to have an uncanny ability to anticipate national controversy. In an interview with Dr.Cook, Stephen McDonald talked to him about his novel "Shock"; Cook admits the timing of Shock was fortuitous. "I suppose that you could say that it's the most like "Coma" in that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about," he says, "I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn't know anything about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it's the public that ultimately really should decide which way we ought to go in something as ethically questioning as stem cell research."cite web|url=http://www.bookpage.com/0109bp/robin_cook.html|title=What a shock: Robin Cook fuses stem cells with a suspenseful tale|accessdate=2007-10-08|author=Jay McDonald]

Keeping his lab coat handy helps him turn our fear of doctors into bestsellers. "I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery," he says. "But I am still very interested in it. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor." After 27 books, he has come up with a diagnosis to explain why his medical thrillers remain so popular. "The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We're all going to be patients sometime," he says. "You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I'm not going into the ocean or I'm not going in haunted houses, but you can't say you're not going to go into a hospital."

Major Themes

By writing medical thrillers, Dr. Cook has given a new and eerie angle to the thriller genre. Cook says he chose to write thrillers because the forum gives him "an opportunity to get the public interested in things about medicine that they didn't seem to know about. I believe my books are actually teaching people."

The author admits he never thought that he would have such compelling material to work with when he began writing fiction in 1970. "If I tried to be the writer I am today a number of years ago, I wouldn't have very much to write about. But today, with the pace of change in biomedical research, there are any number of different issues, and new ones to come," he says.
Research done at work gives him creative ideas to make into books. He takes controversial medical subjects, turns them into your worst nightmare, and then writes a book about it.cite web|url=http://www.wam.umd.edu/~vmacker/robincook.htm|title=Robin Cook Info|accessdate=2007-10-08]

Film and Television Adaptations

"Coma" was made into a successful feature film, and other Cook novels have also been made into television productions. In December 1993, CBS - TV aired Robin Cook's "Harmful Intent"; in November 1994, NBC - TV aired "Mortal Fear"; in May 1995, NBC - TV aired "Virus", based on "Outbreak"; and in February 1996 NBC - TV aired "Terminal". In 2008, a prequel of Cook's forthcoming novel "Foreign Body" was produced as a 50-episode webseries by Michael Eisner's Vuguru and Big Fantastic, the creators of "Prom Queen (internet series)." In addition to "Invasion", NBC - TV has two other Cook novels in production.

Bibliography

*"Year of the Intern" (1972), ISBN 0-451-16555-1
*"Coma" (1977), ISBN 0-451-20739-4
*"Sphinx" (1979), ISBN 0-451-15949-7
*"Brain" (1981), ISBN 0-451-15797-4
*"Fever" (1982), ISBN 0-425-17420-4
*"Godplayer" (1983), ISBN 0-425-17638-X
*"Mindbend" (1985), ISBN 0-451-14108-3
*"Outbreak" (1987), ISBN 0-425-10687-X
*"Mortal Fear" (1988), ISBN 0-425-11388-4
*"Mutation" (1989), ISBN 0-425-11965-3
*"Harmful Intent" (1990), ISBN 0-425-12546-7
*"Vital Signs" (1991), ISBN 0-425-13176-9
*"Blindsight" (1992), ISBN 0-425-13619-1
*"Fatal Cure" (1993), ISBN 0-425-14563-8
*"Terminal" (1993), ISBN 0-425-15506-4
*"Contagion" (1995), ISBN 0-425-15594-3
*"Acceptable Risk" (1996), ISBN 0-425-15186-7
*"Chromosome 6" (1997), ISBN 0-425-16124-2
*"Invasion" (1997), ISBN 0-425-21957-7
*"Toxin" (1998), ISBN 0-425-16661-9
*"Vector" (1999), ISBN 0-425-17299-6
*"Abduction" (2000), ISBN 0-425-17736-X
*"Shock" (2001), ISBN 0-425-18286-X
*"Seizure" (2003), ISBN 0-425-19794-8
*"Marker" (2005), ISBN 0-425-20734-X
*"Crisis" (2006), ISBN 0-425-21657-8
*"Critical" (2007), ISBN 0-399-15423-X
*" Foreign Body" (August 5, 2008), ISBN 0-399-15502-3

References

External links

* [http://www.iblist.com/author429.htm Robin Cook on The Internet Book List]
* [http://www.wiredforbooks.org/robincook/ 1983, 1987 interviews with Robin Cook] by Don Swaim at Wired for Books
* [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/robin-cook Robin Cook on Fantastic Fiction UK]

""'

Persondata
NAME= Cook, Robin Dr.
SHORT DESCRIPTION= American novelist and doctor
DATE OF BIRTH= Birth date and age|1940|5|4|mf=y
PLACE OF BIRTH= New York City, New York
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=