Dr. Robert Brian "Robin" Cook is an American physician and novelist who
writes about medicine and topics affecting public health.
He is best known for combining medical writing with the thriller genre. Many of
his books have been bestsellers on the New York Times Bestseller List. Several
of his books have also been featured in Reader's Digest. His books have sold
nearly 400 million copies worldwide . Biography
= Early life and career= Cook grew up in Queens, New York and
moved to Leonia, New Jersey when he was eight, where he could first have the
"luxury" of having his own room. He graduated from Wesleyan University and
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finished
his postgraduate medical training at Harvard.
Cook ran the Cousteau Society's blood-gas lab in the south of France. He
later became an aquanaut with the U.S. Navy's SEALAB program when he was
drafted in 1969. Cook served in the Navy from 1969 to 1971, reaching the rank of
lieutenant commander. He wrote his first novel, The Year of the Intern, while
serving on the Polaris submarine USS Kamehameha.
= Private life= He divides his time between homes in
Boston and Naples, Florida, where he lives with his wife, Jean, and his son.
He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He
has successfully combined medical fact with fantasy to produce a succession of
bestselling literature. Cook's medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep
the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern
medicine and the ensuing socio-ethical problems which come along with it.
= Associations= Cook is a private member of the Woodrow
Wilson Center's Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees, led by chairman
Joseph B. Gildenhorn, are appointed to six-year terms by the President of the
United States. Novels
Cook's novels have anticipated national controversy. In an interview with
Stephen McDonald about the novel Shock, Cook admits the book's timing was
fortuitous: "I suppose that you could say that it's the most like Coma in fact
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 should be able to decide which way we ought to go in something as
ethically questioning as stem cell research."
To date, Cook has explored issues such as organ donation, fertility treatment,
genetic engineering, in – vitro fertilization, research funding, managed
care, medical malpractice, medical tourism, drug research, and organ
transplantation. 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." He explained the popularity of his works thus: "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.
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.
Many of his novels revolve around hospitals in Boston, which may have to
do with the fact that he underwent his post-graduate training at Harvard and
has a residence in Boston. Film and television adaptations
Coma has been adapted for both film and television:
Coma, is a successful feature film directed by author/doctor Michael
Crichton and produced by Martin Erlichmann for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Coma is a four-hour A&E television mini-series based on the 1977 novel and
subsequent 1978 film, directed by Mikael Salomon and produced by brothers Ridley
and Tony Scott Foreign Body spawned a 2008 prequel,
produced as an eponymous web series by the production companies Vuguru, Cyber
Group Studios, and Big Fantastic. The series, which ran from May 27 through
August 4, 2008, comprised 50 episodes of approximately 2 minutes each, with a new
video posted every weekday. Harmful Intent was adapted as the CBS
television movie Robin Cook's Harmful Intent, directed by John Patterson and
produced by David A. Rosemont Invasion was adapted as an eponymous NBC
TV mini-series, directed by Armand Mastroianni.
Mortal Fear was as an eponymous TV movie, airdate November 20, 1994,
directed by Larry Shaw Outbreak was adapted as the film Virus,
directed by Armand Mastroianni Sphinx was adapted into the feature film
Sphinx, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, produced by Orion Pictures
for Warner Bros., and starring Lesley-Anne Down and Frank Langella
Terminal was adapted as TV movie, directed by Larry Elikann
Bibliography Year of the Intern, ISBN
978-0-451-16555-8 Coma, ISBN 978-0-451-20739-5
Sphinx, ISBN 978-0-451-15949-6 Brain, ISBN 978-0-451-15797-3
Fever, ISBN 978-0-425-17420-3 Godplayer, ISBN 978-0-425-17638-2
Mindbend, ISBN 978-0-451-14108-8 Outbreak, ISBN 978-0-425-10687-7
Mortal Fear, ISBN 978-0-425-11388-2 Mutation, ISBN 978-0-425-11965-5
Harmful Intent, ISBN 978-0-425-12546-5 Vital Signs, ISBN 978-0-425-13176-3
Terminal, ISBN 978-0-425-15506-6 Fatal Cure, ISBN 978-0-425-14563-0
Acceptable Risk, ISBN 978-0-425-15186-0 Invasion, ISBN 978-0-425-21957-7
Toxin, ISBN 978-0-425-16661-1 Abduction, ISBN 978-0-425-17736-5
Shock, ISBN 978-0-425-18286-4 Seizure, ISBN 978-0-425-19794-3
Death Benefit, ISBN 978-0-425-25036-5 Nano, ISBN 978-0-425-26134-7
Cell, ISBN 978-0-399-16630-3 Host, ISBN 978-0-399-17214-4
Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery Blindsight, ISBN 978-0-425-13619-5
Contagion, ISBN 978-0-425-15594-3 Chromosome 6, ISBN 978-0-425-16124-1
Vector, ISBN 978-0-425-17299-5 Marker, ISBN 978-0-425-20734-5
Crisis, ISBN 978-0-425-21657-6 Critical, ISBN 978-0-425-22288-1
Foreign Body, ISBN 978-0-425-22895-1 Intervention, ISBN 978-0-425-23538-6
Cure, ISBN 978-0-425-24260-5 Filmography
Coma Sphinx
Harmful Intent Mortal Fear
Virus Terminal
Invasion Acceptable Risk
Foreign Body Coma
See also Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery
series References
External links Official website
Robin Cook at the Internet Movie Database
Robin Cook on The Internet Book List Robin Cook on Fantastic Fiction UK