Word's getting around about the death of Jurassic Park author (and ER creator) Michael Crichton, who'd been battling cancer but had kept it mostly quiet.

The news was announced earlier today at Crichton's Web site. (Which is apparently crashing under the traffic hit — as I'm typing this, it's timing out and refusing to load.)

We'll have an appreciation in a little bitHere's an appreciation, courtesy of our guy Linton Weeks.

Also, here's this: