Next by Michael Crichton Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Next
Book Review: A Complete Train Wreck
Summary: 2 Stars
This book was a big disappointment. Crichton tries to present several interesting concepts regarding genetic engineering, but chooses to deliver them in a convoluted multi-threaded plot that was hard to follow. It was the first time I almost considered not finishing one of his books. I hate to say it, but I recommend passing on this one.
Book Review: A Fitting Finale
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the first Michael Crichton novel I have read and I was quite surprised on how it has polarised fellow readers. I can see how many were put off by the frequent jumps in plot lines and the many characters, but I feel it was in keeping with the novels intentions. That is, the rapid progress in genetics coupled with the ethical and legal dilemmas it is subsequently raising is occurring at a dizzying pace. I thought this novel to be thought provoking, humourous and filled with great scientific detail. The statement by the author at the start of the novel; "This novel is fiction except for the parts that aren't" is quite telling and makes you wonder what is happening in the outside world in laboratories and tertiary institutions. The convergence of several plotlines and characters at the novels climax also worked for me. Chapters on the whole are concise and themselves are broken up into bite size grabs. It is very sad that this is Michael Crichton's last novel, but in my opinion I think this was a great effort and a tribute to his vivid imagination and skills as a writer. I am very glad I have a significant back collection of the authors to enjoy.Book Review: A Home Run! Crichton Just Keeps Getting Better
Summary: 5 Stars
As Crichton has moved away from purely recreational scientific thrillers like Congo and Andromeda Strain, his works become more relevant, educating and thought provoking - sometimes as informative as serious non fiction on similar subjects.
No need to rehash the plot here - covered quite well by other reviewers. As to the storyline, Crichton is brilliant as he races through the many (albeit sometime confusing) sub plots and brings them together in a climactic ending. But his tongue-in-cheek approach is what I enjoyed the most. After Frank Burnett's cancer fighting cells that were sold for billions are destroyed by a saboteur, the courts actually issue an arrest warrant for his daughter and grandson because they are carrying stolen property - their own genes! While you can't help but laugh as the corporate attorneys make their legal arguments, you begin to think that the way court rulings are going, and the way the U.S. patent office is treating genetic science , that maybe, --- just maybe, this could actually happen. (Well - maybe not, but it certainly gives you pause)
As with State of Fear, the best part of this book is the afterward. Crichton outlines his positions, his concerns and fears, and his extensive bibliography has you adding more titles to your reading list. Both the afterward of Next and State of Fear should be required reading for anyone who wants or needs to be informed about Global Warming or Genetic Engineering.
Book Review: A bit of a stretch, but worth it
Summary: 3 Stars
An enjoyable work of fiction imbued with science (not necessarily science fiction, but rather fiction with lots of science) often requires that the reader accept one or more premises. If the book goes well outside normal scientific fact or understanding, the reader may need to suspend his or her normal scientific understanding or beliefs in order to successfully immerse him or herself in the book. With Michael Crichton's novels, that's normally an easy proposition.
What do I mean? Let's take perhaps his most famous offering, Jurassic Park. All you had to do (which I'd say nearly all his readers--and later movie-goers--did quite easily) was believe the premise that scientists could be successful in removing DNA from the blood of a mosquito, both of which had been locked away for millions of years in a drop of amber. You were then asked to believe it possible that those same scientists could then "hatch" that DNA into living, breathing dinosaurs. No problem! I did, never thought about it again, and thus thoroughly enjoyed the novel.
For another example, in his novel, Timeline, all you had to do was believe that someone might eventually build a working (although not entirely safe) time machine. Again, no problem. Most of us raced through the pages of that book and/or enjoyed the movie as well.
Now, with Next, Crichton asks to believe in trans-genetics and a gone-nuts legal system. Even though Crichton makes it clear that the story is apocryphal, "at least the parts that aren't..." and even though it's intended as a warning, I had a little trouble with this one. Not only do parrots and chimps talk, they're often smarter than their fully-human counterparts! Crichton also asks you to believe that a modern judge would have trouble finding fault with the concept of forced surgery (albeit "minor") to get at innocent people's (even children's) DNA "owned" by evil corporations.
Despite coming up for air quite often to wonder about some of the premises behind Crichton's plot, his master story-telling ability is once again very much on display and I couldn't help flipping rapidly through the pages.
Caveat Lector: be prepared for the occasional head scratch from this otherwise enjoyable novel!
John Cathcart
Author Delta 7
Book Review: A dreary slog of hateful characters and disjointed storylines
Summary: 2 Stars
Michael Crichton can be an effective author even if you disagree with his neo-conservative agenda. He can be effective even when extrapolating science a little too far. Here he is simply an uneffective author. He brings an interesting idea to the table - that of transgenic experimentation - only to leave it mouldering on the sidelines with extraneous plots and characters without a single redeeming characteristic. His scientists falsify information and steal each other's ideas. His lawyers are unethical. He even gets simple scientific facts wrong (nitrogen is not heavier than air and is, in fact, the lightest component of the three gases that make up 99.9% of natural air). Even when he gets his scientific facts right, he draws erroneous conclusions (e.g. he assumes the peer review system is useless because a bad egg, like stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk, can get falsified information published, but ignores the fact that he was caught and the offending articles purged). It's a shame, because Crichton has an interesting point to make through all this, and his 5-page "author's conclusions" at the back of the book are lucid and well-thought out. It IS absurd to be able to patent a naturally occuring gene, for example.
My main objections are not even the technical ones. The technological/scientific neophyte that still enjoys a good sci fi thriller like Jurassic Park or Timeline is going to find little to like here. One example is that he has three storylines involving transgenic species. He has a talking orangutan, a human-chimp hybrid, and a human-parrot hybrid. Forget the fact that he already used super-intellegent apes in Congo. These three storylines don't intersect (the chimp and parrot end up together at the end through a coincidence, but that's in the last few pages, and if you think my giving away an event in the last few pages is unfair, it's because it's a pointless plot mechanation that spoils nothing!). He throws in a subplot about a pathologist stealing bone tissue because..... why? He has several employees of the same company doing illegal things, and I couldn't keep them straight so I'm not even sure how to explain those subplots.
There is no doubt that the last 100 pages (about 1/4 of the book) is a very effective action-adventure. There is also no doubt that the setup to bring about the chase is (to my knowledge) a unique situation previously unheard of in fiction. But by then I didn't care. I almost didn't get that far because I was tempted to stop reading 1/2-way through. (The ending did raise my star rating from a 1 to a 2.) But I would advise saving yourself the frustration - just go to the bookstore and read the last 5 pages (the author's note), which is better written and makes the point the book was trying to make.