When I was in elementary school, Michael Crichton was my favorite author. In 6th grade, I read Congo in 13 days to keep up with the time in the book. I loved Sphere and Jurassic Park, of course, and was outraged when Arby Benton, my favorite character, was cut from the movie of The Lost World. But the last book of his I read was Timeline. I liked it, actually it's one of my favorites now, but I stopped reading his work so often.
And now I picked up Next. It has the same scientific basis, but it is far less thrilling than his old science-fiction stories. But it wasn't meant to be. It isn't really much of a "science fiction" in that much of what it discusses is not only possible, but has been done (some of it is still science fiction). And it wasn't trying to be thrilling so much as... "Provoking". This book gets a little depressing because I could see a lot of the events and things happening in this book happening in reality. Some of it wouldn't be so horrible, but some of it, like considering the cells in someone's body the property of a corporation, would be awful. But it's not all that different from the separation of land and mineral rights which has happened, to the detriment of all, in the real world.
The book gets off to a really slow start. There are too many characters, too many worthless sub-plots that go nowhere and are dropped, too many interruptions by fictitionilized news stories and excerpts. It is interesting, and a style worth considering, but it doesn't make the book very enjoyable to read. Once it gets going, it is gripping. Just don't give up by page 50 or 60 (or 70) because it hasn't gotten going yet.
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