Michael Crichton's "Next" 11/28
12-01-06, 04:34 PM
#26
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I agree about the narrative structure -- I didn't mind it, but I can see how some folks might be put off by the lack of a story arc. But I'm not sure about the deus ex machina... What part do you mean?
I guess that would give stuff away, though, wouldn't it.
Maybe you can link to your review when it runs.
I guess that would give stuff away, though, wouldn't it.
Maybe you can link to your review when it runs.
12-01-06, 05:56 PM
#27
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I saw this at the bookstore for 40% off, but will have to wait to pick it up as I've got Christmas gifts to pick up and also have tons of other books to get to first. Maybe someone will get this as a Christmas gift for me.
12-05-06, 01:21 PM
#28
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http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/...1_5_0_,00.html
Next
Michael Crichton
Reviewed by Gregory Kirschling
All you need to know about Michael Crichton's absurd technothriller Next is that the marquee character, Gerard, is a conversational gray parrotwho does subtraction problems, quotes classic movies, and tries fending off a pack of wolves with wisecracks. No, scratch that. The book's star is really Dave, a ''transgenic'' ape who, like Gerard, is implanted withhuman genes. Dave is ''clearly a chimp'' when we meet him, but — holy cow — assoon as his scientist daddy cuts his hair and dresses him in a Quicksilver shirt, Dave is hanging out at a local elementary school,successfully passed off as a little boy living with a made-up genetic deficiency, even though he can scale two-story buildings to catch a fly ball, and he throws his own feces in a dustup with a murderousskateboarding sixth-grader. Next is the most unintentionally rib-tickling book Crichton has ever written.
And it interrupts his streak. The Jurassic Park author's last three novels — Timeline, Prey, and State of Fear — were jaunty pulp sci-fi grappling with bountifully researched hot topics (time travel, nanotech,and global warming, respectively). His new subject is less of a throat grabber: the patenting of the human genome, which, Crichton argues, stifles innovation. And is bad. ''It's like allowing somebody to patentnoses,'' Crichton asserts in his Author's Note.
But a patented nose is no killer nanobot! Next urgently needs theCrichton-trademarked propulsive plot; in a first for the novelist, it has the opposite. Crichton typically follows a single character or two on a zip line through a streamlined adventure plot doled out in teensy chapters. In Next, he goes Crash on us, intersecting multiple stories and more than three dozen named characters in a book that rambles all over the place as it demonstrates what genome manipulation might have in store for us (like bounty hunters chasing you and your son across the state to plunder your genes). And it's quite a chore to keep track of a lot of people when (1) you're getting to know them in short,concentration-busting chapters, and (2) the author is still no good at animating his stiff Joshes, Toms, Jacks, Alexes, and Brads.
All we're left with are a few intriguing factoids and unintended comedy. Sometimes these coalesce in a gift bag of priceless bad writing. Take one of Crichton's sex scenes, in which a sleazy biotech CEO named Rickdiagnoses his mistress' uninterest mid-deed: ''No labial tumescence. No perineal engorgement. No retraction of the clitoral hood.'' Wow, did it suddenly get hot in here or what? Grade: C-
Michael Crichton
Reviewed by Gregory Kirschling
All you need to know about Michael Crichton's absurd technothriller Next is that the marquee character, Gerard, is a conversational gray parrotwho does subtraction problems, quotes classic movies, and tries fending off a pack of wolves with wisecracks. No, scratch that. The book's star is really Dave, a ''transgenic'' ape who, like Gerard, is implanted withhuman genes. Dave is ''clearly a chimp'' when we meet him, but — holy cow — assoon as his scientist daddy cuts his hair and dresses him in a Quicksilver shirt, Dave is hanging out at a local elementary school,successfully passed off as a little boy living with a made-up genetic deficiency, even though he can scale two-story buildings to catch a fly ball, and he throws his own feces in a dustup with a murderousskateboarding sixth-grader. Next is the most unintentionally rib-tickling book Crichton has ever written.
And it interrupts his streak. The Jurassic Park author's last three novels — Timeline, Prey, and State of Fear — were jaunty pulp sci-fi grappling with bountifully researched hot topics (time travel, nanotech,and global warming, respectively). His new subject is less of a throat grabber: the patenting of the human genome, which, Crichton argues, stifles innovation. And is bad. ''It's like allowing somebody to patentnoses,'' Crichton asserts in his Author's Note.
But a patented nose is no killer nanobot! Next urgently needs theCrichton-trademarked propulsive plot; in a first for the novelist, it has the opposite. Crichton typically follows a single character or two on a zip line through a streamlined adventure plot doled out in teensy chapters. In Next, he goes Crash on us, intersecting multiple stories and more than three dozen named characters in a book that rambles all over the place as it demonstrates what genome manipulation might have in store for us (like bounty hunters chasing you and your son across the state to plunder your genes). And it's quite a chore to keep track of a lot of people when (1) you're getting to know them in short,concentration-busting chapters, and (2) the author is still no good at animating his stiff Joshes, Toms, Jacks, Alexes, and Brads.
All we're left with are a few intriguing factoids and unintended comedy. Sometimes these coalesce in a gift bag of priceless bad writing. Take one of Crichton's sex scenes, in which a sleazy biotech CEO named Rickdiagnoses his mistress' uninterest mid-deed: ''No labial tumescence. No perineal engorgement. No retraction of the clitoral hood.'' Wow, did it suddenly get hot in here or what? Grade: C-
12-07-06, 08:30 AM
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The lines that got me were: "the most unintentionally rib-tickling book Crichton has ever written" and "unintended comedy."
The parts with the parrot and the monkey boy, among others, are supposed to be funny -- and apparently this reviewer thinks they are, too. That's why I think he's missing the point. Sure, the book brings up some serious issues, but it's designed to be a fun and entertaining read. It's not meant to be a "serious" book.
The parts with the parrot and the monkey boy, among others, are supposed to be funny -- and apparently this reviewer thinks they are, too. That's why I think he's missing the point. Sure, the book brings up some serious issues, but it's designed to be a fun and entertaining read. It's not meant to be a "serious" book.
12-07-06, 10:42 AM
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Putting aside the whole fraught-with-peril issue of authorial intent...
I think one of the main problems with Next is that it's neither fish nor fowl. The comedic elements (Gerard, the orangutan at the beginning) are jarring against the serious material (the lawsuit, the issues and implications of the research). When he attempts to bring the two together (in the Dave storyline) it doesn't work -- the transition from the poo-throwing to the later events is too stark and too poorly handled. The "unintentionally rib-tickling" has less to do with the comic elements, I suspect, and more to do with the ludicrous turns the plot takes late in the book.
In case it hasn't become clear by this point, the more I think about Next, the less I like it. What seemed, at first, like a fine enough read gets progressively weaker the more I dwell upon it.
I think one of the main problems with Next is that it's neither fish nor fowl. The comedic elements (Gerard, the orangutan at the beginning) are jarring against the serious material (the lawsuit, the issues and implications of the research). When he attempts to bring the two together (in the Dave storyline) it doesn't work -- the transition from the poo-throwing to the later events is too stark and too poorly handled. The "unintentionally rib-tickling" has less to do with the comic elements, I suspect, and more to do with the ludicrous turns the plot takes late in the book.
In case it hasn't become clear by this point, the more I think about Next, the less I like it. What seemed, at first, like a fine enough read gets progressively weaker the more I dwell upon it.
12-07-06, 11:29 AM
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See, this is why you shouldn't dwell on it so much. In critiquing the book, it has a lot of flaws. But I enjoyed the hell out of reading it.
Crichton has more tricks in his bag than most writers and he uses every one of them, often to the point of not playing fair with the narrative... But damn he can boil that pot.
In critiquing the book, it has a lot of flaws. But I enjoyed the hell out of reading it.Crichton has more tricks in his bag than most writers and he uses every one of them, often to the point of not playing fair with the narrative... But damn he can boil that pot.
12-07-06, 11:32 AM
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Oh hey, my review ran this morning. Good thing I checked:
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/e...s/16181272.htm
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/e...s/16181272.htm
12-23-06, 07:21 PM
#37
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Originally Posted by brainee
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (together and sometimes individually) can fit the bill too. "Relic" and "Reliquary" are extremely "Crichtonesque", as are others like "Mount Dragon", "Thunderhead", "Ice Limit", "Brimstone", "Cabinet of Curiousities". Solo work like Child's "Utopia" and Preston's "Tyranosaur Canyon" fit the bill too.
12-27-06, 09:15 AM
#38
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Here's my Amazon review:
This book may have worked better as a collection of short stories: in fact, I think that's what it is. I don't think there's a Deus Ex Machina. Maybe you're thinking of a MacGuffin? (That wouldn't be correct either, come to think of it).
For me personally, this is his worst book since Timeline.
Michael Crichton's new book, Next, returns to his most popular subject: genetics. This book has perhaps the largest cast of characters he's ever written about. Stories appear from every corner of the globe: universities and playgrounds in California, the halls of Congress, Europe, Sumatra, the American West. Mr. Crichton really wants us to feel that genetics is going to affect everyone, no matter what you do or where you live.
As in classic Crichton, the science is interesting and insightful. More than in any previous book, Mr. Crichton heaps a good amount of law in as well: showing the repercussions of what the courts have done and what is waiting in the wings, biologically and legally, for mankind. There's a problem though. Mr. Crichton seems to have focused so much on the science and law aspects of this book that he spent more time researching than trying to craft a story.
The characters are disparate and rarely ever meet. Some of them could be excised with no effect to the others. What's more, we don't get to be with them for long enough to really care about them; by the time they are reintroduced, it's been eighty pages and you struggle to remember who was who.
For the first third of the book, there was very little impetus to make me want to continue reading: I didn't feel like there was anything at stake. The book felt like a non-novel. By the middle, the gears start grinding and a story finally develops. But the end, like many of Mr. Crichton's books, falls flat. As soon as one storyline ended, all the others did, as if they were limited by the pre-determined length of the last fifteen pages. Stories that took chapters to develop are quickly resolved in a paragraph or two. One main character's inelegant fate is mentioned in only two sentences.
I wonder if Mr. Crichton is limited in length by his editor or publisher, or if he imposes this limit on himself. This book would do well to have at least another hundred pages added to it. Articles and snippets from real periodicals are interspersed throughout. While I was reading, I found them engaging. By the end, I felt cheated, like they were only filler.
All of this doesn't make this a bad book. It certainly deserves no mention along with his crowning achievements, but it's pretty good. A decent read. And for the first time since Lost World, science is finally back.
Mr. Crichton's books have always been at least entertaining, and Next is no exception. I only hope that one day we get that mix of story and science that made his earlier books so great. I'm beginning to fear that it might have been lightning in a bottle.
As in classic Crichton, the science is interesting and insightful. More than in any previous book, Mr. Crichton heaps a good amount of law in as well: showing the repercussions of what the courts have done and what is waiting in the wings, biologically and legally, for mankind. There's a problem though. Mr. Crichton seems to have focused so much on the science and law aspects of this book that he spent more time researching than trying to craft a story.
The characters are disparate and rarely ever meet. Some of them could be excised with no effect to the others. What's more, we don't get to be with them for long enough to really care about them; by the time they are reintroduced, it's been eighty pages and you struggle to remember who was who.
For the first third of the book, there was very little impetus to make me want to continue reading: I didn't feel like there was anything at stake. The book felt like a non-novel. By the middle, the gears start grinding and a story finally develops. But the end, like many of Mr. Crichton's books, falls flat. As soon as one storyline ended, all the others did, as if they were limited by the pre-determined length of the last fifteen pages. Stories that took chapters to develop are quickly resolved in a paragraph or two. One main character's inelegant fate is mentioned in only two sentences.
I wonder if Mr. Crichton is limited in length by his editor or publisher, or if he imposes this limit on himself. This book would do well to have at least another hundred pages added to it. Articles and snippets from real periodicals are interspersed throughout. While I was reading, I found them engaging. By the end, I felt cheated, like they were only filler.
All of this doesn't make this a bad book. It certainly deserves no mention along with his crowning achievements, but it's pretty good. A decent read. And for the first time since Lost World, science is finally back.
Mr. Crichton's books have always been at least entertaining, and Next is no exception. I only hope that one day we get that mix of story and science that made his earlier books so great. I'm beginning to fear that it might have been lightning in a bottle.
For me personally, this is his worst book since Timeline.
