Next by Michael Crichton

I just finished reading Crichton's Next. You can go ahead and click on the link above to get a synopsis of the book. I'm still digesting and trying to figure out what I think of it. Like many of his books, Crichton tackles a topic that has some controversey behind it. Here, he is looking at transgenics and the new wave of ethical concerns with emergent technology. It's a good concept for a book, and I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of the book.

The Good:
As always Crichton does a good job of blurring the lines between science and fiction. I have enough background to see where those lines are supposed to be, and was as always impressed with the research that the man has done. He is through. He brought up some excellent points, and I very much enjoy that this book, as most of his, has a solid bibliography at the end. I also like that he has included a section at the end of the book with his personal thoughts on the issues and problems that the book addresses. He did this in his last book State of Fear which deals with global warming. It is also an enjoyable read. He makes some awesome point sin that piece of his book, including the impracticality of banning some technologies - we just can not regulate things like that. It didn't work during prohibition and it won't work here.

He makes some excellent points on patenting genes, and how throughly frightening a prospect that can be. He emphasizes that universities, biotech start ups, etc. are in it to make money. And that lawyers can really fuck these things up.

(Incidentally, Crichton has a special place in hell reserved for lawyers - they are invariably blood-sucking bastards in his books. Is this a result of his background in medicine, or did he have a particularly bad experience? I mean he had one of them eaten by a dinosaur in Jurassic Park so...I'm not disagreeing with him, just curious.)

One particular plot line follows a trangenic chimp, and this particular story line is pretty awesome. It's interesting and cute, heart warming with just a hint of malice at parts.

Crichton does bring a lot of science down to a fundamentally understandable level. And that is definately a good thing. Especically for thouse without a basic understanding of the science, he makes the social issues much more accessible.

Overall he brings up many different issues that need to be brought up regarding the new world of science fact we live in. This is also a part of the bad, as we'll get to in just a moment...

The Bad:
Let's start with the obvious. Michael Crichton can not end a book to save his life. Seriously, his endings are almost always contrived at best, non-existant at worst. This book is no different, and I acutally think is one of his worst endings yet. Part of this is the result of having WAY too many plotlines going at once.

Just yesterday Roommate and I were discussing teaching the idea of A story/B story to her students. She was trying to get them to see you needed a B plot, but you didn't want too many. Crichton has something like half a dozen plotlines in this book, and as a result none of them are truly developed. This is a problem. Besides the fact that you don't truly get any satisfaction on any of the plots, he also jumps so fast from one to the other that your head is spinning...it's hard to keep track of what is going on.

A natural result of this plot jumping about is that many of the plots seem...contrived. There just because as opposed to having any real reason for being present. As I said before, they are also underdeveloped, which leaves the reader, or at least this reader, feeling that whatever happens to these people happens. Not really a big deal.

Overall:
I have to reccomend the book. Read it if you have an interest in trangenics. Read it if you feel like you don't know enough, or feel that you ought to know more. Don't expect this to turn into a movie. It's too fragmented for that. /Pay attention to Crichton's afterword, it's clear and conscise. His bibliography is annotated, so that's pretty awesome too.

If anyone does read it, please comment back to me. I'd like to talk to someone else and get their thoughts on the book.