“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
- Award-winning author of Delta 7 (www.Delta7Book.com)
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John C wrote this review Wednesday, December 14, 2011.
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