Book Review: Next (2006)

I think that it could be safely said that Michael Crichton was one of the most, if not the most, successful sci-fi writer today. The possibility of anything that he had wrote into his books were seemingly achievable and of course with that, the danger he proposed was therefore, a real threat. The fact that he had think that idea through, think that it might work, was one of his best traits, redeeming the quality of his story-telling which i personally would say, repetitive, and formulaic. One would only have to look for a film aptly named 'Jurassic Park' which spans three sequels in its wake. The idea of retracting the DNA from an amber that held the frozen mosquitos from the Jurassic (or any other -sic) era enabled the scientists in that film to actually gave a rebirth to creatures, great lizard creatures long lost. And granted, that even though in later findings the method described in the book (and in the film) was hopeful at best, a mere audience, a mere reader could be persuaded to agree that it was possible. That was what Crichton did at his best, mixing scientific dreams with action thrillers.

After several books that had touched many aspects in scientific (time-travel, genetics, medical hazards, manufactured error, microbiology, global warming), Michael Crichton's best was arguably reside in genetics (my personal favorite of his was 'The Lost World'), as evident in his latest work, Next.

After dealing and preaching with global warming (which in my opinion was merely a vessel to assert his PERSONAL opinion on a global warming issue) in his previous State of Fear, Michael Crichton again revisit his most comfortable science field, genetics, in Next. And it was a pleasant, fast book to read (compared to State of Fear, which i had often lost interest to continue reading after several chapters).

I won't reveal what was Next all about. All you needed to know was that in Next, Crichton proposed the possibility of manufactured genetics, altered genetics that could probably eliminate the undesirable traits in a given species (for instance, in human, they could eliminate the gene for an alcoholism), any undesirable traits, or to give a positive traits to a given species. Well, something like that.

The scientific aspect was nice, it surely give me a new something to think about, and it's always nice to had something new. As always. But it's not something entirely new. To a certain extent, i had read several articles of similar findings in Science magazine. And Crichton himself has admitted that for the most part NEXT is not really speculative fiction at all. However, i liked to point out how this book felt different with Crichton's previous books.

In Crichton's book, there were always an evil scientist, a good scientist, and ignorant commoner (but with good conscious, of course), thrown in some beautiful ladies, and a scientific topic to mull about, and there you have your Crichton's formula. The evil scientist, most of the time, dead. The good scientist took several chapters to do his hidden chore to counteract the evil scientist's deed, another several chapters to explain the things to the ignorant commoner, and yet another several chapters to battling out the evil scientist, often with physical labors. These characters, more often than not, immediately recognized as the book starts. In Next, these characters were present but mostly scattered throughout the pages, and only significantly identifiable when the book approaches the final act, at the final third of the book. The book also features many characters mainly from scientists, and attorneys that sometimes i need to flip back through the pages to refreshed my memory of a particular character.

All in all, if you are a fan of Crichton and has been disappointed by State of Fear (as i was), this book won't fail you. It's enjoyable read, and quite intriguing that once again, Crichton made us think of what would possibly happen when a technology gone a little bit too far.

My Rating: **1/2 / ****