Michael Crichton - Next

Author : Michael Crichton (b. 1942)

Title : Next (2006; 528 pages)

Genre : Cri-Fi

Rating : C+

This Month I Read...
The latest offering from the author of Jurassic Park, Next is typical Crichton - exploring the potential, the perils, and the pitfalls of genetic engineering. From transgenic creatures to cures for diseases; from gene-snatching kidnappers to corporate in-fighting; there's a whole gamut of themes in the book.

What's To Like...
The transgenic critters will most likely be your favorite threads in the book. There's an Sumatran orangutan that enjoys cussing in French and Dutch; a talking parrot that can do math in his head and carry on intelligent conversations with humans; and Dave the half-chimp/half-human who has trouble "fitting in" as a schoolboy.

Despite its length, this is a quick read. Apparently Crichton has developed "James Patterson Symdrome" as there are 528 pages, divided into 95 chapters. So when you're ready to stop reading at night, you'll always be a page or two from the end of a chapter.

The book has a reasonably good ending, with some of the storylines being skillfully (albeit, somewhat incredibly) brought together.

What's Not To Like...
There are too many storylines, the majority of which you are going to have only a minimal interest in following. So there are some slow spots in the book. Indeed, one gets the feeling that Crichton had trouble deciding which of about two dozen storylines to put into the book, so he included them all.

Worse, as compared to Jurassic Park (and that comparison is inevitable), there's too much 'preaching' and technical warning, and not enough story-telling. Let's face it, while Crichton enlightens us as to the problems with cloning in JP, what we're really interested in is whether the velociraptors are going eat the good guys for lunch.

Of course, in JP, you had only 3 or 4 plots to follow; here you have more than a dozen. If you do the math (528 pages; 25% 'preaching'; and let's say 12 plots, just to be on the conservative side), each storyline here is going to get about 35 pages to come to full resolution. That's a whole bunch a shallow tales.

Life Is Like A Crash On The Freeway...
There was a forgettable movie a couple decades ago. IIRC, it had Robert "Wild Wild West" Conrad as a California motorcycle cop; it had Betty White (I think) as a middle-aged wife dying of cancer, and Buddy Ebsen as her husband trying to keep her from taking her own life. There were about a dozen other storylines-&-actors, none of which I remember anymore.

You spent the whole movie jumping around on these disparate stories, wondering how the heck they were going to tie in with each other. Surprise, surprise; they all were involved in a mega-car-crash on an L.A. freeway. Conrad goes flying through the air; Ebsen dies, leaving Betty White to try and carry on without him. And everybody else... well... like I said, it was a forgettable movie.

That's the way Next comes across to me. Too many plots, and not enough story-telling. It would've been better to only deal with the transgenic animals, and leave the legalistic and corporate woes to a 20-page sermon at the end of the book.

Despite its flaws, this is still Crichton, and he is still one of the better writers around. Heck, we named a genre after him. The transgenic animals are enough to make Next sufficiently engaging to read. So we'll give it a C+ and a lukewarm recommendation; and hope that the mouthy parrot, the foul-mouthed orangutan, and the monkey-boy show up in a sequel.