Book Review: Next

Well, I plowed through to the end of Michael Crichton's latest book Next last night (or technically, this morning). Unlike the last two books, there is actually quite a bit to talk about here without spoilers.

First off, and apparently unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoyed the book quite a bit. Most of the reviewers on Amazon refer to Next as basically the worst Crichton book ever. The two literary criticisms you will hear the most are that the plot line is very confusing and all over the place and that the plot itself is just too much of a stretch to be believable. In general I would agree with both of these points. The chapters are very short and with roughly a dozen related subplots it can be hard to remember who is who, but with a little effort it shouldn't be that hard so I don't think it detracted from the story that much. As far as the overall plot, yes, it is rather unbelievable. Most of Crichton's science themed books tend to be fairly plausible, but [spoiler alert] in Next most of the protagonists end up in some kind of transgenic Brady Bunch while the villains are generally left embarrassed, dead, in jail, or somehow hoist by their own proverbial petard. The ending reminded me more of a Dan Brown novel than of Crichton's better works. And obviously most of Crichton's characters were hyperboles, but if you want to make as many points as he tries to make that's kind of inevitable.

One of the oddest things about the book is the character Mick Crowley. Although I have yet to read anything from the Crichton camp, it would appear that the character is intended to be a swipe at columnist Michael Crowley who wrote an unfavorable review in The New Republic of Crichton's last book State of Fear. Besides the name and a couple descriptions that sound a lot like the real-life Crowley (Yale graduate, based in Washington), the character adds nothing to any of the subplots. Besides a few factoids, the only description of the fictional Crowley is that he is apparently a child rapist with a small penis. First off, despite what some of the reviewers state there is no "graphic description of child rape" anywhere in the book. While there are a few sentences that some people might find distasteful you will hear worse in a lot of prime time dramas. Honestly, my first thought was "couldn't Crichton come up with something better than this?" This is the kind of thing you would expect to see in Borat, not an author like Michael Crichton. If you're going to mock somebody, you should at least put a little intellectual effort into it.

Another thing that appears to stick in the collective craw of Amazon reviewers is the fact that they consider the book to be pushing Michael Crichton's political agenda. Umm, okay. Why is that bad, again? A lot of books push various agendas, but people only label them "polemics" when they are pushing something they don't agree with. My guess is some people's opinion of the book is colored by State of Fear, Crichton's last book, which is considered by many (such as the aforementioned Michael Crowley) as an anti-global warming screed full of questionable claims. Since I haven't read the book myself, I can't comment. But most of Crichton's arguments - with a few exceptions such as the times he appears to be calling out specific Democratic senators - seemed fairly nonpartisan to me. The media seems to be the the most frequent target in the book, being accused of being lazy, failing to do adequate fact-checking, recycling junk news, etc. Last time I checked that was basically the same criticism that has been leveled at the D.C. press corps ever since Bush took office. And I don't hear a lot of complaining about the evangelical scientist character who goes around stealing other people's research and other dastardly things (well, maybe the character is a red herring but whatever).

Okay, so maybe Michael Crichton is turning into a Republican hack. Still, this is a pretty good book. I think you're smart enough to make up your own mind.

Rating: * * *