Michael Crichton's Next

This was a Christmas gift from my daughter Hilary, who knows that I am a fan of Crichton's work. Next has many of the strengths and weaknesses of other Crichton novels. Regular readers of my blog will not be surprised to find that I am again disappointed at the weakness of characterization. Crichton can do it; read Prey. I think he's just too focused on the big ideas to spend the time on breathing life into these characters--and that big ideas are Crichton's strength.

To Crichton's credit, Next is far less didactic than State of Fear (which I reviewed here). There aren't any long speeches about the dangers of genetic engineering. I suppose that if you were reading this strictly as a novel, and especially if you weren't very thoughtful about it, you might not even get his point about the emerging trends of genetic engineering. It is clear that he regards the transgenic Island of Dr. Moreau future much as I do--with some alarm and considerable revulsion. But he isn't banging you about the head with his point. He even manages to create a rather comic situation where the parrot with human intelligence and the chimp/human hybrid come together to save the day.

Where Crichton is a bit more...unsubtle, let's say, is with respect to his interest in seeing the law changed concerning the rights of humans to maintain some control over their genetic material being used for profit by others. He also makes in a more subtle and interesting way some useful points about the difficulty of separating environment from genetics in determining behavior. I find it fascinating that Crichton's bibliography makes the point that G.K. Chesterton's early twentieth century criticisms of the emerging science of eugenics--and the dangers of where it might lead--were spot on:

Yet Chesterton was right, and the consensus of scientists, political leaders, and the intelligentsia was wrong. Chesterton lived to see the horrors of Nazi Germany. This book is worth reading because, in retrospect, it is clear that Chesterton's arguments were perfectly sensible and deserving of an answer, and yet he was simply shouted down.... Some things never change--including, unfortunately, the gullibility of press and public. We human beings don't like to look back at our past mistakes. But we should.

Next is more readable, and more of a page turner than State of Fear.