There was way too much going on in this book. I'm still not sure what the first part of the book has to do with the ending. Also, the ending is like he just got tired of writing so he abruptly stopped and had it published. I would not recommend it. ( )

Crichton's book "Next" is decent, but far from great. He, as always, focuses in on science and the morality issues surrounding it. The subject matter, in this case, is genetic engineering.

Crichton includes plenty of scary possibilites: genetically-modified fish grown with ads on them. Young girls using fertility drugs so they can sell their eggs for doctors to use. People pursued by bounty hunters because a company technically "owns" their cells. And people denied medical insurance because of genetic predispositions to diseases. There's no shortage of content there. I absolutely love how he presents these perverse scenarios that can happen when science is solely used for profit, and ethical behavior is thrown completely to the wind.

However, the storyline just kind of bounces aimlessly from character to character. There is no focus, and the plot feels very disconnected until near the very end. There simply isn't a main character.

Sex is pervasive throughout the book. Every last woman is described as "attractive" and is available. Nearly every major character has been divorced, and if not, is adulterous. This gets redundant after awhile.

Also, some of the "open loops" in the book aren't ever closed up. Who was modifying the turtles in Costa Rica? Who created the swearing dutch orangutan in Sumatra? Who was responsible for stealing the cell line at the beginning of the book? Perhaps I'm missing something. I also wish he wouldn't bend certain details. For instance, he mentions Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, which is a real life amusement park. Then, he talks about riding "Mighty Kong!" which is not an actual ride there. Perhaps this is a trivial example, but I'm hoping he doesn't take the same liberties with scientific "facts." ( )

terrible.

As the last book published before he died in 2008, Michael oviously was torn between creating a novel or a non-fiction treatise on clonign and cellular usage. As a result of this dichotomy, he tried to do both, and wound up doing neither, putting out what arguably could be called the worst work of his life. ( )

Um livro panfletário com boas histórias, entretanto peca por um excesso de personagens e uma clara linha narrativa deixando o leitor confuso em alguns momentos. ( )

This book is about biotechnology, genetics, organs and tissues and the ethical, moral, and legal issues related to it. There are about nine set of characters who interact with each other in numerous plots. The story begins with Vasco Borden, a fugitive-recovery agent trailing Eddie Tolman who is trying to sell twelve frozen transgenic embryos in liquid nitrogen from his embryology lab. Borden did not see anybody take the embryos but when he examined the dewar after Tolman's death, they were empty. Tolman locked himself in the kitchen service elevator and opened the dewar, killing himself with the liquid nitrogen gas. In the same building, Jack Watson, a capitalist was giving a speech, selling biotechnology to the world. He partly funds BioGen Research led by CEO Rick Diehl. BioGen has won the bid to clinically test the Burnet cell line licensed by UCLA. This cells were taken and cultured from Frank Burnet, a cured cancer patient whose cells produced powerful cancer-fighting chemicals called cytokines. In a courtroom, Frank Burnet is suing UCLA for using his tissues in research and selling them commercially. He is fighting for ownership rights and royalty fees over his cells and he loses the battle with his attorney daughter, Alex. Then a stranger approached him and suggested that he can still legally sell his blood for a hundred million dollars in case BioGen "contaminates" all their samples which kept him thinking. At the BioGen lab, Josh Winkler gets an urgent call from his Mom. He has to pick up his cocaine-addict brother Adam from jail and take him home. While he takes a leak at the gas station, Adam inhales the spray containing the retrovirus with the "maturity or aging" gene intended for the rats thinking it was something to get high on. Adam suddenly "matures", goes into rehab, and gets a decent job. Josh' Mom tells a lot of people and Josh gives it to Eric Graham, a friend. Josh' partner Tom Weller, gets a phone call informing him his Dad died. He calls sister Lisa who insists he is not her father. Lisa gets a paternity test from the frozen blood sample which comes out negative. Her Mom insists on tests of her own to counter Lisa. The test shows he might have been poisoned with a substance and that he had the gene for heart disease. Mrs. Weller decided to cremate the body to get rid of any evidence but she is surprised to learn it could not happen because the arm and leg bones were replaced with metal pipes. She sues the mortuary and Tom sues the lab because the public document led his insurance to cancel his policy after learning about the heart disease gene. Meanwhile, at the Radial Genomics at La Jolla, Henry Kendall receives a phone call from his former employer, National Institute of Health about a female chimpanzee, Mary, he was working with four years before. Mary's offspring, Dave, is transgenic, looks like a chimpanzee but talks like a human. They want to compare Dave's DNA with his. Henry kidnaps Dave and takes him home. His wife Lynn accepts him as his son and they come up with Gandler-Kreukheim syndrome, a genetic mutation to explain Dave's appearance to their children, Tracy and Jamie. Dave goes to school with them and gets into all kinds of trouble with his "chimp" behavior. There are more plots going on about a French talking orangutan, a turtle with a glowing shell, a talking parrot...and genes that are debated on...the sociability gene, the gay gene, the risk-taking gene. Towards the end of the book, Frank Burnet disappears while all BioGen's Burnet cell cultures gets contaminated. Diehl hires Borden to kidnap Alex and son Jamie to get fresh blood samples and the pursuit takes them to the Kendall's house. How is Alex and Jamie going to escape from this? And where is Frank when they needed him most? Adam Winkler grows old fast while Eric Graham dies of a heart attack at twenty-one years old. Josh finds out the hard way that the maturity gene is not working right? What is he going to go with the lawsuits that are sure to come? In the Kendall household, Dave is getting to be popular. How is the world going to take it? Will NIH spill the beans to the biotech world of the academe? If you are interested in genes and how it works, this book will explain a lot of things. ( )

Thought-provoking stuff that raises many questions about issues that arise in today's genetic industries, but the sheer amount of different plotlines and characters muddled the message.

http://stuff-ive-read.blogspot.com/20... ( )

I did not enjoy this book. The problem was NOT the science. The science in the book was ridiculous, of course. Anyone who actually knows things about genetics will roll his eyes at various points throughout the story. But I do not find this objectionable in fiction. The only reason, in my opinion, that he has gotten criticism for the science aspects of the story is that he couches them in such "plausible-sounding" terms that it tends to make people think (or feel) that it's NOT fiction. It is "Da Vinci Code" syndrome, which is (in my opinion) a problem with the readers, not the story. No: anyone who can suspend disbelief enough to accept the "transporter room" in Star Trek should also have no objection to the science in this story.

The problem I had with this story was the characters. They were all caricatures. The women, for example, we all the same. Every single female character had the same personality: emotional, demanding, and irrational. Oh, except for the whores, who were manipulative and viscious. There was no real complexity, no real development. The men were plot devices used for describing situations that he wanted to set up, and the women were there as foils for the men.

Crichton obviously knows a lot about genetics, as is displayed in this book and many of his others. My recommendation to him is that between now and writing his next book, he get out in the world and learn a little more about women. Or even people in general. ( )

This is a strange and disjointed book. The scientific and legal sections are understandable, interesting, and thought provoking. The arguments against gene patents had me so riled up, I sought out the authors website and followed up with the Congressional Bill status reporting site, www.thomas.gov. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 got pulled in May and there doesn't seem to be much action to reform gene patenting except in Canada and Europe. The plot and action sections are jumbled, often disappointing, and well, awkward. Gerard the Parrot upstages the other characters which include bounty hunters, elementary school thugs, an unstoppable femme fatale, and an imprecating polyglot orangutan. There are the usual techno dweebs and evil bureaucrats but I couldn't find a hero except for maybe the author himself with his appeal for patent sanity. Too often I felt like what I was reading was meant for direct translation to the screen and then, out of the blue, a pedophile wannabe appears, then we are back to Gerard the perfect animated comic relief, then someone's bowel movements become rapid fire ammunition, then we have a long obtuse courtroom scene . . . Narrative cohesion is seriously lacking here but the multitalented author is a genius and way beyond my understanding (I'm not being sarcastic) so maybe he is getting with the new disjointed media. A science thriller is a diverting and invigorating way to be entertained and learn something at the same time. I just rank the book as a whole among Crichton's less successful. I disliked the science in "State of Fear" but liked the story. Before that, I really liked "Prey" and one of the reasons was the balance between the two. I also liked "Timeline" which had wacky science and a predictable plot, but interesting history throughout. ( )

This is a strange and disjointed book. The scientific and legal sections are understandable, interesting, and thought provoking. The arguments against gene patents had me so riled up, I sought out the authors website and followed up with the Congressional Bill status reporting site, www.thomas.gov. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 got pulled in May and there doesn't seem to be much action to reform gene patenting except in Canada and Europe. The plot and action sections are jumbled, often disappointing, and well, awkward. Gerard the Parrot upstages the other characters which include bounty hunters, elementary school thugs, an unstoppable femme fatale, and an imprecating polyglot orangutan. There are the usual techno dweebs and evil bureaucrats but I couldn't find a hero except for maybe the author himself with his appeal for patent sanity. Too often I felt like what I was reading was meant for direct translation to the screen and then, out of the blue, a pedophile wannabe appears, then we are back to Gerard the perfect animated comic relief, then someone's bowel movements become rapid fire ammunition, then we have a long obtuse courtroom scene . . . Narrative cohesion is seriously lacking here but the multitalented author is a genius and way beyond my understanding (I'm not being sarcastic) so maybe he is getting with the new disjointed media. A science thriller is a diverting and invigorating way to be entertained and learn something at the same time. I just rank the book as a whole among Crichton's less successful. I disliked the science in "State of Fear" but liked the story. Before that, I really liked "Prey" and one of the reasons was the balance between the two. I also liked "Timeline" which had wacky science and a predictable plot, but interesting history throughout. ( )

This is a smart science-based thriller about the ethical and legal issues surrounding genetic engineering. Crichton manages to cram so much material and thought into this book, that I'm almost shocked it's still a page-turner, but it is. The characters are absolutely believable, and the situations are frighteningly believable. Many of the questions addressed here are already drifting into our court-systems, and I'm sure some of the others are sure to follow. Yet, at heart, this is an intelligent novel that entertains even as it drives thought--I can't recommend it highly enough if you're interested in either the subject or the genre. There's also plenty of humor in the book, which is a welcome addition to the action and suspense. For animal lovers, especially, this will provide plenty of smiles. My only warning? This is a book that you need to read relatively quickly, whatever that is for you. There are so many different sub-plots and characters that you can't just drift through this one over the course of two or three weeks while reading other books on the side---though, really, the book will probably hook you quickly enough that you won't Want to put it down.

Yet, I do have some qualms that make it a less-than-five-star read, for two small reasons that don't really detract from the book in the end, Depending on you subjective take on what you want to gain from reading and your taste. First, there are So many sub-plots, that at times I was frustrated at how they'd all fit together. Yet, Crichton never let go of the ones that held the most interest, and balanced them admirably. Once I'd finished the book, considered the work as a whole, and given some thought to the title, I was satisfied with the structure and just decided to reread it at some later date if I have time--still, it was at times an inkling of an annoyance as to how it would all come together in the end.

Second, Crichton does have an agenda here. He did extensive research, and there's a "for further reading bibliography" at the end of the book that gives the proof, along with a short essay-like list of Crichton's post research conclusions on the questions he explores. For me personally, this is a welcome addition to the book, but then, I like books that make me think. If you're looking for a thriller that you can pick up and put down, reading it without letting it affect your thinking or drive you to consider larger contemporary issues facing our society, this may not be the best book for you. For me, again, I think it was well done, and makes this an intelligent book, but I realize others are looking to solely escape reality with their reading...and for them, this may not be quite sci-fi enough or live up to Jurassic Park, though I'd say it surpasses the earlier works that I've read.

In the end, if you're interested, I recommend it, but with the understanding that it's not for everyone, as described above. ( )

This book is based around the Genetics Industry and how everyone of the companies is trying to be the first with the miracle cure to the diseases of the world.

Unfortunately the reason behind it though for the companies is not the glory of helping mankind but the money they would make on the sales of the products and the pantents.

The story is loosely based around the company called BioGen who own the Burnett line. DNA from someone who they cured of cancer and from this used his cells to create the next big selling drug.

At the same time as this we follow seperate stories where tests have been carried out on Parrots and Chimps so that they gain the chance to talk and act as normal human beings (the latter in the case of the Chimp. But no one wants to bring this forward as the radical finding it is as it was all done in secrecy and illegally.

The strands come together when the Burnett line is destroyed by an investor who thinks that the control is has over the company will be diminished if this new line succeeds as planned. All of which leads to Frakn Burnett going into hiding and the BioGen company sending Bounty Hunters to chase down his daughter and grandson. The reasoning being if they owned his DNA/cells then they also own those of the Daughter and Grandson. And they were going to get them at any cost.

A good book and an easy read. And totally believable to be honest. You could see this happening even if the morals behind the companies thinking were dubious. But when money is involved............. ( )

Science fiction doesn't normally do it for me, but I absolutely adored Michael Crichton's Next. His story lines managed to strike the perfect balance between fiction and fact, and created a fast paced, enjoyable read which was still informing and thought provoking.
Although some storylines were a tad on the unrealistic side, the facts and research behind them still checked out, and they left intact the real-life issues behind them. Yes, the novel was at times slightly unbelievable, but it was this side of the story which turned it into such an enjoyable read. ( )

Generally I enjoy quasi-realistic science-fiction works, but I couldn't find much quasi-realistic in this novel. Even though I'm no expert in genetics, the science and situations described in this book were unrealistic and I couldn't feign to believe them enough to enjoy the story (which wasn't all that great either). ( )

I thought this book was very entertaining, however it was really hard to follow. There were too many stories going on at once, though they all kept my attention. There really was not a dull moment in this book. Right from the very beginning I found it to be a hard book to put down. The ideas discussed in the story were interesting because one day they might happen. Even right now, some of the moral issues in the story are being talked about in real life. The relationships between the all of the characters in the story are very real. Also the connections between the characters fit together nicely, and of course that helped combine some of the stories. So there weren't so many and they weren't so overwhelming. I found Gerard (the talking parrot's) story the most entertaining. It was a perfect combination of seriousness and humor. I have read books like this before and I feel that a story like this could very easily become predictable, however this one did not. Some of the endings did disappoint me a little. They weren't very clear and there was more than one way to read them. This may just be one of those books that you have to read more than once to completely understand it. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and might want to read it again in the future. ( )

Next is not a typical Crichton novel. It's full of the high tech, cutting edge science of genes and how their misuse in medical procedure will affect the world we live in. The central theme is very sound and will keep you captivated. This is just as well, since there is no strong plot line to keep you reading. There are too many characters, very vaguely (and improbably) connected, all with connections to the gene modification industry or affected by it in some way. Next is not a book that can be picked up and put down since it's difficult to keep up with the plethora of story-lines, and because only the animal based strands stand out, it is difficult to remember where the other threads are going - in fact, there are quite a few dead ends. Crichton is shoehorning in stories to emphasize his viewpoint on the wayward use of gene experimentation, it's interesting reading, but there is none of the compulsive reading that he has created previously. ( )

I'm a little torn over this story. While it was quite preposterous at times, I still found it very thought-provoking. My favorite part of the entire book was the author's note at the end of the book. I was fascinated and concerned over the facts that the author outlines after all is said and done. I think the story stretched the facts and possibilities a little too far, causing it to be preposterous, but based on possibilities left open by current laws. The story was a little far-fetched for me, but the facts that the story was based were very intriguing. ( )

I picked this up to read for fun, but it is a 21st C retelling of Frankenstein, which I am teaching to seniors in high school this semester. It was a fun read, even more for the connections. ( )

I liked how most of the multiple storylines came together in the end, but some of them were just completely ignored. Additionally, while the individual chapters were intriguing, the book as a whole was a bit disjointed. ( )

http://pixxiefishbooks.blogspot.com/2...

I didn't have quite the visceral reaction to this book as I did to The Da Vinci Code, but almost. My mom left this book behind after coming to visit one weekend, and so I figured I'd read it.

In his book, Crichton states that Next is a work of fiction, 'except for the parts that aren't.' He then leads the reader through a dizzying whirlwind of genetic science events. A drug addict is cured by a gene therapy that causes accelerated maturity. A cancer patient who donated some of his cells for gene therapy to a university loses control over those cells, and those of his descendants. A monkey-boy is created when a researcher injects some of his sperm into an ape. You dream it up, Crichton's probably already put it in his book.

According to a review in the New York Times, 'oddity after oddity in 'Next' checks out, and many are replays of real events.' To which I respond, 'Sure, but so what?' Just because something is true, doesn't make it worth reading. I've studied enough law and read just enough science to know that certain genetic procedures are still currently operating in a Wild West as far as patent law is concerned. I even agree that some, if not all, of these developments are troubling. But if you're trying to bring the issue to the forefront, why not do so in a less tabloid-esque way?

And that, I guess, is my main problem with this book. Fundamentally, I can agree with Crichton's main thesis. A novel with a thesis, you may ask? While certainly not every work of fiction can be said to have a central thesis, in an Author's Note to Next, just in case you didn't 'get it', Crichton clearly lays out his five conclusions:

1) Stop patenting genes.
2) Establish clear guidelines for the use of human tissues.
3) Pass laws to ensure that data about gene testing is made public.
4) Avoid bans on research.
5) Rescind the Bayh-Dole Act [which grants universities, small businesses, and non-profit institutions in the U.S. the control and ownership of any intellectual property on inventions resulting from federal government-funded research, rather than the IP rights going to the government].

On their face, these are laudable goals. And a novel, of course, does not have to be neutral in its politics. However, I find Crichton's method of hammering the reader over the head with example after example of why our current legislative scheme (or lack thereof) is faulty, to be tedious, deplorable, and even somewhat insulting. Next is geared to prove that these five conclusions are inevitable. While this may or may not be true, a proper exploration of the issues would have been more appropriate. A proper exploration could very well, in fact, lead to the same five conclusions, but without me feeling like I've been dragged through 300 pages of bias to get there, leaving me a happier reader as a result, and perhaps more concerned about the issues.

But Next dismisses any need for a proper debate. It says, 'It's so obvious,' and then throws 37 different examples my way. It portrays the guys (yes, mostly guys) in the biotechnology business as cowboys, bent on getting the results they want at any cost. Everything is black and white. Even those issues that could have been dealt with more subtly are painted with fat brushstrokes: Alex - whose father is the cancer patient mentioned above whose cells, and those of his descendants, are now 'owned', as it were, by the university who developed a particular gene therapy - is a lawyer. But wait! - she's not a blood-sucking, money-leaching lawyer, like all the others in the book. She is nice and cuddly, and prefers to settle matters out-of-court whenever possible, rather than dragging everything out into a prolonged court fight. She only starts to get mean when her son is threatened. I mean, c'mon - it's her son! And then there's David, the 4-year-old 'monkey-boy', who is rescued by the researcher who created him when it turns out David is scheduled for termination (due to the lab being worried about the ethical ramifications that may arise if David's existence is discovered, though why that hadn't happened earlier when David first started showing signs of being anything other than a regular ape is a good question, but I digress). He is brought to live with the researcher's family in California, and things only come to a head when another young boy starts challenging David. But this boy is not just your average neighbourhood bully, not just that kid who didn't get enough hugs from his mother when he was very young - oh, no, this kid is mean, escalating from a brief schoolyard scuffle to an actual gunfight in the blink of an eye. Shed no tears for the bully; David needs them all.

Crichton dumbs down the issue by using such broad, obvious strokes. In addition, the style of the book, with its short, fast-paced chapters, cutting from storyline to story line, and interspersed fake news articles written to look as if they are real, further debases the actual importance of these issues. Really, all I ever needed to know about cloning, I did not learn from Jurassic Park (to be fair, I have not read the book), and I am dismayed at the thought that people will think they have 'learned' about genetic testing from Next.

Final thought: For an example of how to rewrite Next - even in such a way that it has almost exactly the same plotlines - but with less bias and more exploration of actual issues rather than the panic-stricken tone adopted here, take a look at Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. In it, Stephenson clearly and concisely sets out the history of cryptography, and also explores future possible developments of the technology of cryptography, both good and bad. It's a big book, and will take you longer than 3 days to read (which is roughly how long it took me to get through Next, mostly while commuting to and from work), but there are certainly worse things on which you could waste brain-cells and time. ( )

I haven't read many good reviews of this book so I went into it with pretty low expectations, which I think helped. The biggest problem with this book is that it has no plot. Most chapters are only a few pages long and in most chapters new characters are introduced. There are a few recurring characters, but mostly we just get snippets. What we're looking at is what the world would be like if genetic engineering was successful and commonplace. What would happen if we could really put human genes into animals--could we create a cross between a human and a chimpanzee? Should we? What if we could modify the genes of wild animals so they would display logos for big companies--then those companies could "sponsor" animals and they'd be less likely to go extinct. If we could find the gene for drug addiction, could we fix it? Could we sue our parents for passing on to us defective genes? If your husband had a gene that predisposes him to infidelity, could he really be blamed for sleeping around? What if companies could patent genes? Would they then own the genes that we all carry in all of our cells? Would they have the right to retrieve those genes any time they want? This is just a book of what-ifs, no real plot, but I still found it to be somewhat entertaining. At the end I was annoyed by the author's note that repeats back the author's main points, in case you didn't get them in the story. If these sort of questions interest you, I'd recommend reading this, but if they don't, feel free to skip this. ( )

Not fantastic, but pretty interesting look at how biogenetics is liekly to affect our lives in the years ahead. ( )

Crichton raises questions with horrifying implications about the direction of genetic research. A number of scenarios interlock and overlap to explore the various impacts of science gone very wrong in this compelling and highly readable novel. Crichton has adopted a style that cuts from scene to scene and sometimes challenges the reader's ability to keep track. ( )

Next is a pseudo science mystery thriller. This Crichton finds the protagonist in an ethical dilemma with regard to a genetic engineering experiment in which he participated.

Early on, the book is a bit disjointed as the author shares with the reader seemingly unrelated events. Before long these events start to connect and then, in a manner too cute, fall into place.

Crichton had an ax to grind and did it within his tale, Next. ( )

The central theme of Crichton's work was dead on, but the way the separate stories came together in the end seemed entirely too contrived and hokey. Once it became apparent how things would end, the entire tone of the book went from interesting to camp. ( )