Picked up Michael Crichton after a long long time. Pleasantly glad to have discovered that his books still evoke the same level of engagement and adrenaline in me.

‘Next’ tells us stories. Horror stories of what might happen if genetic engineering is commercialized. If genes are played as a fiddle by the hunky dory capitalistic techbros. The book is thrilling. It is engaging. I docked out stars because it had so many parallels running that it is difficult for the reader to keep all of them in mind. And the science is a bit off at times (there is NO one gene that codes for one trait or one behaviour - it is extremely COMPLEX) but I think it was partly intentional by the author to make the point that scientists can be wildly unethical in exaggerating their claims and discoveries.

It’s not equal to Jurassic Park in its quality but is still a good read if you are a fan of some racy science fiction thriller.

This book was a very random purchase in Hoboken, NJ while waiting over two hours for the next train to upstate New York to visit a friend. I’d read a few books by Michael Crichton and this one was on sale for $7.00 (hard cover) so I grabbed it.

Next delves into scientific advancement. What is wrong, right, and where the line between them is largely overlooked. Medical related, of course, the story follows individuals as they face the consequences of things like genetic engineering, DNA decoding, genetic tampering, and one of the most insane things out there: gene patenting (side note, did you know 5% of the genes that make up who you are are patented and "owned" by companies?)

Are all the things going on in the book true? Most likely not. Could they be? Of course. That is what kept the book interesting to me. In this book I didn't really grow attached to the characters in the pages due to a lack of real character development but I did care about what they were doing to help change (some for the better, some not) the world in which we live.

Next is fast paced with lots of interesting tidbits of information in this sect of science, technology, and patent law. It makes the reality of cures, cloning, and judicial rulings in these matters rather scary. Not a read for everyone but if you like science and can stand an intersting book where you don't fall in love with the characters then I do recommend this book.

Man Micheal Critchton’s writing is amazing but man was this book just meh.

Somehow I've avoided reading any of Michael Crichton's books until now. Not intentionally, mind you. I just haven't done it.

I'm afraid I'm probably hooked. I'm going to have to read all of his books now. The creativity and natural writing style in Next drew me in and didn't let go throughout the entirety of the story, which is a bit long, but doesn't feel like it at all.

The story focuses on several different aspects of genetic research and genetic engineering from various angles involving legal, moral, and practical issues. According to Crichton himself, the science involved in the story is more fact than fiction. Crichton blends them so naturally that the lines are completely invisible.

I'm not sure which of Crichton's books I'll read next, but I'm far from finished with him.

I finished NEXT last night, having taken two months of bedside reading to move through it leisurely. I also read several of the reviews on this web site. I wonder if those who complain it "has no plot" actually finished the book. Crichton DOES pull together his disparate plot lines in the last few chapters.
Its important to keep in mind, as one reviewer pointed out, that Crichton is a satirist. Here he mixes his serious material with raw comedy, going way over the top at times.
It might have helped if Crichton(alas, the late Michael Crichton) had put his chapter on background research up front; then his purposes might have been better revealed and fewer readers dissapointed or--if my suspicion is true--scared off.
This is a fun book. Grim fun, to be sure, but that's often true of SF humor. Much of it is a send-up of that profile of high-seriousness that drug companies bring to all they do, often lulling the public into an acceptance of highly questionable methods.
Should we be pissed at Voltaire for taking his narrative "too far"?
Crichton is not trying to paint an accurate picture here of how far things have come. Well, yes he is. But he's much more concerned, I feel, with what's coming NEXT, if this goes on.

A 3.5 - 4 star.

Lots of good elements to this, topic of gene editing could not be more fascinating. Also unlike Jurassic Park which had alot of dense scientific explanations, this one is written in a way that is authentic yet explains what's going on in a simplified manner. The drawbacks here however are in the story and an overload of characters. Even though the voice of each character was portrayed well, there were just far too many to keep track of.

If had to describe the plot would say snippets of lives of numerous people affected by gene editing. Even halfway in, I couldn't say who was the main protagonist or what was the plot of the book. Rather felt like a compilation of many stories interspersed between each other. The finale gets a bit action packed but still didnt feel like wrapped up all threads.

While I enjoyed the incidents and legal ramifications, would have been quite something if had a valid beginning, middle and end. Regardless, I particularly enjoyed the lawyers in this, as were ready to come up with some brilliant runarounds to defend action which are clearly immoral and absurd, yet make sense legally. There was also a strong similarity to planet of the apes movie which reckon they must have inspiration from here. And ofcourse Gérard the parrot, a real fun character.

Overall, its a fascinating topic and well researched, but not much for a well rounded plot, more of a fun read on lives of people involved around the gene editing field.

„Dieser Roman ist reine Fiktion,
bis auf die Passagen, für die das nicht gilt.“

Ehrlich gesagt, beschäftigt mich dieses Buch weitaus mehr, als ich es gedacht hätte. Gerard & Dave - absolute animal boss babes!!

Este no es mi favorito del autor y es que me tenía acostumbrada a thrillers.
O sea, no digo que en este libro no hubiesen situaciones que, como mínimo, te ponen nervioso, pero este libro no tiene una historia central, sino varias historias que pueden llegar a relacionarse como no.
El tema principal es la inigeniería genética, la experimentación con genes y aborda dentro de las situaciones de ficción, problemas éticos que pueden presentarse cuando se expeimenta con eso. ¿Hasta dónde se puede llegar con la modificación genética de seres (humanos o animales)?
Los problemas legales que pueden presentarse y lo que pasa si los científicos son irresponsables con sus metodologías y experimentos.
En ese sentido es súper interesante y en ocasiones aterrador, porque el mundo científico que propone es de locos, no tiene límites y eso hace que quieras seguir avanzando.

Lo que hace que no sea tan bueno, es la falta de hilo principal, uno lee como avanzando no más pero sin un propósito específico y por eso les recomiendo que si van a leerlo, lo tomen como una serie de anécdotas.

De todas maneras fue muy entrete de leer.

I have Michael Crichton to thank for my transition from young adult fiction to adult fiction. After devouring Timeline at 12, I was in shock that books could be this good – filled with crazy science, time travel, and terrifying fights for survival.

It was fantastic to discover that not all books were about teens overcoming drug addictions/abuse or silly teenage hormonal problems.

Apart from Harry Potter, no book has consumed me like Crichton’s at that point. I read very few YA novels after that milestone in my life.

In the ten years since Timeline, I read many of his novels – some better than others – but for the most part all great and twisted reads.

So, when I was in the mood for a sciencey thriller, I picked up Next, the last novel he completed before he died in 2008.

It pains me to say it, but it fell flat for me. The chapters jumped from character to character, as his novels normally do, but here it seemed as though every chapter introduced a new character – even well past the halfway point. I should have made a character list to keep track of who was who and who did what in the gene field.

I felt no connection to any of the numerous protagonists and by the time they did something interesting, the chapter ended, a new character was thrown at me and I had to wait many pages to see them again, by which time I’ve forgotten what they’ve done.

Despite the badass ending, the book was a big ‘meh’ for me. It was a plateau for the duration of the read, and never really built up to an explosive ending.

I think I’ll just stick to rereading Timeline and Jurassic Park.

Really loved this one! I found the stories so interesting and a little unnerving since it all seems so possible.
I struggled a bit with the amount of characters and all the different storylines. It was a little tricky keeping everyone straight when there wasn’t much character development. But each individual storyline was great, so I really didn’t mind.

NEXT BY MICHAEL CRICHTON: I’m still trying to figure out how this manuscript landed in the hands of an editor and actually got the go ahead to be published in time for Christmas. I can’t help but think about all those dads that are going to be so disappointed on December 26th when they crack open the book and find a collection of plot lines with confusing characters and stories that seem to go nowhere.

In Prey and State of Fear, Crichton did what he does best in providing a well researched book with a riveting and thrilling plot, thought I felt the latter a little heavy handed with a viewpoint I didn’t necessarily agree with. Compared with Next, I seriously wonder what happened? The book seems barely half finished, even though if runs on for four hundred pages. There are around five to seven plot lines each with their own vague characters that the reader has to struggle to keep straight going on in their own seemingly inane direction. Near the end of the book a few of these plot lines cross over forcefully at the author’s hand, and then the book ends and the reader is left wondering where the rest of the book is. What happened to the basic rule of a story? Instead of a beginning, middle and an end, the reader gets a weak infrastructure of a beginning, with part of a middle which suddenly ends!

Combined with this is the overarching philosophy of this novel (which I hope Crichton doesn’t subscribe to himself) where every person is one who sees life only for personal gain, to be rich, and feel constant pleasure. The women are always bombshells to be used and discarded, while the characters in general will stop at nothing to satisfy their pathetic personal whims.

As for the learning portion of the novel – with Prey it was the risk of nanotechnology, with State of Fear global warming – Crichton is very heavy handed in the risks of gene therapy and engineering, running the gamut from talking (and by this I mean with extensive vocabularies) parrots and orangutans, to the risks of human cloning, to bounty hunters trying to kidnap and steal tissues from innocent people who simply happen to possess the same DNA as a family member who had his cells declared property of UCLA in a court of law. While Crichton is trying to make the blatant point of “Watch out, this is what can happen,” it comes off as over-the-top farce and tomfoolery. And if it wasn’t made clear for you, he ends the novel with his note about how patenting genes is bad, as well as a list of other matters involving gene therapy, followed by a bibliography, just to show he did the work, supposedly

It is sad really, for I’d hoped Next would be the return to the great author who gave us truly brilliant novels like Jurassic Park, Sphere, and The Andromeda Strain, but Next can’t really be considered an actual book now, because of its failure in the rules of a novel on so many levels.

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Occasionally, I pick up a book completely outside of my usual genre just to see what others are reading and what's actually out there. Plus, a local charity shop sells 3 books for £1! I'm obviously aware of this author due to Jurassic Park.

Offensive content aside, (I'll come back to that), this was a page turner. I noticed that other reviewers found the numerous sub plots and multiple characters confusing. I was also worried about that at first, but I found that the key was to stay fully immersed in the book, and to read it in as few sittings as possible. Although, when starting the chapter I didn't always remember the characters being referred to, it was quite easy to pick it up from the details. However, I wouldn't recommend reading this a chapter a day....

The book deals with the dangers of humans meddling in genetics from all different angles. We have a chimp who can talk, feel and reason and could virtually pass as a human child, but for his abundance of hair. A parrot that also talks and has high intelligence. An experimental gene that makes people mature quickly. A company that obtains a court ruling that it owns the DNA (genes) of a man who has an extraordinary immunity to cancer. A man whose bones have been stolen in the grave for research purposes...

The author has created a world where genetics have gone haywire as things that wouldn't even have been thought about twenty years ago, are actually happening. People are playing God as they experiment with lives and the consequences are unknown...A scary prospect, even more so when the sources at the end of the book, in the author's note, document cases where some of these things have happened in the real world!

As a Christian, I liked that the author highlighted the dangers of messing with these things. Although, he was speaking about it from a mother nature point of view. I agree that there are things that should not be tampered with. Some of his scenarios seemed far fetched or unlikely. However, we know from books like 1984 that we can never say never....

The language was seriously offensive throughout with a lot of strong swearing and blasphemy. There were sex scenes that I skipped over as they were explicit. There wasn't too much violence. I didn't like that every male character was sleeping around despite mostly being married, as if this was and is the norm. Nor the way the men were lusting after all the women all of the time and being loudly vocal about it. Perhaps, this is what happens in some segments of society but I'm sure it's not the case everywhere! At least, I hope not.

So, what did I learn from my diversion into secular science fiction? That popular authors have to write R rated material to keep an audience entertained. That a lot of readers wouldn't bat on eyelid at the content as it's become commonplace....

I can't give this more than two stars...