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E C O N O M I C S
w i t h E D W A R D T R I M N E L L
February 23, 2008
What I'm reading:
Next
by Michael Crichton
As a reader I tend to be loyal. If an author really wows me once or twice, then I’ll stick with that author through subsequent books. This is true even when the author fails to deliver repeat performances. I am usually willing to wait for the writer to make a return to his or her glory days.
A handful of Michael Crichton’s books rank among my all-time favorites: Timeline, Jurassic Park, Prey, and Disclosure. Three of these have been made into movies, so I won’t rehash the plots here. (At the very least, every reader has seen the movie version of Jurassic Park by now.) None of these books are novels that are going to save the world or change the individual reader’s life. But they are entertaining page-turners; and when you’re stuck waiting in an airport or the dentist’s office, that is often enough.
Crichton’s 2004 novel, State of Fear, represents a departure from his previous streamlined thrillers. State of Fear is an allegorical tale about the debate over global warming. Before penning State of Fear, Crichton spent three years delving into his subject matter. The result is a book that is half fiction and half non-fiction: State of Fear contains numerous graphs, appendices, and fictionalized newspaper articles. The author also uses State of Fear as a forum to present his own views, as he speaks through the novel’s characters.
There is nothing wrong with an author who seeks to inform, or to draw conclusions from a complex body of technical data. Michael Crichton has a medical and scientific background. (He received an M.D. in 1969.) He is therefore more than capable of simplifying complex scientific issues for the typical untrained reader. The problem is that fiction is not the right venue for this task. If Michael Crichton wants to persuade and inform, then he should do so in a non-fiction format. When writing fiction, however, he should stick to the story.
Next (2006) is a novel written along the lines of State of Fear. Next takes genetic engineering rather than global warming as its theme, but this book shares many of State of Fear’s characteristics: more scientific detail than the plot requires, lots of fictionalized newspaper articles, and characters who give voice to the author’s opinions.
The result is a persistent feeling that Next is a work of fiction built around an argument rather than a story written for its own sake. Next is not a completely unsatisfying fictional experience, but I suspect that it will disappoint many readers who first knew Crichton from his Jurassic Park and Congo days.
