Eulalia reviewed Next: A Novel by Michael Crichton
Muddled but important
3 stars
Doesn't feel like a story at all, more a bunch of thoughts about genetic engineering bundled together. It's like the writer had too many ideas and couldn't choose one to stick to. My main problem with this is that there are just way too many characters, some are important to remember for later and some exist in one chapter and are never heard from again. All characters are unlikeable except for Gerald the parrot. On the positive side, I found this an easy read despite the structure. All his ideas both interesting and horrifyingly possible. Many chapters start with a real-world news article about genetic engineering and at the end of the book is a well thought out list of the real worries about the science and what laws could be changed for the better. In the beginning of the book a man is constantly being given blood tests, he …
Doesn't feel like a story at all, more a bunch of thoughts about genetic engineering bundled together. It's like the writer had too many ideas and couldn't choose one to stick to. My main problem with this is that there are just way too many characters, some are important to remember for later and some exist in one chapter and are never heard from again. All characters are unlikeable except for Gerald the parrot. On the positive side, I found this an easy read despite the structure. All his ideas both interesting and horrifyingly possible. Many chapters start with a real-world news article about genetic engineering and at the end of the book is a well thought out list of the real worries about the science and what laws could be changed for the better. In the beginning of the book a man is constantly being given blood tests, he worries something is wrong with it but in reality his blood was found to have a valuable attribute and the doctors are harvesting without his permission for profit. This is totally legal as his blood becomes their property after extraction. His part of the story is how he deals with this betrayal from medical professionals and how the legalities effect him and his family. After the story the writer explains how it's true that a business can own your blood (or other body bits) after taking them US under current laws and even try to patent parts of it/you.
