Next
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Recommended By
J. Kaye Oldner, Jerrett Taylor, and Rebecca Adler.
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Book Details
Written by Michael Crichton.
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($27.95)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction—is it worse than the disease?
We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.
We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes . . .
Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.
Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.
The future is closer than you think.
User Reviews (1) Login or create an account to write a review.
Rebecca Adler thinks this book is Good.
This was my first Michael Chricton book so I didn't really know what to expect. I was impressed with the author's ability to introduce and follow several different story lines simultaneously without confusing the reader. There were a few times when I couldn't remember who a character was, but remembered within a few sentences.
The story wasn't as exciting as the cover made it sound and it didn't really seem like a story, so much as a commentary on genetic engineering and the politics surrounding it. But this may be typical of Chricton. Like I said, this is the first of his books I've read. However, he did keep my interest and despite the length of the book it only took me two days to read.
Each character brings up a new concern with genetic engineering. For instance, whether a lab can own a person's cells because of their genetic ability to cure cancer, even though the person is still alive and indeed should own their own cells. It also questions the ethics of the scientists performing genetic experiments, such as those conducting cloning or mixing animal genes to create transgenic species.
Genetic engineering is a complex issue, and Chricton does a good job of highlighting a number of possible problems through the different characters he has chosen.