Review: Next
Michael Crichton was always about a decade before the rest of the world. Sucking dinosaur DNA out of bits of amber? Check. Computers taking over the world? Check. Time travel causing schisms in our universe and its travelers? Check. His last book seemed to look inward as much as ahead: to our cells and what's in them. Who owns a cell? Who owns a gene? Who owns the blood the doctors take from you to do tests? Rebecca Skloot was asking the same questions while writing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks during this time — and unfortunately, the ending has yet to be written for her non-fiction bestseller. Crichton takes multiple storylines and weaves them into a tapestry of confusion, deception, arrogance and chance. Frank Burnet's cells were taken by a doctor and used for research to develop a treatment worth millions of dollars, only Frank didn't know until much later, when he sued for a portion of the proceeds. Henry Kendall works at a lab in Maryland for a while...