General info: Novel, published in 2006
Storytelling: 7 – I always enjoy me a good Crichton, no matter how far-fetched, unbelievable, or scientifically dorky his novels get. I usually pick up his works when I’m on vacation and want a fast-paced paperback that I can sail through while also learning a little something. This book and its content were overall pretty interesting, but I also overwhelmingly found that the story was a mess with too many subplots and characters. Crichton got a little too fervent about his political beliefs and left the plot and the characters in the dust a few times.
Crichton is foremost attacking how far we are taking genetic engineering and asking his audience how ethical some of our scientific practices have become. He presents the novel as being a blend of fact and fiction, leaving the reader to figure out the fine line. This means you spend the duration of the book being completely creeped out. Is it true 16-year-olds can legally sell their eggs without parental consent? Can you really genetically cross a chimpanzee and a human? Are animals really being “engineered” to glow in the dark? I know it’s already true that we can patent genes and that we are all walking around with 1/5th of our bodies already “owned” by someone. Very spooky stuff.
This is all wonderful food for thought, but rather than picking a few key issues and focusing on them while creating a great story, Crichton decides to spit it all out at once and include roughly a million characters who are all running around the world, either away from someone or to someone. They’re also all some form of stereotype: greedy businessman, money-hungry academic scientist, unfaithful trophy wife, goony bounty hunter. Additionally, every chapter or so there is also a fake news article referencing some new disturbing topic, perhaps to elucidate how easy it is to manipulate the public, but it just confused me more and interrupted the barely-there flow of the story. Finally, Crichton talks a lot about appearances and sex value, hardly any of the characters are faithful in their marriages, and there’s a disturbing section about child rape. Why an author as amazing as Crichton have to resort to shock value is beyond me.
Overall I appreciated the originality of the content and his pointing out that all of this could actually happen in the next few years (unlike Jurassic Park, right?) but Crichton could have made his case a lot more effectively if I didn’t have to constantly think to myself “Do I know this character yet? What’s happening? What country is this?” Sometimes simplifying is the best option. Too much detail makes for a very turbulent novel.
Writing: 6 – I don’t have much to say about the writing, aside from the fact it was just good enough for a story like this. To his credit, Crichton painted a picture of each scenario well (albeit there were far too many scenarios…) and his command of scientific jargon never ceases to impress. I am no scientist, but he laid out the relevant information clearly enough, and he did so in an easily intelligent way. Crichton is great at this and I think it’s a large part of why he’s so renown. He educates and entertains, which is often a tricky balance.
However, again, it was awfully hard to focus on the writing when the story was all over the map. There was also a lot of excessive description (again with that whole shock value thing) that took away from what could have been an excellent passage. I enjoy sexy scandal as much as the next person, but too much of the writing was devoted to details about secondary plotlines that should have been omitted. I felt like Crichton started getting high on his political ideas and was throwing in too many words. Again, simplicity is sometimes the way to go.
Characters: 6 – As I’ve mentioned ad nauseum here, there were far too many characters running around for my tastes. This made it hard to get to know any character intimately and feel like I could really appreciate their depth (or lack thereof). However, I have to give Crichton credit for having the imagination to think up so many different types and at least somewhat attempting to weave all of their stories together. He doesn’t do this in a forced and awkward way, which I appreciate. I always like a good little zing at the end.
However, I can’t really get over the fact that I was wholly unimpressed with everyone in this book. Not only were they half constructed, they were all completely unlikable. The only characters I actually enjoyed were the two transgenic animals, Dave (chimp) and Gerard (parrot). This isn’t terribly surprising, given what a huge animal lover I am, but I could tell that Crichton was trying to elicit the reader’s sympathy about other human characters in the book, and I feel as if he failed. Instead I just felt distracted and confused for most of the story.
For example, during one overly elaborate scuffle, bounty hunters are dramatically chasing a mother and her child to obtain cell samples from their internal organs. Apparently a company can legally “own” someone’s cells, and in this case the company, BioGen, needed to collect more of what they already rightfully owned, so they went running after this poor lady to get more cancer-fighting cell samples from her liver. She wasn’t too happy about this, and went on the run with a sawed off shotgun. However, my point here is that, I failed to really feel for her and her child. I found myself somewhat rolling my eyes and thinking that they should just give them the cells and move on with their lives. Rather than feeling any empathy, I think I was just annoyed with Crichton for erratically throwing crazy characters at me and having them run all over the state of California. Again, way too much going on.
Best part: Gerard, the highly intelligent and vocal transgenic parrot, reveals to his owner that her husband has been cheating on her. He does this by recounting all of the sounds he heard while the husband had another woman over to the house while she was away at a conference. This ultimately leads to her husband “misplacing” the parrot, assumedly out of revenge. I thought this was a clever plot twist on Crichton’s part, and a funny way for the bird to reveal its intelligence. Pretty unbelievable and depressing, but witty nonetheless.
Recommend to: People who don’t read all that often but are still curious about the scientific and genetic developments going on in our world. Also, anyone who likes parrots.
Reminded me of: Dan Brown. (Having to make this association saddens me greatly)
How I would murder the main character: Considering there were multiple main characters, I’d probably give them all equal treatment and inject them with some genetic rat virus while stealing some organ samples. And then I’d steal their leg bones.
Sexy parts: Oh this book was chock full of steam. The receptionist at BioGen is sleeping around with everyone, including the security guy and the president. There’s a steamy portion with a tall Slavic hooker in Las Vegas, who turns out to be helping steal embryos. Anyone who’s in a marriage in the novel is cheating on someone, most likely the tennis pro. And everyone wants plastic surgery. It’s a pretty pumped up novel. (pun intended)
To sum it up: A bold yet bewildering novel illustrating how genetic engineering has gone wild.
Overall: 6.5
