I like Michael Crichton. He's one of the best writers of science fiction out there today. Sometimes he comes out with a clunker, like Congo, but his style is easy to read and even when his premises are stupid, it's hard to put his books down.  He has enough of a scientific background so that even when he's making stuff up, he can do it credibly.  I loved State of Fear, which was about climate change.

Next is about the dangers of stem cell research and medical cloning.  It's a good, exciting read, but not as good as some of his others.  Part of the problem is that he tries to cover so many different areas of ethical thin ice that he can't really integrate them all into the story.  The bit about the teenage girl selling her eggs is horrifying, yet little more than an aside in the larger tale.  That sort of extra makes the book seem a bit scattershot.  Jurrasic Park did a brilliant job of showing the dangers of science run amok. Next takes the same theme and applies it to today's political hot potato. Crichton takes what is really happening out there and runs gleefully to it's logical conclusion.  Next doesn't have anything as sexy as dinosaurs to sell the point, but the point is made, none the less; Dr. Frankenstein is alive and well and living off of your tax dollars. 

 

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