PIRATE LATITUDES by Michael Crichton

Published in 2009.

The year is 1665 in Pirate Latitudes and the English colony of Jamaica is surrounded by a constellation of Spanish colonies. The Caribbean is in a near-perpetual state of war as English privateers attack Spanish treasure galleons hauling literally tons of New World silver and gold to Spain.

Charles Hunter is the captain of an English privateer ship named Cassandra (or, he is simply a pirate when Spain and England are not at war). He has learned that Spain has a fortress on a remote island called Matanceros to protect ships that attempt, but fail to make the trip to Spain. They cannot return to their port of origin alone. In fact, the less time they are alone and exposed to privateers, the better. So, Spain has built an impregnable fortress to protect such ships. 

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

At least it is supposed to be impregnable. Hunter is very sure that he has figured out a way that the perfect team can infiltrate the fort and then take the ship that it is supposed to protect. And, he has just learned that a ship full of treasure has taken refuge in the bay at Matanceros - just waiting for him to come and take it....

After Michael Crichton passed away in 2008 this completed and previously unknown book was found on his computer. This novel is a complete story but it is just feels like it was just not done. Parts of it hum along and feel like a Crichton story. There is intensity, science, and mystery. For example, the hurricane scene and the cannon scene and the abandoned island. Those scenes are all together and they feel like they have been worked over with a lot of care. Other scenes, such as the last few chapters, feel like a first or second draft. This makes for an uneven read, which really can't be helped. Crichton fans will want to read the book but they will wonder how truly great this short novel could have been if he had only had the time to really finish it.

I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Pirate Latitudes.

Next by Michael Crichton

Many hated it but I think it may be Crichton's best book

Published in 2006 by HarperCollins

I have not read all of Michael Crichton's books but I have come close. His best books are generally warnings about the dangers of science without the guidance of ethics: Just because you can do something - does that mean you should do it? 

Next delivers that theme in spades. It is all about genetic manipulation - not just genetically modified corn or houseflies. No, Crichton is talking about genetically modifying people to eliminate certain behaviors and even splicing human DNA into animals.

The book comes at the reader in a kinetic mish-mash of bits of plot from several plotlines, news headlines and news articles. This mess finally coalesces into a real story about halfway through the book and I assumed that Crichton's writing had deteriorated when he wrote this thing and he was just not able to juggle it all.

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

Then, I got it.

This out-of-control story is supposed to be out-of-control. It is haphazard, random and full of too many crazy coincidences that work together. This is the way that Crichton saw our current state of research and funding in science - it is a crazy mix that is working towards "sexy" discoveries but not thinking about their consequences. It is Jurassic Park, but not just restricted to an island. Instead, it is being shotgunned into our everyday lives. As Jeff Goldblum notes in the movie Jurassic Park: "Life finds a way."

Crichton is warning that a willy-nilly rush into these discoveries cannot be reversed.

Yes, the plot is contrived. Yes, there are too many coincidences. Yes, the characters are often shallow. But, Crichton also demonstrated that through coincidence, accident and fraud there will be consequences that we have not imagined.

It is a warning worth considering.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Next.

Reviewed on February 25, 2012.

Micro: A Novel (audiobook) by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

Although it is a collaboration, it reads remarkably like a typical Crichton novel

Published 2011 by Harper Audio
Read by John Bedford Lloyd
Duration: 14 hours

Unabridged.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 and left Micro as an unfinished manuscript. I have no idea how much of this book is actually Crichton's and how much belongs to Richard Preston. To me it felt like a typical Crichton novel.

A typical Crichton novel for me is a mixed bag. It has grand themes - truly big, big ideas with foundations in real science. Grand themes about the dangers of too much innovation without enough ethical considerations, lots of Gee Whiz stuff (think of the movie Jurassic Park where the paleontologists are mesmerized when they first see the dinosaurs) and laughable plot lines with sketch characters (the worst for me was State of Fear in which the big menacing bad guys were wedging themselves into Toyota Priuses as they stalked their opponents - yes, the Prius, the ultimate pursuit car!).

This book has all of that in spades.

The plot revolves around NanoGen, a Hawaiian start up company that has figured out (or stolen) how to shrink full-sized objects down to a very, very small size. People are about one half of an inch tall when they are shrunk. NanoGen claims to be using the technology to thoroughly search the Hawaiian rain forest for biological discoveries that  could be used to help create medicines. Their plan is to search the micro-world bit by bit (literally square foot by square foot) in tiny detail so that even creatures that cannot be seen with the naked eye can be harvested and investigated for possible uses in a bio-technology laboratory.

Micheal Crichton (1942-2008)

But, the bad guy in charge of the project also wants to use these tiny robots as weapons and has made plans to corrupt the original vision of NanoGen's founders. So, murder and mayhem result and soon enough we are following a group of college graduate students who have been shrunken and dumped into the rain forest in an attempt to get rid of even more witnesses (why weren't they immediately squished and flushed down the toilet? The bad guy is so over-the-top in his sadism that he wants to prolong their punishment, which of course eventually backfires.).

So, when our seven college graduate students are dumped in the rain forest (in the micro world as Crichton/Preston usually refer to it) we have several scenes that are reminiscent of Jurassic Park, except we don't have T. Rex and Velociraptors. Rather, we have centipedes, spiders, wasps and ants - all armored and all very dangerous to very tiny people. This part of the book is by far the best - the descriptions of the bugs, their habits, their defenses and their weapons are all fascinating. If it weren't for these details I would have to rate this novel poorly, but the descriptions are entertaining in and of themselves.

John Bedford Lloyd's narration of the book was solid but really did little to enhance or detract from the book.  His voices were solid. To be fair, most of the plot was inane, so it was not like he was working with a literary classic. His deep voice did add a lot to the menacing descriptions of the bugs.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Micro: A Novel.

Reviewed on December 27, 2011.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

A wonderful science debate cradled in a hard-to-swallow action story

Published in 2004 by Harper Collins.

State of Fear is really two books. One is by Crichton the science essayist. Crichton's scientific comments about the environmentalist movement are most interesting and well-put. This is the only work of fiction that I've read with actual footnotes in it! Crichton throws down the gauntlet in this one and wants you to look into it for yourself. If only Dan Brown had done the same with The DaVinci Code!

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

Crichton the story-teller is not at his best here. The plot is, for all practical purposes, merely a shallow medium to carry forth Crichton's scientific arguments. It does that but it is not, in and of itself, terribly interesting. If the scientific debates were removed from the book, the action could not carry the book on its own merit.

Read it for the different perspective on global warming, not for the plot. I give the scientific debate (with footnotes) 5 stars, the plot just one star. That's an average of 3 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: State of Fear

Reviewed on July 27, 2006.

Prey by Michael Crichton

A bit of smartly done, high-tech adventure

Published in 2002.

Michael Crichton is re-visiting some old stomping grounds in Prey. The 1970s sci-fi movie classic Westworld was written and directed by Crichton and it features technology run amok and set loose on a killing spree. Jurassic Park features the dangers of tampering with the gene pool with an ensuing killing spree.

Prey, in many ways, is a combination of the two - the dangers of nanotechnology, specifically the dangers of using bacteria in combination with tiny, tiny bits of technology to create something new. The problem is, of course, the same problem that he pointed out in Westworld and Jurassic Park: Things never turn out the way you think they will.

Michael Crichton
(1942-2008)

Is this a Pulitzer Prize winner? Hardly. But, it is a creepy thriller with some good points about science, the dangers of unintended consequences and some good thrills and chills. I enjoyed this one thoroughly.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Prey

Reviewed on August 20, 2008.

Note: This book turned up on a "banned book" list in Texas. Ugh.