Next

by Michael Crichton

Overview

Michael Crichton, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Jurassic Park, comes an astounding, eye-opening look at the world of genetics as it’s happening now, told as only Michael Crichton can tell it, with lightening fast pacing and thrilling chases.

Welcome to our genetic world. Fast, furious, and out of control. This is not the world of the future—it’s the world right now. 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 an adult human being resembles a chimp fetus? 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; test our spouses for genetic maladies and even frame someone for a genetic crime. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060873165
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/24/2007
Series:	Harper Fiction Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	110,343
Product dimensions:	4.18(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.26(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Michael Crichton (1942—2008) was the author of the groundbreaking novels The Andromeda Strain,  The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Prey, State of Fear, and Next, among many others. His books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and have provided the basis for fifteen feature films. He was the director of Westworld, Coma, The Great Train Robbery and Looker, as well as the creator of ER. Crichton remains the only writer to have a number one book, movie, and TV show in the same year.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

October 23, 1942

Date of Death:

November 4, 2008

Place of Birth:

Chicago, Illinois

Place of Death:

Los Angeles, California

Education:

B.A.. in Anthropology, Harvard University, 1964; M.D., Harvard Medical School, 1969

Website:

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/

Read an Excerpt

Next LP

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By Michael Crichton

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Michael Crichton
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060873035

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Chapter One

Division 48 of Los Angeles Superior Court was a wood-paneled room dominated by the great seal of the state of California. The room was small and had a tawdry feeling. The reddish carpet was frayed and streaked with dirt. The wood veneer on the witness stand was chipped, and one of the fluorescent lights was out, leaving the jury box darker than the rest of the room. The jurors themselves were dressed casually, in jeans and short-sleeve shirts. The judge's chair squeaked whenever the Honorable Davis Pike turned away to glance at his laptop, which he did often throughout the day. Alex Burnet suspected he was checking his e-mail or his stocks.

All in all, this courtroom seemed an odd place to litigate complex issues of biotechnology, but that was what they had been doing for the past two weeks in Frank M. Burnet v. Regents of the University of California.

Alex was thirty-two, a successful litigator, a junior partner in her law firm. She sat at the plaintiff's table with the other members of her father's legal team, and watched as her father took the witness stand. Although she smiled reassuringly, she was, in fact, worried about how he would fare.

Frank Burnet was a barrel-chested man who looked younger than his fifty-one years. He appeared healthy and confident as he was sworn in. Alex knew that her father's vigorous appearance could undermine hiscase. And, of course, the pretrial publicity had been savagely negative. Rick Diehl's PR team had worked hard to portray her dad as an ungrateful, greedy, unscrupulous man. A man who interfered with medical research. A man who wouldn't keep his word, who just wanted money.

None of that was true--in reality, it was the opposite of the truth. But not a single reporter had called her father to ask his side of the story. Not one. Behind Rick Diehl stood Jack Watson, the famous philanthropist. The media assumed that Watson was the good guy, and therefore her father was the bad guy. Once that version of the morality play appeared in the New York Times (written by the local entertainment reporter), everybody else fell into line. There was a huge "me, too" piece in the L.A. Times, trying to outdo the New York version in vilifying her father. And the local news shows kept up a daily drumbeat about the man who wanted to halt medical progress, the man who dared criticize UCLA, that renowned center of learning, the great hometown university. A half-dozen cameras followed her and her father whenever they walked up the courthouse steps.

Their own efforts to get the story out had been singularly unsuccessful. Her father's hired media advisor was competent enough, but no match for Jack Watson's well-oiled, well-financed machine.

Of course, members of the jury would have seen some of the coverage. And the impact of the coverage was to put added pressure on her father not merely to tell his story, but also to redeem himself, to contradict the damage already done to him by the press, before he ever got to the witness stand.

Her father's attorney stood and began his questions. "Mr. Burnet, let me take you back to the month of June, some eight years ago. What were you doing at that time?"

"I was working construction," her father said, in a firm voice. "Supervising all the welding on the Calgary natural gas pipeline."

"And when did you first suspect you were ill?"

"I started waking up in the night. Soaking wet, drenched."

"You had a fever?"

"I thought so."

"You consulted a doctor?"

"Not for a while," he said. "I thought I had the flu or something. But the sweats never stopped. After a month, I started to feel very weak. Then I went to the doctor."

"And what did the doctor tell you?"

"He said I had a growth in my abdomen. And he referred me to the most eminent specialist on the West Coast. A professor at UCLA Medical Center, in Los Angeles."

"Who was that specialist?"

"Dr. Michael Gross. Over there." Her father pointed to the defendant, sitting at the next table. Alex did not look over. She kept her gaze on her father.

"And were you subsequently examined by Dr. Gross?"

"Yes, I was."

"He conducted a physical exam?"

"Yes."

"Did he do any tests at that time?"

"Yes. He took blood and he did X-rays and a CAT scan of my entire body. And he took a biopsy of my bone marrow."

"How was that done, Mr. Burnet?"

"He stuck a needle in my hipbone, right here. The needle punches through the bone and into the marrow. They suck out the marrow and analyze it."

"And after these tests were concluded, did he tell you his diagnosis?"

"Yes. He said I had acute T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia."

"What did you understand that disease to be?"

"Cancer of the bone marrow."

"Did he propose treatment?"

"Yes. Surgery and then chemotherapy."

"And did he tell you your prognosis? What the outcome of this disease was likely to be?"

"He said that it wasn't good."

"Was he more specific?"

"He said, probably less than a year."

"Did you subsequently get a second opinion from another doctor?"

"Yes, I did."

"With what result?"

"My diagnosis was . . . he, uh . . . he confirmed the diagnosis." Her father paused, bit his lip, fighting emotion. Alex was surprised. He was usually tough and unemotional. She felt a twinge of concern for him, even though she knew this moment would help his case. "I was scared, really scared," her father said. "They all told me . . . I didn't have long to live." He lowered his head.

The courtroom was silent.

"Mr. Burnet, would you like some water?"

"No. I'm fine." He raised his head, passed his hand across his forehead. "Please continue when you're ready."

"I got a third opinion, too. And everybody said to me that Dr. Gross was the best doctor for this disease."

Continues...

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Excerpted from Next LP by Michael Crichton Copyright © 2006 by Michael Crichton. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

NEXT is populated with blood-pressure-raising villains who will keep you turning the pages.

Forbes

Provocative and entertaining.

Calgary Sun

Wonderful...NEXT’s a regular romp.

Evening Standard (UK)

(Crichton) carouses through the landscape of scientific development, presenting one frightening possibility after another. Michael Crichton isn’t for scaredybabies.

Daily News

A cracking dark tale about biotechnology and transgenics. Epic in style.

Birmingham Post (UK)

[Crichton] is a punchy, modern storyteller. NEXT is a popular thriller worth serious reading.

Adelaide Advertiser

[Crichton’s] latest is in genetics and his literary success is assured.

Mail on Sunday

NEXT is a page-turner, natuarlly; deft and dashing, eminently professional.

Daily Telegraph (London)

A complex and credible extension of present reality into the realm of the imagination. A highly readable novel.

South China Morning Post

Crichton sets up mind-boggling scenarios. The pace and intrigue last to the final page.

News of the World (UK)

It is devilishly clever...thoroughly enjoyable.

Aberdeen Press & Journal [Scotland]

(Crichton) is one of the most reliable purveyors of brain-engaged popular fiction at work today.

Sunday Express (London)

A satirical thriller that will have bookworms glued to their armchairs.

Denver Post

The writing is mentally sharp, with vignettes that make you wonder if you are reading satire or simply mild exagerration.

Houston Chronicle

A cracking pace...fast-moving plot with highly detailed research.

Sunday Telegraph (Australia)

NEXT will frighten, worry and amuse you, and keep you thinking long after its final words are read. Highly recommended.

Bookreporter.com

Read this book. It’s enough to scare the DNA out of you.

Baton Rouge Advocate

As entertaining as anything he has written since Jurassic Park.

Dallas Morning News

You realize what [Crichton]’s fictionalizing could be happening now, not “Next.” And that’s what makes it all so terrifying.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A compulsively readable beach book about the dawn of the biotech revolution.

National Review

Crichton’s latest techo-thriller raises fascinating ethical questions.

Christian Science Monitor

Crichton has created a series of vivid, thought-provoking morality plays, presenting key questions engendered by genetic research.

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Crichton addresses complex contemporary issues...into thrilling reads.

Newsweek

Crichton creates a series of fascinating dramatic situations that hold a reader’s attention right down to the last page.

NPR (All Things Considered)

[Crichton] invites a mass audience irresistibly into some of the Most Important Conversations We’re Not Having.

Time magazine

His plot, involving a score of main characters and a dozen different strands, defies summary but is completely brilliant.

Daily Mail (London)

Under Crichton’s imaginative scrutiny, body-part theft, the extinction of blonds and transgenic experiments...all loom on the horizon.

People

NEXT is a romp and a potboiler...a blockbuster science thriller...an entertaining read.

Philadelphia Inquirer

[NEXT] is a tribute to Crichton’s storytelling skill...the docmentation he sprinkles throughout the narrative teases us with speculation.

Los Angeles Times

[Crichton’s] in top form with NEXT....There’s a lot to like and to scare you.

USA Today

NEXT is one of Mr. Crichton’s more un-put-downable novels. Its emphasis is on excitement.

New York Times

"Crichton has created a series of vivid, thought-provoking morality plays, presenting key questions engendered by genetic research."

Globe & Mail (Toronto)

"Crichton creates a series of fascinating dramatic situations that hold a reader’s attention right down to the last page."

(All Things Considered) - NPR

"[Crichton] invites a mass audience irresistibly into some of the Most Important Conversations We’re Not Having."

Time Magazine

"Under Crichton’s imaginative scrutiny, body-part theft, the extinction of blonds and transgenic experiments...all loom on the horizon."

People Magazine

[Crichton’s] latest is in genetics and his literary success is assured.

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