Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures, No Hidden Agendas, New Attitudes, No Platitudes!
Crichton's book "State of Fear" provided a controversial view of global warming. His next book "PREY" told of the perils of Nanotechnology. Now his new thriller "NEXT" weaves genetic engineering into an incredible and almost believable story.
"NEXT" (published Nov. 2006) is the usual Crichton blend of fact and fiction in a story set in the near future. New twists and possibilities come alive with startling realism: a parrot that thinks, and acts like a tape-recorder to blackmail its owner and unmask villains; a chimpanzee with a mix of human DNA that is adopted and goes to school as a human child; a wild orangutan that swears in Dutch.
Many of us continue to think of time as progressing linearly. Yet Ray Kurzweil and others suggest that accelerating technology will bring advances in the next 10 years equivalent to 100, perhaps even 1000 years. We're approaching the time when human sperm and eggs can be sold online, when our unborn babies can be tested for genetic maladies. Most of us are not prepared.
Michael Crichton gives us a glimpse into the not-too-distant future. His "NEXT" challenges our sense of reality and morality, mixing funny with frightening, sensitive with shocking. Clever, believable and scary. The future is closer than you think.
