Next by Michael Crichton, Dylan Baker (Read by)

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(MP3 on CD - Unabridged)

Reader Rating: (172 ratings)

Detailed Rating: "Originality" See All

  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Pub. Date: November 2006
  • ISBN-13: 9780061284311
  • Sales Rank: 183,519
  • Edition Description: Unabridged
 
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Synopsis

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. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions, and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

The future is closer than you think. Get used to it.

Annotation

Check out the wild world of Michael Crichton's Next! This video features a Bug DNA Kit, where kids can experiment with the DNA of real live insects, and learn about genetics in a fun and exciting way! (Bugs not included.)

Steve Forbes - Forbes

Will cool your ardor for biotechnology. Crichton graphically portrays all the hideous things that can go wrong with genetic research. Critics carp that he exploitatively mixes fiction with fact to conjure up an array of Frankenstein-like outcomes. But so what? The last century showed us what the once popular, seemingly scientific idea of eugenics--the belief that we could improve human beings the way we improve animals and plants through selective breeding, planting and culling--led to. Most Western countries, including the U.S., forced sterilization on hundreds of thousands of people because the prevailing thought was that their bad genes shouldn't be passed on to future generations. The Nazis carried that idea to its murderous conclusion.

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Biography

It stands to reason that someone with as many pursuits as Michael Crichton (novelist, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, director, software engineer, M.D.) might achieve only modest success in any of them. But Crichton somehow excelled at them all. His books, suffused with his scientific research and knowledge, never failed to present imaginative, chilling scenarios that jumped from historical capers to futuristic sci-fi. He died on November 4, 2008, after a long battle against cancer.

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Customer Reviews

Awesome novel, I'm going to miss you Michaelby eoconnell

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June 25, 2009: Every book I have read by Chrichton has been excellent. All the way from the first to last I have enjoyed Mr. Chrichton to the fullest extent and Next is no acception. I was locked in as soon as I started this novel. I did not want it to end. The subject matter is extremely interesting and very realistic. Michael Chrichton does do his research. I went to his website to see if he published a new novel and thats how I found out he passed. I loved his books because he is a wonderful writer and I am going to miss his stories.

I Also Recommend: Stigma, State of Fear, Prey, Andromeda Strain, Timeline.

Simply Amazingby So_sane_its_insane

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June 07, 2009: I read this book in a critical mood, wanting to find every flaw in the book and complain about it. I almost WANTED this book to be bad. And if you want something to be bad, then your more likely to think its bad. But I thought this book was GREAT. It was origional, engaging, interesting and well thought out. A book that doesn't focus on one person or story to get its point across, a book that makes you think. A book about the future, where your cells can belong to somebody else.

The book has so many different plots intertwined that I can't give an adequate synopsis of it but can only tell you to read it.


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