Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List}
Book Review: Micro
by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston
by Karen S. Wiesner
Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review.
Micro was published in 2011, three years after Michael Crichton's death. The technothriller manuscript was found on the author's computer untitled and unfinished with notes and research for completing it. The publisher chose author Richard Preston (a writer for The New Yorker who was also a bestselling science author) to finish it. In interviews before his death, Crichton spoke of working on a project that was an adventure story like Jurassic Park and would be "informative" but fun and would include information "about how our environment really is structured".
The story opens with three men found dead in a locked office building in Hawaii. There are no signs of a struggle beyond razor-sharp cuts that cover their bodies and a tiny, bladed robot that's all but invisible to the naked eye. The action moves to Oahu, where new drug applications are being founded with a groundbreaking "biological prospecting" technology. From there, the most brilliant microbiology graduate students are being recruited by Nanigen MicroTechnologies and herded off to a mysterious lab in the Aloha State. They're promised they'll be helping usher in a whole new scientific frontier. Instead, they're dropped into a hostile environment that requires their knowledge to not only navigate but to survive.
I was wary about reading this book, as I couldn't imagine it'd be as good as something the author had produced every year or so for more than four decades, and there were shades of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids hilarity…only on a much {cough} bigger scale. But I was definitely surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. It was every bit as fun and illuminating as the original author intended. Everything that should be in it is there. I heard there was talk of Dreamworks making a movie version of it, but I'm not sure if that ever happened.
Whether or not you've read this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale from a master of the fantastic and, you know, someone else who took what Crichton started and was able to seamlessly complete it.
Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.
Karen Wiesner is an
award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Find out more about her books
and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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