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 or test our spouses for genetic maladies. 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.
Through fake tongue-in-cheek headlines and imaginative creations like transgenic (TG) dachshund-sized pet cockroaches, Perma-puppies, and deviant cacti growing human hair, Crichton gives listeners a satirical thriller with plenty to think about and more than a few giggles. Are your cells subject to eminent domain? Is genetic engineering already tinkering with transgenic animals and hybridizations? Through several stories that intersect, Dylan Baker gives one of those magical performances in which the narrator disappears and a world appears, populated by amoral biogeneticists, bounty hunters, bullies, and lawyers. Baker is a full-cast recording, creating an especially appealing Davy, a "humanzee." And as Gerard, a TG parrot who imitates famous movie lines, Baker is at his best, doing Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and a fantastic Bette Davis. Lots of fun. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Michael Crichton is best known for the novels Jurassic Park and State of Fear. He is also the creator of the television series ER. The first of his controversial novels was published while he was still in medical school.
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