Michael Crichton. Next. New York: Harper, 2007. Print.

Michael Crichton was not politically correct. He wrote one of my favorite essays: “Aliens Cause Global Warming.” So in Next Crichton takes on both the media and academia. If he had not made such a killing with his earlier works like The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, his stuff would have been spiked. Taking issue with both the media and academia would be suicidal to most writing careers. Even sitting President Ronald Reagan was spiked when he wrote a pro-life book.

Next is at turns wild, funny, entertaining, and creepy. Next takes a serious look at genetic engineering through the stories of a number of different people and, uh, transgenic creatures.

We know about planting genes for phosphorescence in animals like rats and rabbits. What if we could plant such genes in animals that the public views and use them for advertising?

What might happen if we splice human genes for the voice box in an ape? What if we splice many human genes into an ape egg and it comes to term? What about human genes into a bird egg?

Many of us have heard of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the story of a cell line taken from a long-dead woman. Cells from her body have been replicated in the laboratory and used in many experiments, some of which have led to the development of new medicines and medical procedures.

Who owns such a cell line? Her heirs? The laboratory that obtained the cells? What can be done with them? Who has access to them? If her heirs have some of her DNA, are they liable to the same contract with the laboratory that obtained her cells?

These are all fascinating questions. Next asks them, but in the midst of a stirring tale. The answers are not easy and the problems multiply.

We have a biogenic engineering company that may have discovered a gene that increases mental stability in mice. Would a similar gene work for people? Are there side effects? What if they get into the wrong hands? Ah, you can see where this is going.

What if the main financial backer of this laboratory has a ne’er-do-well nephew whom he wants to give gainful employment to? And this nephew messes up big time? Was he set up? And what if this nephew is supposed to be in charge of the lab’s security, but because he is a slacker, the cell lines which have so much promise are contaminated?

Next tells us of scrupulous and unscrupulous lawyers. Of the terminally ill looking for a genetic repair. Of creatures that are part ape and part human. And one very funny or annoying parrot that also has human genes.

If I give blood or have an organ removed, can someone start a cell line with that? If I turn my cell line over to a laboratory (usually a hospital or university) can they re-sell it? Does that mean that since I still have my own cells in my own body, do those cells also belong to that lab?

Without going into a whole lot of detail, a potentially valuable cell line has been contaminated. The lab that now owns the line wants to obtain more cells from the donor. The donor has for several reasons gone into hiding. Is he absconding with stolen property since someone “owns” his cells? Crichton points out that in spite of the Thirteenth Amendment, the law is fuzzy.

When I was in middle school (we called it junior high back then), I went into an H.G. Wells kick for a bit: The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, A Short History of the World, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Wells embraced evolutionary theory (as does Crichton) but imagined mad scientist Dr. Moreau creating transgenic species that becomes a sci-fi horror story.

While Next clearly has a science fiction elements, it is set in the present day (2006, the year the book was written) and makes a case that such things it describes are possible. It may raise a few technical questions, but it raises more legal and ethical questions.

Besides financiers trying to make a buck, there is also a self-promoting college professor who spends most of his time speaking in conferences and making television appearances. Imagine a bio-geneticist Carl Sagan.

Interspersed are news articles, some bogus but most genuine, which truly illustrate the cynicism and sensationalism of even the supposedly staid and steady news sources. These are sometimes funny (will blondes be extinct by A.D. 2200?), but often just simply stupid. One of Crichton’s underlying themes is that no one, even with the scholarly journals, does fact-checking any more. Journalists and professors are just as gullible as anyone else.

One favorite observation in the book is from a private detective who says to himself that his most formidable opponent is a lawyer who owns a gun because he or she not only knows how to use the weapon but knows the laws governing its use.

As he has done in some of his other books, Crichton has a short essay at the end. In this case, it really a call to action with five points:

1. Stop patenting genes, it is comparable to patenting other body parts. For example, if noses were patented, then cooks and perfumers would owe royalties to whomever owned the patent. Are naturally occurring genes any different? This has been a problem with research into some diseases. For example, a lab owned a patent to the SARS virus, so few people could even study the disease, let alone find ways to fight it.

2. Establish guidelines for human genetic material. The book makes a clear case for this.

3. Make gene data public. People may need help. Now often only the rich can afford to pay for the data to help them fight a disease, be it an infection or an inheritance.

4. Avoid bans on research. Part of the novel seem to contradict this idea, but his point is if there are no bans, then the research will be publicized, and then people will be able to discern what is true or useful and also will not be tempted to go to extremes.

5. He also recommends the repeal of a 1980 law that gave universities the right to hold all patents and research from people who work for them and then sell the information as they see fit. In most cases, this has resulted not in a free exchange of ideas, but secrecy and obfuscation and using the research as a means to add to the school’s endowment.

There is also a fascinating annotated bibliography. Crichton speaks very highly G. K. Chesterton. Imagine a George Gilder who also wrote fiction. Anyone who speaks highly of Chesterton cannot be all bad.

Lest this review make it come across as academic, Next is not written that way. It is a page turner. It engrosses and grosses out at the same time.