A review by protoman21
Micro by Michael Crichton

3.0

This certainly felt like a Crichton novel, but you could tell there was something just a little bit off. I wanted to love this book and wanted for it to recapture the feelings I got when I read some of Crichton's classics, but the intensity just wasn't there. There were moments where I was really into what was happening, but these were overwhelmed by a general sense of apathy. All the pieces were there: man tampering with science and nature, a group of scientists brought in from the outside, a megalomaniac behind it all; they just didn't click together in the way only Crichton at his best is capable of. I will say that the Peter Jansen twist was a good one, and something I did not see coming at all. I once heard that the Lost creators originally wanted to kill off Jack halfway through the first episode. Ironic that Micro, which is also set on a tropical island successfully pulled off this daring plot twist. Although I was most attached to Peter at the time, I wasn't so attached that I felt completely betrayed by his early and sudden death. The odds were stacked so high against the micro humans that any of them survived was astounding. It definitely put more tension in the remainder of the book since at that point you realized that nobody was safe and the authors were willing to kill off all of the main characters if need be. I rate this three stars mainly because it didn't live up to Crichton's best works. I enjoyed the book, but it isn't one I will remember forever.