A review by wickedlyethan
Grave Descend by John Lange

4.0

"Grave Descend" evokes the Roger Moore-Era James Bond films : fun, thrilling, and a dose of silliness. However those movies came out in a time when most action movies could be described the same; Michael Crichton's adventure novel instead is a welcome throwback, an anachronism of storytelling that makes me long for a time when books and movies took it all a little less seriously. (And we're considerably shorter; at 166 pages the novel can be read in a long day or spread lazily or a couple evenings.) Written in 1970 while Crichton was a med student, one can see the shaping of his voice and style, but can also revel in the sincerity of an intellectual such Crichton pre- "Jurassic Park" letting himself tell the kind of pulp adventure he probably grew up with. Perhaps such tales made him want to be a writer. Perhaps such tales will make new readers go down the same road.