A review by burritapal_1
Drug of Choice by Michael Crichton, John Lange

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This is rather a silly book. Dr Roger Clark( two first names! ) is a night resident in a hospital in Santa Monica california. One night a Hell's Angel comes in, and the staff believes he's in a coma, because he won't awake. Though he was in a motorcycle accident, he has no sign of injury. The next day, he wakes up and says that he feels great. 

The same thing happens to a movie star: she comes in and the staff believes she's in a coma, but she just wakes up the next day feeling great. 

This is the beginning of a mystery that Dr Roger Clark pursues the answer to, and it involves him serving as a slave to a drug company who plan to take over the world using a drug. This drug, when taken, and someone bangs a tuning fork, makes the person believe any suggestion that you care to make is really happening. The opposite drug has also been developed: if it is taken and a tuning fork is thronged, any bad suggestion will make the world inside your head a living nightmare. So you definitely don't want to get on the wrong side of this drug company, as Roger Clark finds out. Oh yes, this drug turns your urine blue for a short while. 

" 'precisely. A most useful drug. You see, doctor, we are engaged in a kind of experiment here, an experiment in perception. We know, indeed everybody knows, that perception is altered by mental state. You may dine in the finest restaurant in the world, and eat the most superb food, but if you are in a bad mood, if your business has just gone bankrupt, if your wife has just left you, then this delicious, excellent food will taste like sawdust. And conversely: a ghastly meal in A tawdry restaurant may seem like a king's banquet if your mental state is disposed to make it so.'

'I don't see what all this--'

'all this,' LeFevre said, waving his hand around, "all this is a kind of extreme experiment. We assume that mental state colors our experience irrespective of objective reality. Normally, one must control experience in an attempt to produce the correct mental state -- to be happy, healthy, and carefree, one must spend vast sums to go to some Resort where your whims are realized. But suppose that the mental state could be controlled independent of experience? Eh? What then?' "

2 stars for effort from a very young Michael Crichton.