Micro

I bought Micro from Flipkart, by pre-ordering the book, waiting in anticipation for the literal roller-coaster ride with the book. The last Posthumous work by Michael Crichton viz. Pirate Latitudes , was fantastic with all the old charm of Crichton books.
most annoyingly its release was delayed twice. And when it was finally published, the excitement was over way back.
The Micro has all the ingredients that made Michael Crichton books a wholesome read, but the end result is not quite "Crichton"ised.
The story has group of youngsters, big Jargon, Gruesome deaths, the unexpected help near the end and possibility of sequel in the end, but it still feels like the the characters are shallow.
When you read the book, you feel like you are watching "Honey, I shrunk the kids", with the same childish sense.
Well, It was filled with sci-fi stuff and all, but then literature is not just a text book.
Please stop writing in the name of Michael Crichton, if its not really written by the genius himself. We don't want another Bourne elastic series, where people write in the name of late Robert Ludlum and try to glorify crap books.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Book stands quite fatter than expected.
Approximate Pp - 660
About 26 Lines of text per page (the lowest I have observed in a paperback so far)
Paper quality and Print - Very Good
Font Size and Line Spacing - Excellent
Binding and Cover - Excellent

ABOUT THE CONTENT:
1. As described by everyone else, the idea is not new. However, the book does provide with some facts about insects, venoms, and other aspects of nature, albeit not too much.
2. Reading this story does help to perceive an understanding from a visually miniaturized point of view. The world does seem as deadly and dangerous at that scale.
3 The book definitely provides us with a food for thought about how exploration can be a virtue at the smaller scale, but also with how miniaturization and nanotechnology can be dangerous for the humankind, in terms of its usage in violence & war, or towards anything in nature for that matter.

I have been an avid Michael Crichton fan and have read all his novels. Consequently, Micro is a big let-down. Crichton's forte has been bringing to life scary possibilities in advanced science in a very realistic way and creating plausible situations that may arise from that. Micro is rather like a write-up of 'Honey I shrunk the kids'. The 'scientific' explanations are hardly detailed or believable and so make Micro a childish read. Scientific concepts Andromeda Strain were believable and scary, those in Jurassic Park or Congo may have been far-fetched but were written about in a much more realistic way. Micro fails to impress in either of those areas. The 2 stars are for pure entertainment value, the kind where you enjoy if you allow your brain not to think.

Though this was supposed to be his last novel, MC is not quite able to pack the punch that was expected from him.There are quite a few reasons for this. First, the plot in itself is not an original one. This just seems to be the adult'ish' version of Honey,I shrunk the kids. Second, the setting of the plot seems somewhat been there,done that. MC's obsession with Hawaiian settings is repetitive. All in all, it makes State of Fear a more compelling read. But for all those die-hard MC fans who were shocked by his death in 2008, this is a nice collector's item. It quite justifies why you need to buy this. Farewell MC.

PS: A word about Richard Preston. He seems to be the next big thing in suspense writings.

Micro makes good reading. It sure is a page turner. It has the tremendous appeal of being the last story written by a great story teller (an unfinished one at that).

But once you go deep, it disappoints. The science behind Jurassic Park was so believable, but Micro leaves you feeling cheated. Make no mistake, it is a great adventure story, just not a great science fiction story. But you cant expect the same fare from the author of novels extremely different from one another like Congo, Rising Sun and Timeline.