"Micro" by Michael Crichton, a Book Review

The physician faces an interesting modern problem: How to combine the objective world of science with the subjective world of patients. In the early days of medicine there was little science--just eye of newt, hair of toad. Now the science is overwhelming and the physician must struggle to find a place for the human in the medical arena overcrowded by the science. Sometimes that balance is difficult. The author Michael Crichton is a virtual metaphor for the problem.

Crichton is a physician who has never practiced medicine but transferred his refined scientific thinking into fiction. His works have been extremely successful commercially but have always been criticized artistically. The main target has been his characters that tend to be wooden, cliched, and slaves to the topic. That is true of Crichton's writing, as it is of most physicians. The science is the thing and the players are subservient to it.

Crichton died while undergoing lymphoma therapy and, subsequently, two novels were found unfinished. (Having two posthumous novels is a little spooky.) "Micro" was apparently one-third finished at his death and Robert Preston, the author of the fine non-fiction "The Hot Zone", finished the last two-thirds. Like "Jurassic Park", "Shrinking Man," and "Fantastic Voyage" it is a science fiction drama of size disparity. In this instance micro-technology has been developed to allow for the creation of tiny machines--and people made tiny--to explore, discover and develop the small world of plant and insect life to uncover new biochemistry for pharmaceutical use. Seven graduate students in related fields are invited to see the process, a company founder is apparently murdered, suspicions fall within the company, the possibility of micro-weapons is raised and eventually the grad students end up in miniature, fighting for their lives against homicidal insects, plants and miniaturized henchmen.

As usual, Crichton's characters are generalizations--thinker, jerk, superficial, and action hero--and, when motives are obscure, the character becomes a psychopath. Crichton seems mildly aware of these drawbacks and sometimes switches cliches, for example the action hero becomes a woman. But this is lip service. He is truly interested in the idea of the scientific and technical problems; the human condition he leaves to Conrad.

None the less the book is enjoyable and sometimes thrilling. The students come across poisonous plants, are hunted by bigheaded soldier ants and vicious centipedes, and bats are everywhere. One is stung and paralyzed by a queen wasp for her offspring in a hair-raising sequence.

As always with Crichton, there are interesting ideas, fascinating science pushed to the provocative speculative level and the read is exciting. No minimalist reviewer will like it--or admit it if he does--but it's a fun airplane book for us lesser mortals.