Micro

A Novel

By: Michael Crichton, Richard Preston

Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd

Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

In Jurassic Park, he created a terrifying new world. Now, in Micro, Michael Crichton reveals a universe too small to see and too dangerous to ignore.

In a locked Honolulu office building, three men are found dead with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye.

In the lush forests of Oahu, groundbreaking technology has ushered in a revolutionary era of biological prospecting. Trillions of microorganisms, tens of thousands of bacteria species, are being discovered; they are feeding a search for priceless drugs and applications on a scale beyond anything previously imagined.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven graduate students at the forefront of their fields are recruited by a pioneering microbiology start-up. Nanigen MicroTechnologies dispatches the group to a mysterious lab in Hawaii, where they are promised access to tools that will open a whole new scientific frontier.

But once in the Oahu rain forest, the scientists are thrust into a hostile wilderness that reveals profound and surprising dangers at every turn. Armed only with their knowledge of the natural world, they find themselves prey to a technology of radical and unbridled power. To survive, they must harness the inherent forces of nature itself.

An instant classic, Micro pits nature against technology in vintage Crichton fashion. Completed by visionary science writer Richard Preston, this boundary-pushing thriller melds scientific fact with pulse-pounding fiction to create yet another masterpiece of sophisticated, cutting-edge entertainment.

©2011 John Michael Crichton Trust (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers

Gripping

Loved it! Didn't want it to end. Hope there is a sequel. Tough to provoking with a twist.

Just make it through chapter one!

The first chapter is very dry but PLEASE get through it. This book is absolutely amazing. I was literally yelling NO, DON'T! by myself in my vehicle while listening to this book. SO good!

great book narration could be better.

The narrator mispronounced Costa Rica and. some Hawaiian names throughout the book. While on the Hawaiian names he was close there were some errors.

Great story

The written text was great. a fantastic novel. I would never get a book with this narrator though. He was very boring and seemed to loathe the story he was telling.

Similar to his other books

What did you like best about Micro? What did you like least?

I liked the micro world best. Its the same story line though as some of his other work-- a group of people go into a new and strange environment and have to figure out how to survive.

Would you recommend Micro to your friends? Why or why not?

probably not

Would you listen to another book narrated by John Bedford Lloyd?

sure

Do you think Micro needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

no

Great book

Loved the details, sucked me into the micro world as if it were a possibility.

the original honey I shrunk the kids

well written and intriguing violent protests and perspective on Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

the scaling references are a little bit off to see a single celled organism you would have to be smaller than an ant and it is depicted many times that Aunt is a size of their arm which would make them the size of a small rodent also if they were small as they keep being depicted the snake would not be interested in them as they would appear to be pill bug or potato bug size.

it keeps depicting that small humans micro humans as the size of mice well explaining their surroundings in the perspective of a microscope at a hundred times Zoom.

Obviously not a "real" Crichton novel.

Don't judge Crichton by this book. This reads like a comic book, not up to Crichton's standards.

I got through it

The story and imagery of the book definitely kept me reading, but the dialogue was far too casual and unbelievable. Reminded me of a cheesy action movie in which the stars, knee deep in a shootout, still have the gall to banter with one another in spite their life-threatening situation. Reader was fantastic though.

McGyver meets "Land of the Giants"

Parts of this were good, but the starting hours were abysmal. There are editing issues, with too many sentences saying repeatedly "he said" or "she said." It's like Dick and Jane writing a novel. At the least, throw in some variety, with the occasional "he stated," or opined or something.

The characters in the micro world were the most interesting part, and I will certainly look differently at insects now.

The plot device of a group of grad students having an expert of every conceivable application on this trip, all of whom were carrying samples of their particular product or project, ahhhhh, that's a stretch. It's like me carrying a chocolate chip cookie in case I meet Martha Stewart. Granted, they did anticipate an interview with the CEO during their tour, but it's still tugging very hard on my logic cells.

The reader was okay. There are many other readers I find to be far better, but this one slogged through the story in an adequate manner. Nobody could have salvaged this turkey.

Both authors were and are capable of writing excellent books, but this wasn't one of them. Perhaps this one would have been substantially different if Crichton had been able to complete it prior to his death.

I wish it were possible to returh audio books that were complete dogs.