Next

Next is a novel by Michael Crichton, published in 2006 and the last of his books to appear during his lifetime. It is a satire of genetic research and of the businesses built on top of it rather than a story about a single invention.

Frank Burnet undergoes intensive treatment for an aggressive leukaemia and then four years of check-ups, which he later discovers were really a study of why his body responded so well. The physician's university has already sold the rights to his cells to a biotechnology company, and when he sues, the court rules that the cells were waste the university was entitled to dispose of as it wished. Around that case the novel arranges a large cast, including engineered animals, researchers competing for patents, lawyers hunting for a test case and a venture capitalist who is willing to sabotage another company's cultures to protect his own position.

Crichton writes in short chapters with documents and news extracts inserted between them, and the comedy comes from the gap between what the science can now do and what the legal system has decided about it.