Michael Crichton
SPHERE
BOOK REVIEW

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
SPHERE 1998 MOVIE REVIEW SPHERE - 1987 by Michael Crichton USA Release: May 12, 1987 Alfred A. Knopf (HC)

Every time I start a new Michael Crichton novel, I find he started a new style of writing. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN isn't written like THE TERMINAL MAN and those two stories aren't like SPHERE. The only Chrichton "style" you'll find is when you get deep into it and find him ripping open enormous plot holes then filling them with sense. His imagination always comes first, then his reason.

This style of writing is what makes his work fascinating and remain fascinating long after his death.

Hell, you may not be knowledgeable enough in specific areas of science to know that he posited a wildly unlikely if not impossible scenario. You or I might be going right along with it for the ride, but Michael always knew when one of his characters was way of the mark and, when he ripped the curtain away from the delusion he created, that knowledge enhanced the story.

Crichton's science in his stories never hampered his imagination, tey always made it take flight. Take flight and more because grounding is stories in inescapable reality made his novels feel real.

So when say, theoretical physicists believe X is happening to the ocean and the research Ocean biologists makes that X correct to Y, the facts are irrefutable and the physicists have to reassess.

SPHERE opens with psychologist, Norman Johnson sleeping, despite the noise and vibration, on a Navy helicopter flight somewhere West of Tonga. He's been flying or a while from San Diego to Honolulu to Guam to Pago where he caught the helicopter he's on.

He didn't want to come on this flight. The military insisted. All Norman ever wanted to do was be a psychologist and teach at the University of California San Diego. But in 1976, the nearby United Airlines crash in San Diego had the FAA in a panic and Norman was one of youngest and best teachers at nearby UCSD.

His having successfully worked on and helped resolve that matter, put him in the good graces of the FAA. As for Norman, he just went back to teaching.

Two years later there was another panicked call from the FAA late at night. This one was the 1978 Chicago crash. Norman did a great job and got another kudo by is name on the FAA's list. Now he was both knowledgable and experienced when it came to the pychology of air disasters - whether he wanted that or not.

Four years later it was the 1982 crash in Dallas. Each time Norman did all the FAA could have hoped for and then some. The Feds share their intel when needed. They shared it after the 1978 crash with the Army during Jimmy Carter's administration. The president realized the U.S.A. was prepared for everything attack contingency on earth except one.

That one thing might never happen. Most likely couldn't happen. The odds were heavily against it.

But if the odds were ever against the U.S.A. and it did happen, how would the military trust the psychological behavior of the world, the USA, even - and this was crucial - their own soldiers. You can have all the tecnology tax dollars can buy but, wielding it all would be human beings: Military Moral in the face of the unknown is crucial: paramount.

America's line of defense can't afford to have any weak link. The least expected must be accounted for. The top brass themselves may falter if such a crisis came true and all needed a How-To manual of the psychological stress factors to look for not only among others, but themselves.

When Norman was approached with the offer in 1979 he couldn't believe the top leadership of the United States of America was asking such a question, let alone seriously considering it. Because what they needed him to draw up was beyond reason as well as his experience. He had done nothing in the field they were asking of him and had the Army not approached him, he never would. But they did.

Norman was inclined to treat what the military wanted as a big joke, but they were offering him a fortune to do the research and write the strategic manual that they needed.

It was far more than a top teacher's annual salary. He could buy a house for his new family and never again worry about their economical future.

So of course he wrote the stupid manual and made it as realistic, sober, educated, and based on the latest yet most solid principles of psychoanalysis as possible (he couldn't afford to be glib, this damn thing might get out one day and there goes his tenure).

Norman got his house, his family, and the country got a new president, thus ending the fear of the Carter admin. Years passed and Norman aged.

Then one day the Navy came knocking and they were adamant. This was high security (similar to when the military came calling for Dr. Jeremy Stone in Crichton's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.).

So when the military chopper gets Norman to the main grouping of Navy ships, Norman is let off.

Onto a ship.

No island, no airport. What is he even doing there?

Then he sees the other people who are going with him and his heart sinks. Nearly all of them are the people his Manual said would make the best team to handle the situation no one was prepared for.

Now that the military believes that situation is here, they pulled out his old manual. The one he wrote feeling certain that no one would ever need to use it.

But its the only one the military has to cover the situation they believe they are in and none of the nation's top brass realize that the Manual Norman wrote is all bullshit.

Because one of the people Norman recommended lo those many years ago is suffering with cancer, the military needs old Norman to take his place.

That place is miles down at the deadly bottom of the ocean.

If you saw the movie then you ave a general idea of what is down there.

On the other hand, maybe you never saw the movie so I'm going to stop my review right here and not spoil it for you.

By 1986 Michael's writing, while still as tense as ever, was also showing signs of style exhaustion. It's not that there are similarities because Michael had is unique style. SPHERE has similarities to THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, THE TERMINAL MAN, and WESTWORLD, because Michael began using the same situations regardless of plot, and had his characters react to each other the same as all of his characters do when the shit hits the fan.

In SPHERE Michael remains a great writer, but a few chapters before the last I realized that I knew how each one was going to resolve itself.

At least the ending had a twist. Although the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wouldn't work.

That was way back when I read it the first time. I read it again to refresh my memory for writing this review. The end is satisfying enough that my feeling about it may be too personal and not affect anyone else. Taste as always is subective.

But since I'm writing this review it's my point of view and, while SPHERE wins the medal, so to speak, it's not first place.

Four Bookwyrms

This review copyright 2024 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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