NeXT is a 2006 novel, Michael Crichton's final published novel in his lifetime. The plot intertwines several different stories. There are two main story arcs: that of a family trying to raise a transgenic Half-Human Hybrid in secret and that of a family who're being hunted down for "illegal theft" of their cancer-resistant genes. Sub-plots include an incredibly intelligent parrot, a pedophile working security for a genetics firm who is promptly framed for rape and is convinced by his lawyer to use genetics to excuse his behavior, a delusional hippie, a foul-mouthed orangutan and the media hype surrounding it, a baby rapist with a small penis (who just happens to have the same name as Crichton's real-life critic) and a pair of bounty hunters hunting down said family.
The book is entertaining and very informative, as Crichton is known for heavy amounts of research, but also basically Crichton yelling at the mainstream news for Failing Biology Forever.
Not to be confused with the 2007 Nicolas Cage movie of the same name, nor the 2020 TV series that aired on Fox.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: The resolution as to whether bodybuilding heart attack victim John Weller was a Chimera (someone with two sets of DNA) and therefore whether or not Lisa was actually his daughter, never occurs in favor of implying that he was poisoned by his wife and that an intern's twin had mixed up samples while stealing leg bones. The arc culminates in the intern becoming a whistleblower, and his boss is arrested for organ theft.
- While Rob Bellarmino is on a flight to Ohio, his wife Georgia discovers strange bruises on their teenage daughter. It turns out that she's been shooting up fertility drugs and selling her own eggs. Georgia, frustrated after learning that doctor-patient privilege keeps her from putting a stop to this, decides to table what's sure to be a fiery talk until Rob comes back from his trip. He doesn't.
- Acquired Error at the Printer: At one point Dave, a transgenic higher primate, is accidentally called a transgender higher primate by the narration.
- Author Tract: There's an actual appendix outlining Crichton's views on the subject of genetic engineering and the laws about it.
- Better To Die than Be Arrested: The Bounty Hunter's first in-story target opts to suffocate himself with nitrogen before allowing himself to be taken in.
- Big Damn Heroes: Alex for pointing a sawed-off shotgun at her son's kidnapper. Also Jack Watson, for taking down an Evil Corporation.
- Batman Gambit: Jack Watson, a venture capitalist who had a compromised BioGen lab tech (his nephew) sabotage their research to drive down its stock price prior to purchasing it, forcing Diehl into sending bounty hunters to kidnap a family to procure more samples of cancer-resistant genes (which he believed were his property), destroying his reputation. Also buys gene patent that nullified research from Duke University. And sends his nephew somewhere he knows Bellarmino will be, thus eliminating both at once.
- Big Bad: A downplayed case with Rick Diehl - whilst he's the antagonist in the Burnet's storyline, for the most part, he's a Villainy-Free Villain and an Unwitting Pawn for Watson's planned takeover of his company.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Kendalls' storyline ends with the family intact, with both Dave and Gerard joining them. But Henry notices that Dave is getting some gray hairs around his muzzle, and suspects he will die young because of it.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: To build his legal defense of possessing a recklessness gene, Brad Gordon travels the States to do various high-risk activities. Along the way, he starts a brawl in a Wyoming saloon after insulting what he thought was a gay couple … who turned out to be brothers instead, one of whom was a martial arts champion. Between that and the man's steel-toed boots, Brad goes down in thirty seconds, and spends the night in a hospital with a jaw full of loosened teeth and Novocaine.
- Downer Ending: Poor Josh Winkler. The maturity gene he was testing for BioGen ends disastrously, when the rats he tested it on—and eventually, the humans that get a trial version—all die of massively accelerated old age. Among them is his brother Adam, a former addict who'd unwittingly exposed himself to the gene and cleaned himself up along the way. His storyline ends with the implication of massive legal trouble after a friend of his mother's, who'd been given a placebo, ends up developing Alzheimer's and her lawyer sons seize the chance to sue.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Burnetts' storyline ends with Alex, after chasing off the bounty hunter who kidnapped her son in order to extract her father's cells from his blood, managing to overturn the ruling that had initially designated those cells the property of BioGen. This, and the failure of their maturity gene, leads Rick Diehl and his senior staff to resign from BioGen under legal pressure, and clearing the way for Jack Watson to take over its operation as he'd planned.
- French Jerk: The talking orangutan curses in French and Dutch, greatly annoying a French tourist who tried to speak with it.
- Good All Along: Watson is implied to have supported the Burnetts the whole time, since he sent someone that helped Frank go into hiding.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Dave and Gerard are a chimp and a parrot had part of human DNA injected into their embryos. As a result both exhibit a considerable level of human intelligence.
- Hotter and Sexier: Continuing the trend started in State of Fear, there is a sex scene (albeit undetailed) in the beginning when a High-Class Call Girl serving as a delivery woman for genes spends a night with the recipient (a fat virginal slob of a scientist) and a gratuitous sex scene featuring woman who normally does not feel pleasure having an orgasm.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Henry Kendall's plan to test the novelty gene by visiting several amusement parks is hijacked by Bellarmino, his boss at the NIH, much to Kendall's displeasure. Though he ultimately does nothing about it, this bites Bellarmino in the ass when he and Brad Gordon cross paths at one such park, and Gordon—panicked out of a mistaken fear he'd been caught ogling a pair of preteens—fatally shoots Bellarmino in the middle of his own TV special.
- Ironic Death: Jack Watson had destroyed the cancer resistant cells, but dies of a (fictional) strain of cancer the company might have been able to treat if not for the sabotage.
- Brad Gordon, while building a flimsy defense for a recklessness gene, dies after fatally shooting Bellarmino at an amusement park—while the latter had been filming a special on 60 Minutes for the specific purpose of promoting the research on the same exact gene.
- Loophole Abuse: A key plot element. Current biotech laws are vague enough that a lower court rules that BioGen owns not only the cancer-reistant genes they purchased from a university, but also the rights to the donor's entire cell line - AKA him and his children. An appellate court pretty much crucifies Diehl for attempting to re-institute slavery.
- Media Scaremongering: Many of the "news report" chapters exist to criticize this kind of news reporting.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The two main female characters, who are close friends, both have eight-year-old sons named Jamie. So when bounty hunters attempt to abduct one of them, they wind up taking the wrong Jamie, which results in them giving up on the entire bounty.
- Out-Gambitted: To get rid of Brad Gordon, Watson's nephew (and nepotism-appointed head of security) for both being a poor employee and sleeping with Rick's secretary/mistress Lisa, Rick Diehl, knowing of his paedophillic tendencies, frames him for statutory rape. This backfires spectacularly - setting off a chain of events that leads to Watson successfully ousting him.
- Poor Communication Kills: Gordon, Watson's nephew using genes as a defense for a rape Diehl framed him for, falls victim to this. He's about to re-ride a roller coaster (so he can watch a couple young girls who are riding it) when Bellarmino comes up to him and says something about not getting many "adult repeaters". He's talking about repeating the roller coaster, but Gordon thinks he means "repeat child molesters" and shoots him. He is gunned down soon after by some police officers/security guards.
- Right Through the Wall: Part of the reason Gerard the parrot changes hands so many times over the course of the book is his penchant for replicating the noises of passionate lovemaking. This is how his creator learns that her husband was cheating on her. When that husband gifts him to a billionaire investor with marital strife of his own, Gerard wastes no time in doing the same thing to him, and ends up getting dropped off at a pet store before he can wreck another marriage.
- Four Lines, No Waiting: Aside from minor stories focusing on politicians or random observers, the four narrative lines of Dave, the Parrot, the bounty hunter, and a pedophile using genes as a defense often intertwine.
- Take That!: The journalist that Alex mentions prosecuting near the third act? The one that raped his two-year-old nephew and has a "small penis"? The one that's never mentioned again and has zero relevance to the plot? He just happens to share the name, college and occupation of a reviewer who was particularly critical of Crichton's previous novel State of Fear.
- They Would Cut You Up: Diehl has skilled enough lawyers (and current biotech laws are vague enough) that he actually gets a state court to give him legal permission for this.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: Subverted."This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't."
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Like woah. First off, Dave's subplot is really sad (he's the transgenic half-human, half-chimpanzee). Second off, a gene-engineered parrot saves a family on the run from a bounty hunter by faking shotgun noises.
