Posted by I was sort of surprised when I clicked on this book to review it that it only had 3.75 stars. I genuinely think this is a solid 4.0 – 4.1 book. It’s absolutely not his BEST work, Crichton has put out some amazing material, but there’s no rational reason to go on 1 star rantings about this book.
I actually prefer the book to the movie, the characters were a little more developed, and the plot made a little more sense with it being fleshed out a bit more.
Was it his best work? No. If you’ve never read anything by Crichton before, I’d recommend starting with Jurassic Park – it’s fun, most people are already familiar with the plot so you can fly through it and enjoy a better version of the movie, a more “adult” version. Def rated R not PG-13.
Anyway, Sphere is a solid science fiction book for anyone who’s really into tech and the ocean. It’s a completely unique idea, and it blends into almost horror and psychological thriller, not just sci fi.
An unidentified spacecraft has been located at the bottom of the ocean, and a team is sent down to explore it – but the interesting thing is they also sent a psychologist as well as a team of scientists. When they enter the ship, they find there’s a mysterious completely solid sphere that some of the crew members enter. After a few of the members enter the sphere they meet an entity that’s talking to them through one of their computers and making their dreams and nightmares manifest in real life. Giant squids, jelly fish and a whole bunch of creepy shit. It’s dangerous, there’s a fair amount of action. The characters were a touch flat but there was nice interactions between them and when a few of them died I did care. The pacing was done well and was one of the better aspects of the book – as well as the tone and setting it was creepy as fuck. This was def a book where the plot was driving me forward through the book
It could have been written and structured a bit better, it could have had a more interesting ending, but all in all I enjoyed it