Sphere

I have rarely felt a compulsion to turn the pages of a book as quickly as I did while reading this book. I grew up as a huge fan of Jurassic Park and read this book many years later with little idea of what to expect.

The claustrophobic surroundings and relentless tension made this a very fast book to read, but the philosophical considerations made sure it is one that has stayed in my mind ever since.

The setup of this story is captivating. A psychologist, a marine biologist, an astrophysicist, and a mathematician are called to a crash site in the middle of the ocean. What unfolds gives you, the reader, a chance to live in an underwater habitat as the crash site happens to be a spacecraft at the bottom of the ocean. I love the sense of claustrophobia this book gives me as it is both unsettling and comforting at times.

While the movies I watch tell me that an extra-terrestrial encounter would include little green men, this story gives us an alternative to… show more.

Michael Crichton was the first author I fell in love with as a child. And it wasn’t until I was older that I realized how influential he was as a science fiction writer. His novels were always written so realistically that I never thought of them as science fiction, which always meant outer space to me growing up. Sphere is a great example of science fiction that blends together elements of other genres, which is something that I like to do as a writer. Sphere’s story is presented in a way that you start to believe this could legitimately… show more.

I know, it’s the same guy that created Jurassic Park, but this book is downright a horror novel! It made me afraid of the ocean for years! It’s the fantastic writing and mind-bending nature of this one that makes it so suspenseful, and all the creature encounters are pulse-pounding. Just don’t read this one if you like the movie. I couldn’t even go back and watch it after reading.