Sphere

I like to write “big” books not just in length, but in high concept and complexity.

While struggling with my first book, my editor recommended this one by Michael Crichton. In this book, a derelict spaceship is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and a group of scientists are sent down to investigate Earth’s first solid proof of extraterrestrial life. Their encounter quickly becomes a struggle for survival, and when a typhoon drives off the support vessels on the surface, they are on their own.

Sphere taught me a skilled author can make even the most outlandish… show more.

This is one of my go-to re-reads. I love the quiet and isolation of it: just a small crew trapped beneath the ocean, weathering something heretofore unknown. That’s what I like first and foremost: the mood of it all. 

But atop that is how believable it is for me. I always feel like I learn something when I read Michael Crichton. He had a knack for using real science and then twisting it just enough to create wonderful fictional situations. I’m not joyless enough to require learning to like a book, but I’ll put it this way: The less often… show more.

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.