Favorite fiction you've read this year?
I haven't had a ton of luck with fiction this year, but I did really like "Out of Oz" by Gregory Maguire and "13, rue Therese" by Elena Mauli Shapiro. I also liked "Distant Hours" by Kate Morton. Other than that, there was nothing too memorable in fiction that I read this year, which is kind of sad considering how much money I've spent on books.
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Is it high art? Not really. But it's a terrific modern updating of the classic Incredible Shrinking Man story ala The Fantastic Voyage or even Honey I Shrunk the Kids. The characters are as paper thin as any techno-thriller but its a fine last novel from the mind who gave us the The Andromeda Strain and ER. Might as read it now before it's made into a movie. Forget the abominable State of Fear and the silly Sphere, this is Crichton returning to his roots.
Okay, here’s the deal. You and your pals — grad students, hotshot scientists-to-be — are invited to Hawaii to talk about cutting-edge jobs in microbiology. But after you learn that the company’s owner is a crook and a killer, he uses his new technology to shrink you from six feet tall to half an inch. You escape this fiend by fleeing into an isolated rain forest. You’re safe from the evil scientist there, but you’re soon running for your lives from ants, wasps, owls, centipedes, spiders, bats and other creatures that now seem as big as houses. Or, come to think of it, as big as dinosaurs are to regular-size humans. All of which makes sense because “Micro” is the latest posthumous novel by Michael Crichton, who not so long ago gave us those great people-vs.-dinosaur adventures “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World.”
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/micro-by-michael-crichton-and-richard-preston/2011/11/15/gIQAnCLujN_story.html
Last edited Sat Dec 24, 2011, 11:47 PM - Edit history (1)
as noted in the OP. 
Michael Crichton started it and Richard Preston finished it. Both are credited.
The supernatural is definitely real in the world of the story and is a key part of the tale, but at the same time the main character is a 'realist' (in that he's scientifically, empirically minded) and a number of things that might appear to be supernatural really aren't. He (and we) believe in and rely on the spirits and the shamans, while living and working in the ordinary world. That's kind of vague, I know...
The elephant interaction is short (although critical), but I found it very moving...
I got both The Coroner's Lunch 2004, and Thirty-Three Teeth
2005, by Colin Cotterill.
Had the hardest time finding your post - couldn't remember your nick...
I'm dying to get back to the book but have been so busy. But I think you would like James Doss' books...Charlie Moon's old Aunt Daisy has a lot in common with Dr. Siri, and I like them both....
along with the first two books of Andrew Taylor's Roth Trilogy ("The Four Last Things" and "The Judgment of Strangers"
, Tana French's "In the Woods," "The Likeness," and "Faithful Place," and Susan Hill's Simon Serailler series (so far I've read "The Secret Haunts of Men," "The Pure in Heart," "The Risk of Darkness," and "The Vows of Silence," and there are two or three more to go.)
So does Nurse Angela. .
