Favorite fiction you've read this year?

[pokerfan]

4. ‘Micro,’ by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

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