194) NEXT—Michael Crichton—Tantalizingly, two pages before the beginning, on a page otherwise blank, Crichton has written, “This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.” The novel itself deals with genes and chromosome and who owns them and who can control them and who may patent them or parts thereof and who might be required to donate to continue a strain; a child, perhaps a grandchild? Interwoven throughout are suggestions of what is being done in genetic research, cures, other applications, or are they? The bibliography at the end is quite extensive and provides the basis for the conclusions Crichton reached when writing NEXT and which conclusions are outlined in the ‘Author’s Note’ at the conclusion of another fascinating Crichton tale.