When jellyfish of an unknown species swarm the habitat, one of the Navy officers decides it’s time to go for a swim. When the Navy learn that a typhoon is bearing down on the site of the wreck, which isn’t going anywhere, they hasten to send the characters to the underwater habitat just in time to trap them down there. The plot runs on the characters’ terrible decisions. Why aren’t characters inundated with pink elephants when they desperately try not to think about them? Why can’t characters imagine their way out of problems? The only thing the power seems to do is throw monsters at the habitat. He was very sad, and very afraid.Ĭrichton doesn’t explore the implications of the magic sphere in nearly as much depth as he could have. Norman didn’t know if he was crying for Ted, or crying for himself, because it was clear to him that one by one, they were all dying down here.

Finally he looked at a couple of pages, filled with Ted’s large, enthusiastic scrawl. He sat on his bunk, holding the notebook in his hands. It involves time travel.įor the first few chapters, I found Crichton’s prose refreshingly sparse. Suffice to say that whoever comes into contact with a certain sphere gets reality-warper powers. Some of what happens next is spoileriffic. Norman and a team of scientists he hand-selected go to a deep-sea habitat to investigate the wreck. Because of Norman’s previous work on group dynamics, the Navy has given him the job of keeping the crew from freaking out in the face of alien life.

The downed plane turns out to be a spacecraft. Norman Johnson, professor of psychology, gets called in by the Navy to investigate a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think Michael Crichton meant Sphere to come out sounding that way, but his characters are so paper-thin there’s nothing left of them but their stereotypes. The white man saves the day by being more emotionally stable than them. The black man and the white woman can’t handle the power and nearly get the group killed. A black man, a white man, and a white woman all get the power to warp reality to their will.

Sphere by michael crichton