Book Review: SPHERE by Michael Crichton (Edge Of Your Seat Thriller!)

Michael Crichton is best known for his monster hit Jurassic Park, but he has done a lot more interesting projects besides that, including Sphere, which I was lucky enough to stumble across.

I was at the Dudley Farm Historic State Park (because I am on a quest to visit All 176 Florida State Parks) and came across one of those take one leave one tiny libraries–to my great joy there was a copy of Sphere in it, so being a bibliophile I immediately snatched it up–I’ve already read Crichton’s Jurassic Park, Congo, and Prey and like them all.

Check out my review on YouTube:

Quick Synopsis of SPHERE:

The book follows a psychologist, who is among a team of civilian specialists called in to investigate a strange 300+ year old spaceship found at the bottom of the ocean in the South Pacific. (It is determined the spaceship is 300+ years old from the amount of coral growth on the hull).

Where did the spaceship come from? Is it an alien craft? Is it from the future? From another dimension? We don’t know! And these are the questions that kept me turning pages late into the night on my beach vacation at St. George Island in the Florida Panhandle.

I was also interested in the group dynamics, as is anybody interested in psychology, sociology, and human behavior in general. Not only does the civilian team have to deal with this high-stress situation of figuring out the unknown, this group of strangers have to figure out how to work together toward solving the riddle of the ship.

Did I mention the bulk of the story takes place in an inflatable, artificial environment set up on the ocean floor? The civilian team is taken down by submarine to an artificial environment set up by the military next to the mystery spaceship.

Without giving anything away, I give a few more tidbits about the book in my YouTube video, but this is about as far as I want to go in the review without giving away spoilers.

Bottomline: Should You Read SPHERE?

Yes, this book is worth your time, assuming you enjoy thrillers and MacGuffin. If I’m being truthful, out of the four Crichton books I have now read, this one kept me hooked the most and I blasted through the book in approximately three days.

So the negative side effect is you will most likely read the book way too late into the night and go to work the next day with bloodshot eyes.

Other than that, there shouldn’t be any other negative side effects of reading this book!

There is a movie made from the book, I haven’t seen it. Reviews aren’t that good, but it features Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, and Queen Latifah! So, if I can find it on one of the twenty-seven streaming services I’m currently subscribed to, I’ll give it a watch!