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Michael Crichton published ten books -- five before The Andromeda Strain and five after -- under pseudonyms, eight of them as John Lange. This one is the one that is most like his more famous works. It begins and ends with excerpts from government documents, it plays as a race against time (the hero has 12 hours to solve the case and save the day), and the case itself begins with a techno-scientific premise: a radical who aims to kill the President (and countless innocent bystanders) through the combination of two chemicals to produce a deadly nerve gas. Why, then, didn't he publish it under his own name? Despite the similarities, Binary is Crichton lite. In his case, that has nothing to do with his characters or the complexity of his plots; it's simply a matter of research: how much he did and how much of it ended up on the page. For this reason, this stripped-down thriller might actually be preferable to some of his readers. In fact, if you think Crichton is a quick read, you'll be amazed at how blazingly fast Lange is. Binary is nothing deep, nothing even very memorable, but it's exciting, and Crichton makes it all seem absolutely effortless, like eating cotton candy.
Michael Crichton published ten books -- five before The Andromeda Strain and five after -- under pseudonyms, eight of them as John Lange. This one is the one that is most like his more famous works. It begins and ends with excerpts from government documents, it plays as a race against time (the hero has 12 hours to solve the case and save the day), and the case itself begins with a techno-scientific premise: a radical who aims to kill the President (and countless innocent bystanders) through the combination of two chemicals to produce a deadly nerve gas. Why, then, didn't he publish it under his own name? Despite the similarities, Binary is Crichton lite. In his case, that has nothing to do with his characters or the complexity of his plots; it's simply a matter of research: how much he did and how much of it ended up on the page. For this reason, this stripped-down thriller might actually be preferable to some of his readers. In fact, if you think Crichton is a quick read, you'll be amazed at how blazingly fast Lange is. Binary is nothing deep, nothing even very memorable, but it's exciting, and Crichton makes it all seem absolutely effortless, like eating cotton candy.
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