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White Collars and Grey Morals NEXT By Michael Crichton. HarperCollins, 431 pp. $27.95 hardcover I have decided that Michael Crichton is an ironist. Only someone steeped in satire could write a novel like Next–a passionate defense of the humanity of man–and people it entirely with cardboard humans. In fact, the most engaging characters in Next aren’t even fully human–Davy the Half-Chimpanzee and Gerard the Half-Parrot have more life in them than any of the awkwardly posed figurines that pass for characters in this novel. I’m not even sure you can call this a novel. A novel usually involves a plot. With characters. I…

A Journey in Other Eras A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future by John Jacob Astor IV D. Appleton and Company, New York 1894 Available as free download from Gutenberg Project here I think John Jacob Astor IV would have been fascinated by the machine that killed him. One hundred years ago today, the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after being struck by an iceberg. Many people know that Astor was one of the victims, but most do not know that he was also the world’s wealthiest science fiction author. Astor, the fourth of his name, inherited great…