Rating: 
Summary: Better Than The Movie
Review: Annotation: A sci-fi thriller that has a twist at the end you couldn't see coming. Michael Crichton sets the stage deep in the ocean as a group of scientist explores an unknown spaceship and finds a mysterious sphere that causes strange things to happen. Author bio: Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942 and attended Harvard medical school in 1964. He has produced books such as Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Congo. He also created the hit show ER and is the only person to have the number one movie, number one book, and number one show all at the same time. Evaluation: This book was awesome! I couldn't put it down for a minute. One complaint I have is that when they made the movie, they tried to make it "hollywood adaptable" and messed up some key plot points. The part I liked best was when Harry uses his simple logic to determine that they were going to die in the spaceship because the ship was in the future and there was no sign that the future knew of them visiting the ship. It was so simple I was mad I didn't pick it out before I read it! This book is a definite read for anyone who is a science fiction fan.
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Summary: Super page turner...I loved it
Review: Great pulp SF. Only in the movie version the ending last scene looks like a joke. Good suspense, SF style and vintage MC.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Enjoyable Popcorn
Review: You've got to give it to Michael Crichton: he writes one heck of a page-turner. Open one of his books with the idea that you'll just read a chapter or two before bedtime and you'll suddenly be bleary-eyed at three in the morning. And although this particular title, which is somewhat less well known than such Crichton novels as THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and JURASSIC PARK, it still packs a bestseller wallop. The premise is classic Crichton. In his younger days, psychologist Norman Johnson was approached by the United States government to write a report on the psychological impact of an encounter with extra-terrestrials--and now, on the basis of his rather flippant recommendations, he finds himself en route to a possible UFO crash sight on the floor of the Pacific ocean. Once established with his colleges in an underwater habitat, the government team encounters a mysterious space craft that contains a still-more mysterious sphere, and those who come into contact with it undergo an unexpected change. The writing is crisp and clean, the hard science is handled quite skillfully, and Crichton plays out his story at a breathless pace: yes, a page-turner if ever there was one. Still, it is worth noting that SPHERE displays Crichton's weaknesses as clearly as it does his strengths. Strictly speaking, Crichton hasn't had an original concept in some thirty years, and just as he rehashed his screenplay for WESTWORLD into the novel JURASSIC PARK, so does he rehash THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN into SPHERE. The novel also contains both the foundational sexism and ambiguous conclusion so typical of Crichton's work. Ultimately, SPHERE is popcorn: we've all had it before and you can't make a truly satisfying meal of it. But it is tremendously enjoyable all the same, and where is SPHERE is concerned... well, you'll eat every kernal in the bowl. GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book
Review: I liked this book. It is about A space shuttle found no the bottom of the ocean that is three hundred years old. A team is sent to explore it and while in side they find that it is an american shuttle. But the catch is, the first space shuttle was built seventy years ago. How did it get there? Read the book and find out. My personal favorite part was when the jellyfish come to town. I didn't like the fact thatit was so confusing.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst book ever
Review: This is the worst Crichton book I've ever read. The characters seem to become hollow in the middle of the plot, which is like a bad chapter of the X-files.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites.
Review: I've always been a fan of Michael Crichton, but this is the book that captivated me. I startd reading this book, and then I couldn't put it down. The rich plot and wonderful details make this a great book for fans of science fiction. It never get's complicated, but never get's boring either. If you were a fan of Prey, Rising Sun, or Jurassic Park, you will love this book. The charachters are all interesting in their flaws and their good charchteristics. There are a few things that might be confusing though. I can't think of an example but I remember getting mixed up somewhere near the end.
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Summary: There's better sci-fi around
Review: I found Sphere to be pleasantly diverting for a few days, but I guess I'm spoiled by reading novels of late that are actual "literature". Crichton's writing here just doesn't make the cut. His characters are cardboard (even though he tries to give some a PC twist, like the black mathematician), his prose is utilitarian, terse and vocabulary limited (e.g., he used the word "uneasy" twice in two pages to describe one character who was lying and one who had a stomach ache), and much of his "science" is hokey (I say that as a scientist). On the plus side, he does know how to concoct a clever, suspenseful story and reel out just enough of it at a time to keep you turning the pages. My advice if you like sci-fi adventure: your time is better spent reading real writers like Asimov, Verne, Wells, Bradbury, Heinlein and many others.
Rating:
Summary: A gripping, suspenseful, fast-paced science fiction thriller
Review: I was recently surprised to find this novel on one of my shelves; I saw the movie adaptation of the novel recently but did not remember owning the actual book. The movie was full of promise but ultimately disappointing, so I was pretty curious to see how good a read the actual novel was. Sphere is my first Michael Crichton novel, and I have to say I was quite impressed with Crichton's prowess. There are some logical flaws and inconsistencies in the plot, but Crichton is an incredibly gifted storyteller; I eagerly breezed through this novel in short order. While it is heavy on dialogue, the story touches on a number of aspects of the human personality while mixing in some profound if problematic science fiction in the process. This is a fast-paced thriller that definitely registers impressively on the suspense meter, particularly during the climactic late chapters. While the ending is something of a letdown, the story leading up to it is gripping and fascinating, and important clues and plot points are presented with much more subtlety and effectiveness than what you will find in the movie adaptation. The novel is built around an incredible discovery; in the middle of the South Pacific, lying all but buried on the bottom of the ocean, rests a spacecraft of unknown origin. Psychologist Norman Johnson, the author of a secret government paper on Recommendations for the Human Contact Team to Interact with Unknown Life Forms (a less than serious paper he wrote primarily for the money) is called to the site, where he is informed that he will be part of a team of scientists sent to study the mysterious craft. Alongside him are an irascible Navy project commander, a brilliant, young astrophysicist/planetary geologist, a complicated female zoologist/biochemist, and a noted mathematician/logician. This unlikely team of deep ocean explorers soon find themselves in an artificial habitat resting alongside the location of the mysterious ship. Their exploration of the site yields more questions than answers, as the ship turns out to be an American spaceship from the future. The truly enigmatic discovery onboard, though, is a giant sphere of unknown composition. As the story unfolds, the team of explorers finds themselves effectively stranded on the ocean floor for a period of some days, and strange and frightening things begin to happen after one scientist somehow enters the sphere. The scientists find themselves in communication with a supposedly alien entity who calls himself Jerry; whoever and whatever Jerry is, he seems to have the power to manifest remarkable physical creations and changes in reality. The habitat and the team inside it soon comes under attack by such dangerous creatures as giant squid and killer jellyfish, but the problems eventually internalize themselves inside the group dynamic, a group that is shrinking in size as time goes by. The mysterious Sphere imparts an amazing power to those who enter it, a power that such individuals may not even be consciously aware of wielding. Ultimately, the last remnants of the research team begin pointing fingers at one another and take steps to insure their own individual survival in the face of an unquantifiable threat, making this novel a gripping psychological thriller based in a fascinating science fiction environment. Once the team arrives in the underwater habitat, nonstop action ensues. One emergency after another challenges the crew, and the group dynamic of the team ebbs and flows along with each jarring crisis. Along the way, we see ever more clearly into the minds and ways of thinking of our main characters, and a significant amount of ideas are expressed concerning the human condition. Crichton provides for no obligatory rest areas along the way, as he takes the reader for an incredible ride that had me turning pages hand over fist in anticipation of what was to come. Some of the science is questionable, but Crichton surely makes it all sound more than plausible. The only real problem with the novel is a logical breakdown of sorts in the concluding chapters. Still, the desperate attempts of the remaining explorers to survive, when they cannot even trust one another, make for a riveting reading experience. Sphere is by no means a perfect novel, but I found it captivating and basically addictive up until the somewhat disappointing ending. The movie adaptation takes significant liberties with the original story, so I would urge you not to let the movie's failings prevent you from immersing yourself in this eminently readable novel.
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Summary: Fascinating look at sci - fi combined with psychology...
Review: Many books deal with 'alien' ships popping up somewhere. Very few of them handle the issue as well as this one. Michael Crichton obviously did thorough research on all subjects involved in this book - ranging from physics to marine biology to psychology - and of the every day life undersea. The 'thriller' part of this book is also well executed.
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Summary: Crichton takes us into the deep
Review: Michael Cricton is to Sci-Fi/Techno Thrillers as Stephen King is to Horror. I could just leave this review at that and people would buy this book. This was actually the last Crichton book i have read of his, and I now wonder why I read all of his others and left this one for last?
He brought dinosaurs to life for us, introduced us to hand-talking apes, and we have battled in the fourteenth century with him, but never did I imagine that he could take me two thousand feet underwater and have me gasping for air. The story is by far one of his best. I agree with one reviewer by saying no movie could do this epic any justice.
The story alone is awesome. A crew of scientists sent to the deep by the Navy to investigate a plane crash that turns out to be an evolved spacecraft from the future, but is really over three hundred years old. Crichton makes you interested and glues you to the pages as the characters explore this ship, then plunge into absolute terror.
Don't do as I did and leave this book of his for last, pick it up ASAP and jump into it. The four-hundred pages with breeze by in a matter of hours.
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