It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Michael Crichton. There was a time when there were a number of novels on my bedside table that had his name on them but nothing for a couple of decades, and I thought perhaps I should revisit those I knew and explore the ones I didn’t, and wouldn’t you know it, I found a copy of Sphere in one of those Little Libraries people set up in their yard.

The Navy recruits psychologist Norman Johnson to investigate what he believes is an airplane crash. Arriving in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When he arrives on site he encounters a mathematician, Harry Adams, a zoologist, Beth Halpern, astrophysicist Ted Fielding and marine biologist Arthur Levine.

Norman quickly discovers that he’s on his way one thousand feet down to an underwater habitat to offer information and insights not on an airplane crash, but what appears to be a giant spaceship buried in the ocean floor.

And the discoveries keep coming, there’s something in the ship’s hold, a giant sphere that is as troubling and awe-inspiring as the ship that carries it. More so, perhaps, because it is such an unknown.

Things take to the unnerving and mysterious when the sphere, apparently, begins communicating with them, and a previously quiet stretch of seabed is now filled with all manner of sea life including something big and monstrous that could threaten and destroy the entire underwater habitat and those within.

Crichton tells an incredibly fast-paced tale, lacing it with science, and making it all compelling reading, keeping the action beats and the reveals coming fast and furious. I whipped through this book and enjoyed every moment of it. I know I read it a long time ago, I had received a Crichton three-pack of paperbacks one Christmas in a slipcase and this was one of them along with Congo and another title, but this time around I was completely swept up in it, and couldn’t put it down.

It’s a helluva engaging read and has definitely inspired me to check out other Crichton books again or for the first time. Man, what a great storyteller.

I like how, as the story progresses, we learn increasingly that we cannot believe anything we are seeing or hearing, and everything and everyone can be a threat. It was such a fun ride. It makes me want to check out the film adaptation again, something I haven’t seen since it came out, as I remember it got completely trashed by critics and audiences alike, but I wonder if age has been kind to it.

I’m also eager to check out the stories Crichton wrote under a pseudonym, John Lange. So many stories to explore!