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Codice Beta (1972)

by Michael Crichton(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Garzanti

review 1: Fast, easy, fun, and masculine to a ludicrous degree. So, pretty much exactly what you want when you pick up a pulp novel to read over the summer break. It was cool getting to read a Michael Crichton book from before he was THE Michael Crichton. Kind of feels like watching batting practice at a major league ballgame, or showing up to the symphony early and hearing all the instruments get tuned up. Something that did surprise me about this book that sets it apart from most other pulp novels: absolutely no sex. Not even the suggestion of any. Honestly, I'm not even sure who the naked lady on the cover of the book is supposed to be. There's really only one female character in the entire novel, and to say she's disposable would be putting it nicely. The book fails the Bechdel ... moretest miserably - not only do two women characters not talk to each other about something other than a man, but two women characters don't appear at all. There's only one, and she talks to some men... about another man. Overall, though, you can't complain too much. Reading this book is like getting on a rickety old roller coaster at a traveling carnival. If you have a good time and the entire thing doesn't fall apart by the end, you're happy.
review 2: In the scheme of things, "Binary" was Michael Crichton's 11th book (8th under the Lange pen-name) and yet it has the feel of being much less developed, not just in plot and characterization, but in execution as well. Perhaps the author felt a bit ill at ease in writing a purely political/spy thriller, or having to rely on a unbelievable politically conservative lunatic for a villain, or countering the villain with the fiction of a competent civil servant. Or maybe he just couldn't work up any enthusiasm about saving Republicans.The book is set in San Diego, in 1972, when the Republican National Convention was supposed to have been held in San Diego. The RNC eventually abandoned San Diego for reasons sillier than the ones that led it to choose the town in the first place--the residents themselves were mostly apathetic about the whole thing, but for decades after it was possible to buy all sorts of souvenirs commemorating the "convention that never happened" at a thrift store in nearby Otay; at the beginning of the book, the author mentions that he "preferred not to follow the convention to Miami Beach," perhaps another indication that he only wrote the book to use a binary chemical as a plot device, since all he would have had to do was change the name of the town--his depiction of San Diego was flawed with inaccuracies and mistakes.And yet for all the problems experienced by "Binary," it is still well written, with flashes of brilliance. It is tightly plotted, and the idea at the center of the novel, that it would be comparatively easy to steal chemical weapons from the government, is strong enough to carry the weight of a novel. The action is a bit forced at times, but the suspense is well maintained, slipping only when Crichton is preoccupied with lampooning government bureaucracy. all in all, "Binary" is a diverting novel, but probably not one that will have great endurance. less

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