Whoooooo boy. Rising Sun was an intense read. I was expecting something Sci-Fi, since the other two books I had read by Michael Crichton involved dinosaurs and microrobots. This was completely different from that. This was highly political and full of business deals, mixed with police drama.
It was almost written from a perspective of “pre-dystopia,” in the sense that the Americans seemed to think that government and business as we know it is ending and being taken away from us. Our society is collapsing and being taken over by a stronger, but from many people’s (in the book, definitely not mine) perspective, undesirable race.
Ugh, I think dystopia is not the word I’m looking for here but my brain won’t let me have the one I want. Someone give me a better word.
The strong issues in this novel were difficult for me. I have never been very political, and I kept going back and forth between the Japanese ideals making sense, and my American patriotism. There are some very interesting theories that Crichton discusses.
The police drama is also very intriguing, and not your average detective story, either. The liaison position was a new one for me, and I liked the teacher-student angle. Connor was so mysterious.
Even though, this wasn’t what I was expecting when I picked up a Crichton novel, I did enjoy it. And there is a lot here that is interesting from a cultural standpoint. Even though it is fictionalized, you can tell that the author could not have written this without doing a ton of research first. I will say, that this could be a touchy book for some, because of it’s political nature–and there is an extremely racist and vulgar character. Proceed with caution, but definitely proceed.
TRIGGER WARNING–the murder is based around the girl’s preference for erotic asphyxiation and extremely violent sex.
As I Lay Reading 