Sphere: Michael Crichton

This book starts and ends mysteriously. A physiologist, Norman, is flown to a remote island on a mission which he assumed dealt with a plain crash. When he gets to the island the navy has set up an underwater lab. Norman is told there is a spaceship at the bottom of the ocean, which they think is 300 years old, or has at least been siting there for 300 years. Once the team gets to the bottom they realize the "space ship" was made in America...in the future. On board they find coke in the pantry, but no crew. There is also a large "sphere" made of an alien substance. Everyone goes back to the underwater lab and they learn they are going to be stuck down there for a few days because a huge storm has caused the navy to pull out above them. On the camera they see one of the members of the crew, Harry, has gone back into the ship and opens the sphere. he walks into it and it closes around him. a couple hours later he comes out and can't remember much about the experience, just that they NEED to get out and get out now! We later realize that he has become paranoid. Strange things start to happen. Miraculously large sea fans begin growing by the lag, scores of squid, then jellyfish, then shrimp appear, which have no digestive organs. One of the crew goes out and is consumed by jelly fish. People start dying right and left including the captain of the mission. A large squid like something from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea starts coming to the lab and tearing it apart. The remaining three people in the crew start to figure out the appearance of the monsters only happen when a certain person is awake. Norman and Beth put an IV in Harry to keep him asleep in order to keep themselves alive until the storm subsides and they can escape the lab. However Beth starts acting strange as well and she locks Norman in a section of the lab turning off his air and electric. He watches one of the tapes from the ship and sees that Beth also entered the sphere. She was afraid of sea snakes and a tornado of them appeared when she went out to the sub. The things she materializes allow her to be in control and save people. Norman escapes out the lab and enters the ship and the sphere to try to understand what is going on. The sphere doesn't seem to react with him the way it did with the other two. He accidently arms the explosives Beth had set up around the lab and escapes in the sub himself once the storm is over. He is on his way to the surface when he realizes he is no better than the others when he panics and leaves them behind. He goes back and awakes Harry, who knocks out Beth and they just barely get out to the sub before the explosions, Harry's power of positive thinking is more powerful than Beth and Harry's complaints that they will never make it to the surface in time. They are the only survivors and the only ones who know about the sphere. The time frame is wrong for the explosives- which bothered me-it was a 20 min timer at 0140, at 0130 there is still 14 min left? At the end they all agree to forget about the sphere because its power is too much for both them mankind. They decide to just remember the accident (as a reminder of why so many on their expedition died) for the navy questioning that will follow. They are able to use there new found ability to erase the sphere from their mind. We know both Harry and Norman forget, but you are not convinced that Beth went through with it as she doesn't really comment in the same way as the other two and she still has a beauty that the sphere seemed give her. Interestingly enough, the only person not chosen by Norman for the expedition was Levine, who got sea sick and returned to the surface before the expedition began. and the person they most rely on, Harry, turns out to be the one responsible for the manifestations of the creatures that kill everyone off. We are left thinking the spacecraft was probably abandoned by the future Americans who also realized people weren't ready for the power of the sphere yet. One has to recognize and accept that they are part beast and part nice guy.