Sphere Essay, Research Paper

Sphere

SPHERE is a great unpredictable and exciting novel. The transformations between Introduction,Rising Action, Climax, and the Summary is almost perfect. As the wire snagged something the crew laying the cable on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean realized they had a problem for

their were no shipwrecks on the chart. They told someone and this

went up the corporate line of command and soon the military found

out that their was something on the bottom of the ocean and that

they had to investigate.

The military put together a team of people ranging from a

psychologist to a mathematician. They called in Norman Johnson to

lead the team he was a psychologist who had dealt with many, many

disasters in his years. He comes in and comforts eyewitnesses who

can’t deal with the sight and helps victims and family members

deal with the loss of friends and family.

Norman was called one day and told that their was an

emergency and that they wanted him to come in and work. He

suspected that it was another plane crash. This guess of his was

bursted when he was loaded onto a military helicopter and took

off. He flew over the dark blue Pacific ocean and flew for what

was hours but seemed to be days. Hours and hours of dark blue

water was ended with a speck of a ship that turned into an entire

fleet of navy research vessels. He knew then that this was no

ordinary plane crash.

The introduction of the book is very grabbing. You feel that

this is just going to keep building and become fantastic. This

feeling of amazement stays with throughout the introduction.

As the rising action starts to take off you just sink into

the same world that Norman, Beth, and Harry, the three

protagonists, are living in. You start to feel claustrophobic as

your reading about how confining the habitat on the ocean floor

is. After the rising action gets going the “gang” as we will

refer to them as will meet many hard problems and take risks.

They battle with the giant squid near the begging of rising

action. That was a case when something was heading toward the

habitat and the couldn’t tell what it was this thing was flying at

the habitat when it stopped and seemed to disappear. The next

encounter wasn’t as easily escaped the thing reached up through an

open hatch and with it’s huge eye looked in and tracked the crew

of the habitat running about trying to escape him. They finally

figured out a way to defend the habitat to some degree against the

squid. The eeriest part of the rising action is when they went

over to the ship to try to board the monstrous space like vessel.

They arrive at what they thought was the entrance point and

located a type of control panel. By now they had determined by

size, shape, haul strength, and how thick the coral was covering

it that it was that we, meaning humans, didn’t have the technology

at this time to build this vessel, and that it has been their for

a very long time. Therefore they determined that it must be alien

to the planet. They opened what they thought was the control

panel and it was all in English. He pushed the “OPEN” button, a

door opened, they walked in, the door closed and Barnes pushed

another button and the room was pressurized. Next a light blinked

“ADJUSTING ATMOSPHERE”. They walked in and checked the air. It

was okay according to Beth’s test so they one by one cautiously

took off their masks and breathed in the cool crisp air. The dim

ship seemed very empty and calm. They proceeded through the ship

and found many highly advanced computers everywhere. They found

preserved food in the kitchen area and everything needed to

sustain the life of a human. Beds, entertainment areas, food,

everything. They travel to the ship many times finding more and

more things each time. Finally on one of the trips they find the

sphere. This ball of steal has many jagged groves all around.

The gigantic sphere seemed to be non- penitratable. Again after making

numerous trips over to try to figure out how to open this object

that seemed to be hollow. After this final trip that accomplished

nothing they placed cameras surrounding the sphere. Finally one

day Harry disappeared from the habitat. He was seen in almost a

trance walking right up to the sphere. Just as he got their the

sphere opened right up and he walked in. He was in their for

several minutes, and then the sphere opened up, he walked out, and

walked out as it closed. He got back everyone was asking him

about how he got it to open and what it was like. He said that he

could remember nothing except fireflies. Everyone, puzzled by this

One night while sitting at the computer they started

receiving number patterns on the computer screen that seemed to

be coming from nowhere. The determined that it couldn’t be from

anywhere but the habitat or the ship that the sphere was on

because of the speed of the transmission. It was so fast that the

distance between them and the surface was so great that it was

impossible to send a signal that fast without the communication

cable that was inactive. They finally ciphered the code at

realized that it was a being that since their thoughts, knew

everything they knew, but had the word selection of a five year

old. They finally deduced that it was the sphere talking to them.

They realized this because it only talked when Harry was in the

room and Harry was in the sphere. Through the many days of

talking to Jerry the sphere their were many unexpected disasters.

Jerry was trying to communicate to them through other animals.

Their were the giant squid and the tiny squid. The tiny squid

came in thousands. This was normal, but what was so weird was

that they didn’t have any stomachs, brains, or reproductive organs

so they were virtually unable to live under normal conditions.

While Jerry was trying to communicate he thought he was doing good

but he was actually tearing apart the habitat cylinder by

cylinder. It eventually drove beth crazy. She lined the bottom

of the ocean, along the craft, with explosives. She set the timer

and engaged it. When she arrived back at the habitat Norman

realized what she had done and tried to override the explosives.

It was too late. He determined that the only thing they could do

was abandon the habitat and save themselves. He tried to get Beth

out of the habitat but she refused to go, so he left alone in the

mini-sub. He started his accent and on the way up realized that

he couldn’t leave Beth and Harry to die. He went back. After

reaching the bottom of the ocean he docked the sub and tried to

open the hatch. It was locked from the inside. He yelled at Beth

through the intercom telling her to unlock the hatch but she

refused. She had lost her mind and didn’t know what she was

thinking. All of Norman’s years of being a phytologist couldn’t

help him she had snapped! He tried the hatches to all the other

cylinder that were attached to the one Beth was in. They were

locked but just then the whole in the wall the squid had made in E

cylinder caught Norman’s eye. The jagged whole would allow him to

enter the flooded cylinder but that would not be safe, one slip

and his pressure suit would rip and he would die. He realized,

though flooded, he could get in through the E cylinder hatch. He

made his way through and now had to figure out how to pressurize

this cylinder which was used as a kitchen. He opened the oven

door and the trapped air bubbled up forming a bubble at the top of

the ceiling. He then remembered that Barnes said that since they

were breathing in and living on helium they had to cook with a mix

of gas and oxygen. He ripped the stove out of the way to find two

huge tanks marked “O2″. He opened the valve of the first tank to

see the tank roar out with bubbles. The air was collecting as

one bubble at the top of the room. The water level began to fall.

He opened the valve to the other tank. The water began to drop

more rapidly. Past his head, past his shoulders, down to his

waist, and then it slowed down and stopped at his knees. He ran

to the pressure door leading to Beth. As he entered the room he

say harry laying unconscious on the floor. He shook him about

trying to wake him up. He then ran to try to find Beth. He was

looking about the habitat. She had hid from him. Just as he was

about to give up he spotted her huddled in the corner behind a

barrier of pipes holding a Spear gun. She told Norman he

shouldn’t of came back for her and that it was too late to save

her. He moved in to try to overpower her and remove her from the

habitat before it exploded and she pointed the spear gun directly

at him. Just as he was about to give up on Beth he thought where

is Harry. Suddenly he saw Harry sneaking up behind Beth with a

wrench in his hand. He knocked her out cold. Norman rushed to

get the two dressed to go on the mini-sub. They then got in the

water and made their way to the sub. After rushing to get all

three of them in the sub one at a time through the one man

air-lock Norman heard a synthesized voice say that their was less

than two minutes until the explosives went off. Frantically the

got loaded and departed they were behind schedule so they had to

risk getting smashed by the shock of the explosion. They escaped

just barely.

After the explosion Norman, Harry, and Beth are found by one

of the ships coordinating the investigation of the sphere. They

pass out. Next they wake up in a Navy decompression chamber.

They talk about how to explain this to the government and if the

government should even know exactly what happened down their. One

thing they acquired during their encounter with the sphere was

that they had the ability to have whatever they thought was

happening. If they thought that Norman was flying above they

table, Norman would be flying above the table. So they chose,

instead of revealing this to the government, to decide that they

forgot everything. Sure enough they forgot everything and that is

pretty much how the book ends.

They end of the story is the weak spot. They had just

discovered that they have this power that they could instantly

cure cancer just by thinking their was no such thing as cancer.

They could do literally anything, but Michael Crichton just draws

a line and says that’s it.

Though this is a depressing ending, the book as a whole is a

heart pounding, nonstop adventure story that I recommend this book

to anyone who likes to read. Even if you don’t generally like

science fiction you’ll love this unpredictable novel.