Honey, I shrunk the grad students!

Michael Crichton's _Micro_ disappoints. Cliched characters barely sketched out ... Evil villain CEO and his sidekick-in-high-heels CFO straight out of a Marvel comic-book ... Less attention to basic physics or thermodynamics (or plausible rationality) than one would expect from a Pixar cartoon. Loose threads conveniently tied up by wantonly killing off characters before we get to know them. Not that they'd exhibit any nuance or personality, anyway. Cardboard silhouettes of the token Organization Man, the Fitness Nut, the Foreigner (or two), et cetera. Did I mention preposterous disregard for any plausible extrapolation from known science and technology? This is no Andromeda Strain.