Michael Crichton books all read like screenplays. The bad guy is usually technology and not an individual. Then he finds a group of people and puts them in a situation to confront that technology. Next differs slightly from that formula in that all of the main characters are not brought together all at once at the beginning. Instead the characters have their own story lines that weave in and out of each other as the story goes on. There are a couple of story lines that you expect to cross that do not.
In the end this is a good and thought-provoking story but it does not have the finish of his usual stories. I still expect it to be made into a movie at some point.