Binary, A Novel

by John Lange

a novel

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Science Fiction, Adventure, Mystery Thriller

201 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

John Lange™ is a pseudonym of author Michael Crichton. His pen name was selected as reference to his above-average height of 6' 9"(2.06 meters). Lange means "tall one" in German, Danish and Dutch.

Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Kandice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was obviously well researched just like all of Crichton's books. I always find that thrilling, especially when it's about something dangerous, like explosives and nerve gas in this title. The low stars are not for that, nor are they due to the pacing. This was a perfect title for Hard Case Crime, thrilling and told at breakneck speed. The low stars are for lack of depth.

Crichton isn't known for creating characters. It's the situation of his tales that really grab the reader. Often that's enough to make me overlook the lack of characterization, but here it simply wasn't. We don't get to know anyone in this book despite having access to a personality profile!

I would recommend this as an airplane or beach read, but that's about it.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun page turning thriller - yes its says John Lange and yes its a pseudonym for Michael Crichton - in fact there are several other books written under this pseudonym but thats for another day.

This book is a fast pace thriller - a case of catch them if they can (in time). Yes the story sacrifices pace over depth and as such you feel that characters are never really properly fleshed out which is a shame since there are hints of a more deeper physiological cat and mouse battle forming between the two main protagonists.

Also the book is dated - the reference to the technology really does date the story and how the information was obtained in the first place - however and this is the scary part - it would not take much to update for the modern day and the some of the concepts presented here are scarily possible in fact even more so today.

As such this is a great example of the story telling ability that Michael Crichton had as such if you want a book to while away a few hours there are many you could do worse with than read this although I will be the first to admit he has written a lot better thrillers than this,

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast, easy, fun, and masculine to a ludicrous degree. So, pretty much exactly what you want when you pick up a pulp novel to read over the summer break. It was cool getting to read a Michael Crichton book from before he was THE Michael Crichton. Kind of feels like watching batting practice at a major league ballgame, or showing up to the symphony early and hearing all the instruments get tuned up.

Something that did surprise me about this book that sets it apart from most other pulp novels: absolutely no sex. Not even the suggestion of any. Honestly, I'm not even sure who the naked lady on the cover of the book is supposed to be. There's really only one female character in the entire novel, and to say she's disposable would be putting it nicely. The book fails the Bechdel test miserably - not only do two women characters not talk to each other about something other than a man, but two women characters don't appear at all. There's only one, and she talks to some men... about another man.

Overall, though, you can't complain too much. Reading this book is like getting on a rickety old roller coaster at a traveling carnival. If you have a good time and the entire thing doesn't fall apart by the end, you're happy.

[Girish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Binary is one of the shortest thrillers you'll read. Though the topic is well researched and the book is an absolute page turner, I found it tad simple.

John Graves, intelligence officer gets pulled up by the State Defense Department personnel after a consignment of secret military shipment gets hijacked. John Wright, who is under surveillance by Graves and his team is the main suspect and hence starts the game of chess between the two.

With only 15 hours, the book doesn't waste any time setting contexts or lecturing on the science behind nerve gases. But Crichton couldn't resist taking digs on the senseless protocols and the risk in the entire system behind military research projects.

Written under the pseudonym of John Lange - I couldn't stop wondering if the two Johns in the book was his way of handling the pen name.

Fun refresher for a Crichton fan.

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Από την τελευταία φορά που διάβασα κάποιο βιβλίο του Μάικλ Κράιτον πέρασαν πάνω από δυο χρόνια και η αλήθεια είναι ότι μου έλειψε λιγάκι. Βέβαια εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε μ'ένα παλπ μυθιστόρημα που έγραψε ο Κράιτον με το ψευδώνυμο Τζον Λαντζ, όταν ακόμα σπούδαζε και δεν είχε αρχίσει την μεγάλη καριέρα του ως συγγραφέας, οπότε δεν μιλάμε για τον κλασικό Κράιτον. Με το ψευδώνυμο αυτό έγραψε συνολικά οχτώ βιβλία, πάνω-κάτω της ίδιας αισθητικής και ποιότητας, τα οποία ανήκουν πλέον στην τρομερή σειρά παλπ μυθιστορημάτων Hard Case Crime. Το 2013 είχα διαβάσει ένα άλλο βιβλίο του που έγραψε ως Τζον Λαντζ, το μοναδικό του μάλλον που κυκλοφόρησε στα ελληνικά, με τον τίτλο "Πλωτό φέρετρο" (Grave Descent στο πρωτότυπο), ένα πολύ καλό περιπετειώδες θρίλερ αλά Τζέιμς Μποντ.

Πως έχει η ιστορία: Ένας πολιτικά ριζοσπαστικός και ακραίος τύπος, ονόματι John Wright, ετοιμάζει μια πράξη μαζικής καταστροφής, που αναμένεται να πλήξει την πόλη του Σαν Ντιέγκο, όπου γίνεται η συνεδρίαση του κόμματος των Ρεπουμπλικάνων, με παρουσία του ίδιου του προέδρου των ΗΠΑ. Ο ομοσπονδιακός πράκτορας John Graves παρακολουθεί για καιρό τις κινήσεις του Wright, χωρίς όμως να έχει κάτι χειροπιαστό. Όμως μια το χακάρισμα ενός κυβερνητικού υπολογιστή, μια η κλοπή ενός τρομερά θανατηφόρου αερίου και αρκετών κιλών πλαστικού εκρηκτικού, είναι κομμάτια που αν ενωθούν δημιουργούν την ολοκληρωμένη εικόνα μιας συνωμοσίας. Όμως ο Graves και οι διάφοροι άλλοι πράκτορες και αστυνομικοί, έχουν να κάνουν μ'έναν πραγματικά ιδιοφυή εγκληματία. Ο χρόνος πιέζει, ενώ όλοι πρέπει να παίξουν το παιχνίδι του Wright...

Έχουμε να κάνουμε με ένα κλασικό περιπετειώδες θρίλερ, γεμάτο δράση, εκπλήξεις, αγωνία και ένταση, η ατμόσφαιρα του οποίου θυμίζει πολύ περιπετειώδεις ταινίες της δεκαετίας του '70, ίσως και του '80. Ε, και αυτό είναι κάτι που μου αρέσει πολύ, μιας και δηλώνω φαν τέτοιου είδους βιβλίων και ταινιών. Σίγουρα ποιοτικά ίσως να μην φτάνει άλλα βιβλία του Κράιτον, που είναι πιο μεγάλα σε μέγεθος, με περισσότερες πληροφορίες και αναλύσεις, αλλά σαν ιστορία μου φάνηκε πολύ καλή, γρήγορη και χωρίς περιττές λεπτομέρειες, όπως πρέπει να είναι ένα σωστό παλπ θρίλερ. Η γραφή απλή και κατανοητή, με όλες τις απαραίτητες περιγραφές των διαφόρων σκηνικών, καθώς και με ρεαλιστικούς διαλόγους. Οι χαρακτήρες χωρίς βάθος, αλλά κάνουν την δουλειά τους. Γενικά είναι ένα βιβλίο που το ευχαριστήθηκα τόσο, όσο αν το διάβαζα στα ελληνικά. Δεν συνάντησα δυσκολίες και μου φάνηκε σαν μια πολύ καλή και ψυχαγωγική εξάσκηση των αγγλικών μου. Το μόνο σίγουρο είναι ότι θα προμηθευτώ και θα διαβάσω και άλλα βιβλία του "Τζον Λαντζ".

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

From 1966 to 1972, Michael Crichton published eight novels under the pseudonym John Lange. The reason he did so was because he was a student in medical school at the time, and he felt that using his real name would cause problems with his reputation among his mentor-doctors. Apparently, doctors at med school don't think med students should fill their "free time" writing silly action-adventure novels. I'm just still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Crichton had enough "free time" during med school to write eight novels. That's overachieving in anyone's book.

In 2012, Hard Case Crime published these novels in their shiny paperback editions with their trademark retro cover art. In 2023, Blackstone Publishing re-published them in hardcover editions.

"Binary" was published in 1972, and it was the last one he published with the Lange pseudonym. At that point, he felt comfortable publishing under his own name. The rest is history.

As a Crichton novel, "Binary" isn't bad. Like many of his novels, it is science-based and not necessarily science fiction. In this one, a government agent is trying to stop a criminal/terrorist from releasing a binary agent---a chemcial weapon in which two chemicals, which are harmless by themselves, combine to form a deadly gas---in San Diego during the Republican National Convention.

The agent, John Graves, must use his wits more than his muscles. Indeed, it is one of the few action-adventure novels I have read where the protagonist never, at any point, draws his gun. Indeed, as he learns early on, guns would be extraordinarily dangerous, as a stray bullet could spell the death of millions of Californians.

It's an extremely quick and suspenseful read. I finished it in one sitting; the whole book took as long to read as it took me to drink a Coke Zero.

I look forward to reading the seven other Lange/Crichton novels.

[Trent Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grade: B- ...John Lange (an early psuedonym used by Michael Crichton)wrties a rather ho-hum novel in Binary. The most interesting thing is reading this book as a time capsule of cutting edge computer technology circa 1972.

[David Caldwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Lange is a pseudonym for Michael Crichton. He used this name when he was still attending medical school in the mid 60's to early 70's (1966 -1972) and wrote suspense novels on the side to earn money.

Binary is the story of a government agent playing a deadly game with a man intending to commit mass murder including the president of the US and most of the delegates for one of the main political parties.

Not only was this story written in 1970, it is also set in that time. Parts of the story are very dated. I don't mean that reads like a story set in the past but written from a current perspective. It is like watching old TV shows or movies that were made back then. The special effects seem bad (think man in rubber suit for monster level of bad). The acting even feels more stilted than in a modern film. Now, of course, this is a book and doesn't have special effects or acting but writing styles have changed and naturally Michael Crichton hadn't had as much experience writing back then. But it still feels old in a not good way. One prime example is the naked girl on the cover. It has nothing to do with the story in any way whatsoever, just something they did to sell books back then (and still do).

Character development is sketchy at best. Most of the problems that arose in the book could have been avoided if the main character had just arrested the suspect when he was first told to do so. Of course, this was explained by "his need to play the game and win" which just did not come off as a good enough reason.

One interesting thing was the notion of how much the government should look at private citizens in the US in order to keep the general populace safe in a book that was set in 1972 when it is still such a burning question. Of course, this might have been part of the re-editing/updating the book went through to make it a little more appealing to the modern reader.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graves works for the government. During the course of his duties he finds that someone has tapped into government files. That someone is Wright. Wright is a very wealthy man and a genius. He is determined that he will do something about the government that is corrupt.

Graves must stop him from killing a million people in San Diego, California including the president of the US, there to speak at a republican convention.

I enjoyed this book but it wasn't up to the level of research that normally is this author's forte. I did like the character of Graves. He is a unique individual and it was very interesting to have his psych eval as part of the story - made the story much more understandable.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Crichton wrote eight books under the pseudonym of John Lange. As I am on a semi-casual quest to read everything Crichton has ever written, I am always delighted when I can track a Lange book down. Happily the Hard Case Crime line has reprinted all of these volumes-which brings us to Binary. Binary was published after Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, but thematically the books are very similar, with a countdown as one of the plot devices and a puzzle that must be solved or a mass death of biblical proportions will occur. Despite some plot points that are truly antiquated, such as the state of computer technology in 1972, Binary holds up and delivers some real thrills. It's a fast fun little book that clocks in at 220 pages-great for a beach read or a lazy afternoon.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast-paced thriller that barrels right on from the start without any extra stuff. I don't usually like novels that could easily be made into movies, I prefer more depth and development, but Crichton keeps you on the edge of your seat wanting to see what will happen next, how the detective will solve the puzzle.

[Adrian McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A straightforward thriller with a little touch of Crichton-esque techy complication thrown in. A very fast read. Not much in the way of characters, which seems typical for Crichton. (I'm not sure why one of the editions shows a woman on the cover. None of the characters in the story are women; there are only a couple small references to the sexual conquests of one of the men.)

Even though this was written in the early '70s, it has some interesting connections to today. John Graves, the hero, has reluctantly switched from foreign to domestic intelligence and has reservations about spying on U.S. citizens. After viewing the table of contents for a dossier on his current surveillance target:

Graves stared at the categories with some distaste. It was disturbing that the government should have so much information on a private individual--particularly one who had committed no criminal act at any time.

We should pool some money and send everyone in the NSA a copy.

[Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

You see that naked woman on the cover? What the bloody f$%^ is that about? There is one hooker being interviewed, for a grand total of maybe a quarter of a page, and she provides no useful info whatsoever.

It's not terrible, but if it wasn't quite so cringe- and facepalm-inducing, it would have fared much, much better.

(if you know that a super-smart dude has acquired a considerable quantity of [deadly stuff] and a variety of [unusual supplies], of *course* the rational approach is to not pick him up immediately but to play mind-games with him)

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

«I began writing as a medical student, and felt that I would continue as a doctor and ought to protect my patients from the fear that they might pop up in the pages of a thriller. The best protection would not be to disguise them, but to disguise me. Once I decided not to practice medicine, I dropped the pseudonyms expect for convenience. I wrote too much, so I decided to publish some books under false names, and in that way, could publish more books.»

And that's how Michael Crichton began his writing career. One of my favourite and most read authors. The creator of Jurassic Park, Westworld and ER, among many others.

From the summer of 2011 until November 2018, I read 19 of the 32 books he published. November 2018 was the 10th anniversary of his death. That's when I decided to do a project dedicated to Crichton. One book per month for the next 32 months.


The thrillers he wrote as a medical student between 1966 and 1972 under the pseudonym John Lange were eight, and with the exception of the last one he wrote in 1972 (the year he decided to publish under his own name something that lasted until his death,) were a large part of his bibliography that I had not read. So I ordered them all in one go.

Every time I need to review one of these I'll repeat this general introduction about his early writings rather than extensive reviews on each individual book.

Because beyond the interest of reading early works of your favourite author, reading what he wrote and seeing his writing slowly evolving, they are not masterpieces and you cannot dedicate more than five lines for their sake. It's like Schwarzenegger movies. You are having a good time and that's it. And I also didn't want to confuse you every second day with a new book by Crichton.

They were written quickly and, as he said, he wrote them to gain money to pay for utilities and groceries while he was a student.

They are not masterpieces as I mentioned above, but their writing was something like writing exercises, a writing with which in the medical thriller A Case of Need (that he wrote in 1968 under another pseudonym (Jeffery Hudson)) gained the Edgar Award in 1969.

A year in which he published for the first time under his own name one of his best novels, the science fiction thriller The Andromeda Strain, which was made into a film in 1971.
In 1970 he and his brother Douglas Crichton co-wrote another hippie thriller under a common pseudonym Michael Douglas (Dealing, or The Berkeley-To-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues). This would be his third and final nickname.
In 1972, with The Terminal Man under his own name, he realised that his career was now a writer, not a doctor, so he put the pseudonym in the bottom drawer.

The eight books he wrote as John Lange remained out of stock since the late 1970s until the publishing house Hard Case Crime began publishing out of stock and hard-to-find books in the noir, thriller, detective, and generally pulp fiction categories.

Among them are books published for the first time such as Joyland and The Colorado Kid by Stephen King.

While Crichton was still alive, two of his books, Grave Descend and Zero Cool, were edited by him.
In November 2008, unfortunately, Crichton passed away, so in 2013 the remaining 6 books were released.

Because I don't want to tire you out anymore and give you acute Crichtoniasis, I'll talk briefly about this one.

Binary 1972: read* it in September 2019
A nerve gas bomb is set to explode in 12 hours in central Los Angeles. Federal Agent John Graves and his team are racing against time to find out exactly where the bomb is and turn it off in time before it kills millions of people.
* second time

More in Greek at βιβλιοαλχημείες

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Michael Crichton's very first efforts (which he wrote under a pen name), BINARY is a very mediocre novel, but still pretty amazing considering how young Crichton was when he wrote it. Crichton would later use it as the basis for his directorial debut, a 1972 TV movie called PURSUIT. It's the story of two brilliant men, a government agent and a cold-blooded terrorist, who see each other as long-sought-out adversaries and can't resist playing a series of mind games with each other. The fate of Las Angeles, as well as that of the entire Republican party, lie in the balance.
To say that Crichton hadn't yet perfected his art when he wrote this would be a gross understatement. The writing is extremely flat throughout--except for the technical bits which he seems to have particularly relished. Even at that age, the man was a voracious researcher. He was also way ahead of his time, even from the very beginning of his career, and BINARY's themes of terrorism, chemical warfare, political instability, and an American government distrustful of its own people seem ripped out of today's headlines. Despite a rather unpromising beginning, BINARY's last couple of chapters generate a surprising amount of tension, and, at only a couple hundred pages (most of which is dialog), the book never really gives you a chance to become bored with it.

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the novellas Crichton wrote as he put himself through med school. Obviously, this is of interest to more of a few people, so it's been reprinted a few times. In fact, one recent cover of this book makes it look like something out of Chandler/Ellroy/Sin City pulp fiction (which it isn't even close to).

That said, it is some of Crichton's early work as a pulp writer. That seems contradictory, maybe oxymoronic, but Pulp Crichton is actually exactly what you think it might be. It's pulp but it has to be all science-y.

It's a short 200-ish page book about a potential bombing of the 1972 GOP Convention (which was planned for San Diego). Crichton has to give it a chemisty spin and the 'this could actually happen any day now' hysteria at the beginning and end of the book is a nice pulp touch.

If he had written this in the 90s, he probably would have fleshed this out to a 600-page monster and its film would have been a mega hit. Since Crichton's career wasn't quite there yet, it's a quick and dirty story of a cat and mouse between a flawed cop and a genius criminal mastermind.

Nothing here life-changing, but for a quick cheap (99 cent ebook) read, it is quite a fine time killer

[Vel Veeter]

A thriller written by Michael Crichton in the early 1970s. Even though this is a John Lange book, it feels very much like a Michael Crichton book, and even more like an Ira Levin or Thomas Harris book. It's a terrorist thriller wherein our protagonist is sent to spy on a known provacoteur who is making weird moves in his public and private experiences. What we come to understand is that he is planning to either kill a bunch of people, assassinate a high ranking official, or both. To do this, the plan is to obtain a powerful nerve gas that is made up of two distinctly inert components that when combined together are incredibly dangerous (kills within minutes kind of thing; easily spread) and well the chase is on.

It's a perfectly ok thriller in general, and well the science sounds sound, and I refuse to care one way or another if it is. I couldn't possibly suggest reading this, but it made for a solid audiobook. The cover is hilariously crude, and even funnier, there's not even a woman in this book I think, which is its own problem.

[itchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

reads like a wake-up call

[Andre · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast paced thriller novel from the early days of Michael Crichton's career when he was still writing under the name of John Lange.

Our protagonist must learn about himself so that he can understand how the villain has rigged his bomb in such a way as to defeat him. He must solve it in time or a million people will die. A novel idea that is worked out well in this relatively short story.

If there is one thing amiss with this novel, it would be the cover. I don't quite understand the need to show a girl on each publication's cover in the HCC series and especially in this case it doesn't make any sense whatsoever as it simply does not relate to the story at all. There are many great artists who would have been able to select a great scene out of this novel that would have created an eye catching cover without a girl.

Having said that, the Hard Case Crime series continues to deliver... and splendidly at that.

[maja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Główny bohater to mężczyzna pracujący w ministerstwie obrony stanu, który ma za zadanie obserwować pewnego miliardera. Po 3 miesiącach obserwowan, mimo ze nic na niego nie mają, chcą go aresztować, na co nie zgadza sie główny bohater. Jednak pewnego dnia Miliarder robi coś podejrzanego, a John ma za zadanie odkryć co.

Niesamowicie przyjemnie czytało sie ten triller. Akcja była szybka i przemyślana. O dziwo nie nudziłam sie w całe i nie było momentów, gdy chciałam odłożyć książkę. A sama książka również uczy zagadnień związanych ze swoją fabuła.

Broń Boże, żeby nikt nie pomyślał, ze jest zła. Po prostu to 3 gwizdki, ale polecam gorąco, jako krótki, przyjemny triller!!

[Rikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this for what it was. Crichton got straight to the point and was able to tell a fully formed story in barely 200 pages. I do wish there was an afterward thought to kind of explain what happened to all the other people that played apart in Wright’s plan. But back in the 1970s it was expensive to publish a book so I get why he left some of this out.

Also, I don’t understand why there’s a naked chick on the cover lol.

[Alan Vecchio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could of been a good thriller if the author (John Lange aka Michael Crichton) had not made his main characters so dense, gullible and down right stupid. These "heroes" are supposed to be highly trained intelligence officers but, throughout the book, they can't figure out the simplest clues that are staring them in the face.

[Wintry Monsters Press · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very much enjoying this until the sudden end. Not only was it anticlimactic, it all seemed too easy. I suspected that Wright had actually gotten away with a decoy in the car and that there was a secondary attack zone, etc etc...but no. It all wrapped up too simply. It's unfortunate when an exciting book gets dropped on its head at the end, dampening the whole thing.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally a “John Lange” book that is more like a Michael Crichton book! This book was published after The Andromeda Strain which is the book that made him famous. Two highly intelligent evil vs good protagonists fight over the safety of an entire city, including the President of the USA.

[A T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good very thrilling and keeps me up

[zuzia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nie wiem jak Crichton to robi, ale choćby pisał książkę o kopaniu ziemniaków, ja i tak czytalabym ją jakby była najciekawszym artefaktem na świecie

[Mike Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

23

[Peter Melancon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast paced, it truly feels like a 70's thriller and I didn't see the ending coming. I'm in awe that Crichton was writing as John Lange in med school...crazy!

[Jim Paulson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, I had never heard of these early books of Chrichton. I may have to find some of the others he wrote under this pseudonym. This was a nice polished story, easy to read.

[Matylda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Fajne fajne