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Rating: 
Summary: WRITER AND READER AT THE PEAK OF THEIR POWERS
Review:
Few authors totally capture a reading world as does Michael Crichton with his incomparable intellect, extensive research, and knowledge of cutting edge technology. Add to that his ability to craft a page-turning tale of suspense, and you have a master at work.
Few voice performers capture a listener's ear as totally as does George Wilson with his stage trained voice, nuanced reading, and thorough understanding of the subjects at hand.
In other words, this is a must-have audio prepared by two who are at the peak of their powers in their chosen fields.
The author's thesis is that we are spending or wasting our lives on the brink of hysteria, terror stricken by those who would destroy us. Aptly titled, "State Of Fear" takes listeners on a global journey in pursuit of environmental terrorists. We meet John Kenner, MIT scientist and federal agent who must stop a plot devised by a fanatic which would result in flooding and life threatening storms.
Crichton does scientific speak so deftly and his fact is so artfully crafted with fiction that listeners find themselves shuddering at the prospects he envisions. This is techno-thriller writing at its best as only Crichton could conceive it.
- Gail Cooke
Rating: 
Summary: A good story camoflauged in a LOT of lecturing...
Review:
I'm a big Michael Crichton fan, but this one is not my favorite. There is a great story here, with lots of action and peril and mystery, but intermixed with the story is a whole lot of haranguing about the author's view of environmentalism. This haranguing brings up some excellent thought-provoking points, and I think there is probably an uncomfortable amount of truth in what he says, but there is so MUCH of what he says that it detracts from the story. I felt taken advantage of-- my love for the author's work was used to make me a captive audience to his soapbox. That's no worse I suppose than all the commercials in my TV shows and ads in my magazines-- indeed the motivation and truth content is doubtless MUCH better, but it's not what I was expecting in an expensive and much-anticipated audio book thriller.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time.
Review: A very thin plot is used to express Crichton's ultra-conservative views on the environment. Too slow and too preachy. George Bush would love this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Good entertainment that defies the PC agenda
Review: First and foremost, the book is good entertainment.
It also makes you think. The bibliography at the end supports Cricton's views interspersed in the book. I checked many of them out and they are legitimate.
Any objections that the book is not PC simply means that the writer did not have an open mind. If you have an open mind and want to be entertained and have conventional wisdom challenged, you will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fun read that gives you something to think about..
Review: First off, this book is typical Crichton, a fun thriller, with good characters and great pacing. It seems most of reviewers of this book agree on that. There is a controversy concerning the science and Mr. Crichton's stance on the subject of global warming. I am not sure myself on this issue, but the author does give the reader plenty to think about. For me personally I see both sides, how can man not be having an effect on the enviornment including weather? but how can we even pretend to know what this effect will be? We can't even predict next weeks weather. I also know that over the last 500,000 thousand years or so the earth has had cyclical periods of warmer and colder weather (ever hear of the ice age? in fact some theories suggest we are still in the ice age just a warmer interglacial period). How are we to be able to predict just what the effect of man will be? when I was a kid a remember the fear was that the earth was heading into the next ice age? I am not saying that we shouldn't study the forces that effect climate, but I think a person has to try and think logically about all this and try and learn from all sources. Enjoy this book, and open your mind to the issues. I also recomend "A TOURIST IN THE YUCATAN" cool arceological thriller!
Rating: 
Summary: Audio Version is Unbearable
Review: I can't actually review the book itself because I couldn't listen to the whole thing. The reason I stopped was the excruciatingly inept reading of George Wilson. I managed to get through the first CD but when I looked at how many more I would have to endure, I just couldn't do it. I packed it away and tried to forget about how much money I'd spent on something so awful.
George Wilson reads with all the enthusiasm of a coma patient on Quaaludes. Add to that his incongruous accents, and it's simply more than one should have to face. I've listened to hundreds of books and I know I've never heard his voice before. It's so shockingly bad that his name will forever be the scarlet letter to mark audiobooks to pass by. I'm still stunned that a major publishing company would allow this to be released. It would be the equivalent of releasing the printed version with no punctuation. You might be able to slog through it, but would it really be worth the effort?
Rating:
Summary: Singing us over the cliff
Review: Michael Crichton's latest novel is, as usual, highly entertaining. But entertainment can be dangerous if it takes us down wrong paths. It is not just environmentalists who are talking about global warming - the consensus of the scientific community is that warming is happening. The skeptics are generally marginal, which does not come out in this book. Who's right? Hard to say since we haven't yet learned to predict the future. But it's quite something to willingly experiment with the only planet when most evidence points out the harm. Ethical scientists stop drug trials when harm is being shown. If Crichton's wrong on global warming and it's non-effects, then we will be highly entertained, but oblivious to our peril. Only the future will show whether Crichton is appropriately skeptical (as a highly competent novelist, he chose to "make up his own mind" about the science) or a false prophet who helped keep our heads in the sand in favour of a dangerous status quo. The charge to every reader is to be as skeptical of "the facts" in this fast-paced novel as Crichton is of global waming science.
Rating:
Summary: Painful audio version
Review: Ouch! Who hired this guy to read this best seller? Early on in the book we are introduced to a attractive young French girl. The narrator, who sounds like a stuffed shirt in his fifties, tries to pull off a sexy female french accent that is eye-wateringly bad. This audio version was expensive so I am plodding through it but it's the last time I buy an audio book if that's what I have to listen to. At least when I read a book I get to make up my own accents in my head. The book does a thorough and commendable job of exposing science that has become polluted by political correctness. If you like John Stossel this is a book for you, but for Pete's sake, buy the book, and stay away from this dreadful audio version...
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and educating at the same time!
Review: This is a very good book that provides an exciting and involving story with scientific facts and issues woven in the plot and in the characters. To me, this book advocates understanding and reasoning through the use of the scientific method; in my opinion, it is not an anti-global warming book. It's a book that asks questions and gives the reader cites to look at and to gather information for himself, should the desire be there to look at the evidence. After looking at the cites and reading them, one can decide for one's self whether global warming is a sham issue. That is part of the challenge the book issues to its readers: look at the evidence and decide for yourself!
Anyway. Very good book that I highly recommend!
Rating:
Summary: State of...forced
Review: While I have usually enjoyed Crichton's work, it has always been with the understanding that it will be plot-driven with cardboard characters speaking for the author, but based on some kind of interesting science run amock. Crichton is the master of the technological cautionary tale, applying Murphy's Law consequences to advances in knowledge, the double-edged swords that are the stuff of invention. His territory is dramatizing the potential Frankenstein monsters of our time. And he always grounds his drama in solid research, which makes the read appealing to those who appreciate some real science in their science fiction.
State of Fear certainly fits that formula. As expected, Crichton is on about another aspect of contemporary science, this time the environmental controversy of our age: climate change. And a good thing too, for the data underlying much of our conventional wisdom regarding rapid climate change is, at best, suspect. Crichton makes the cold-eyed case for a dispassionate review of that data absent political considerations. Again, all to the good. He argues for a rational approach, indeed a truly scientific examination of accumulating climate data, free of human hubris, and aware of the economic, political, and emotional interests vested in the subject. Read it for that alone, if you're interested. But you will have to otherwise surrender your rationality and slog through quite a bit of forced plotting and unbelievable events in order to end up with his rather simple point.
Okay, so the characters are wooden and formulaic, props that advance the breathless advance of plot points who say things that defy any notion of human credibility and otherwise mouth the little speeches he gives them to make his case. Hey, that's Crichton. (Consult any of his blockbuster novels.)
No, the problem here is a plot that gives new meaning to far-fetched. Crichton would have us suspend our disbelief to embrace the possibility that a cabal of sinister wackos would, or could, precipitate a serious of catastrophic events in order to prove their thesis of a human cause to rapid climate change -- and to keep themselves in business as environmental entrepreneurs. We are meant to believe this deadly conspiracy has been suspected and tracked by U-S intelligence services, but that their only response has been to dispatch an MIT scientist (and crypto operative) along with his trusty Asian sidekick. That's it. Two guys. But wait, it gets better. These two then recruit help. And who do they choose? A lawyer and a secretary from Los Angeles, of course. Then this gang, plus a few assorted characters who provide mostly character, rush pell-mell across the country and world in order to prevent a series of trumped up man-made disasters whose purpose is nonsensical. A lot of action set pieces, a Crichton staple, a lot of break-neck dashing about in the service of action, but precious little in the way of anything to satisfy common sense. Surrender your critical faculties all ye who enter here. Oh yes, and the bad guys go about poisoning people with a little octopus carried around in a plastic bag of seawater. Get it? A "natural" weapon by rougue environmentalists who who want to keep a low profile. (Insert deep sigh here.)
State of Fear should have been a magazine article, or non-fiction book, where Crichton could make his point (worthy, by the way) without forcing it into action fiction that defies belief and requires the reader to dumb down in order to swallow. This from a reader who has liked his stuff in the past and looks forward to his next, but was disappointed here.
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