State of Fear

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Although some of the book was fast paced and interesting, far too much of it was not. The book was a disappointment to me because....

1. So much of the book dealt with presenting the science of global warming that it begins to read more like a science text than a thriller. I mean there are chapters and chapters devoted to the science of global warming along with pages and pages of charts. If this information were necessary to advance the plot, then fine, but it wasn't. In fact, it really slowed the story down. Since I didn't buy this book to get informed about global warming I skipped nearly one third of it without missing any of the 'plot'.

2. Wouldn't you think that if the government knew about a terrorist organization that had the demonstrated will and capability to inflict mass casualties on the world's population, that they would assign more than two covert "agency" guys, a personal secretary, and a lawyer to the job of foiling the organization? I know that Crichton has done this to keep the book suspenseful as this skeleton crew runs around trying to beat the clock, but give me a break!

3. As for character development, as usual, Crichton doesn't really bother. Sometimes the dialogue between the characters gets so stilted it sounds like I'm reading a Dick Tracy cartoon.


Rating:
Summary: Crichton Takes an Unbiased View on Global Warming
Review: As the first book I have read of Michael Crichton's, State of Fear certainly exceeded my expectations. I picked the book up one day after receiving it as a gift and after reading just the first several pages I was hooked. After hearing all kinds of information on the looming threat of global warming for so many years from the media, I was confused about what exactly global warming was and why/if there was indeed a threat. Michael Crichton provides an unbiased view on the issue that is both enlightening and entertaining to the reader. Crichton shows that he thoroughly researched the topic by citing numerous references. Numerous graphs are also provided to help the reader understand the interesting, but complex scientific data.

A techno-thriller, State of Fear can be enjoyed all types of readers.

Rating:
Summary: The Premise is faulted, but the fiction is good
Review: Crichton spins his usual yarn with a high suspension of disbelief. The action is sometimes fast-paced and sprinkled with interesting twists and turns. It's his usual fare. A good read with little grounding in reality.
The problem with the book is that he tries to sell his faulted opinion of the state of environmental science. In choosing sources that agree with his opinions, Crichton does his readers a disservice in his premise that the story is based on fact. In reality, it's based on his opinion. He neglects to give equal time to the other side of the equation, which would have allowed the reader to form an opinion on their own. That's permissible in fiction, but he goes a step further with the section supporting his bias with carefully selected facts that support it.
He should have stuck to fiction and left the facts for those that really know it.
I would recommend the story, as long as you keep in mind that it's not true. Just like the fact that you can't get DNA from a mosquito found in amber. It's the same thing.

Rating:
Summary: Arrogant political trash posing as an unbiased novel
Review: Crichton writes in the book that everyone has and agenda except him. Please. If I could give this book a zero, I would just for that lie. He is pushing his obvious agenda on his readers. Funny, for a guy who has no agenda, he fails to mention any concerns at all about industrial pollution doing anything to the environment. Evidently it is only environmentalist and ecoterrorists who do damage to the environment. He even manages to toss in that silcone breast implants don't cause cancer, so keep sticking those fake boobs in girls. Crichton likes them. I used to like his novels, but this book reads like he is desperate to get back on top, so politically fanatic he couldn't control himself or vying for a lucrative paying job at Fox News.

Rating:
Summary: Insufferable!
Review: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY! Crichton's incessant sermon on the evils of the environmental movement and global warming, in particular, is interrupted only briefly by an unbelievable group of individuals experiencing a preposterous series of events. Recommended for those who believe that that the earth would be better off if it were covered with asphalt. Read between the lines of the Publishers Weekly review that described the book as "smart and robust, albeit preachy," or the Booklist review that "thrills in Crichton's latest are interspersed with fascinating but occasionally dense ecological facts and data."

Rating:
Summary: Great disappointment
Review: For the first 450 pages you are not involved in a novel, but the author's views, not well disguised, on global warming. Graphs, statistics, and scientific presentation do no mix well in a novel format. Great disappointment. Not worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: I have read Michael Crichton's Great Train Robbery, Prey, Lost World etc. I read the Prey before I decided to buy the State of Fear, excited that this would be a page turner too like Prey. However I was extremely disappointed with this novel, after spending x amount of hours reading 500 pages book, I feel cheated. The book has no character development, there is science too it, but that too is questionable. The facts about global warming are often repititive. Its almost that you can predict the story in first 100 pages. The character of Evans and Sarah only stands out, and the only thing you could look forward too is them falling in love, but that doesnt happen too. Lastly, the end is soo abrupt, that you feel like CRYING... its just OVER. I was so disappointed with this novel that I have decided never to read a Michael Crichton's novel again.

Rating:
Summary: an intelligent rebuttal to Crichton's "science" in this book
Review: I would urge people who take Crichton's word as the gospel on global warming to read at least one intelligent response to his claims in this fictional work. There are many. You can find one at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 .

Rating:
Summary: Global Warming - A HOT Topic
Review: The book takes off fast, with shadowy murders in European laboratories, furtive transactions in the Malaysian jungles and suspicious lightning strikes in a Vancouver boatyard. The plot races along -- with the help of a Gulfstream Five jet our heroes dash around the planet faster than we can turn the pages. (Amazingly, they stop and eat in a restaurant exactly once in almost 600 pages. And a conversation almost breaks out.)

Hemingway, he is not. Michael Crichton's characters are two-dimensional sketches of the stereotypes he needs to execute his far-fetched plot. A nerdy, can't-talk-to-girls lawyer from LA is going to jet around the world in his loafers, saving the beautiful blonde multiple times and rescue the planet from catastrophe? Peter Evans can barely get a line off: "Glad to be of service," is his snappy repartee as our heroine Sarah gushes over him.

All in a day's work for the good guys who fight institutionalized pseudo-science and all the evil cooked up by know-nothing environmentalists. STATE OF FEAR is a black hats versus white hats, good guys (scientists) versus bad guys (environmental activists) dustup. Predictable and pretty clear which side Crichton backs. The premise is that the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF) is having a bit of trouble filling its coffers - a promised $10 million grant fails to materialize as the wealthy old philanthropist, George Morton, is derailed by know-it-all CIA/scientist hero John Kenner. Kenner pontificates on the evils of data-less science throughout the book, preaching to attorney Evans, George Morton, Sarah, and several Hollywood celebrity tree-huggers. Meanwhile NERF allies with the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) an eco-terrorist group bent on proving weather is getting nastier all the time. Can Kenner, Evans and the good guys save the world from ELF-created ice melts, tsunamis and hurricanes?

Peppered throughout the book are footnotes documenting real sources of skepticism about and denial of the warming of our planet due to greenhouse gasses. For every environmental claim that substantiates a global warming trend, Crichton dishes up a counter claim and what's more - documented references of scientific fact! In all, an adequate yarn, not too heavy on character development or believable plot, but a creative caveat that warns of the dangers posed by an easily accessible global media. And yes, some of the stereotypes (notably the TV actor) are deliciously funny.

Rating:
Summary: Only The Most Important Book You Will Read This Year
Review: This is not so much a novel that tells a story, though it does that, but a book that delves into how we are shaping our future and what forces are at work to move us in various directions.

The core of the story is that a disparate group interested in focusing the attention of the world on environmental problems has decided to juice things up a bit. A massive glacier is about to be carved off of Antarctica to create the world's largest iceberg, flash floods are planned to kill hundreds, if not thousands in the American Southwest and a tsunamni is being created in the South Pacific which will devestate the California coast and all in between. These three events are to coincide with a Crisis Conference on Climate, however nothing is coincidental. Things start to unravel for those bent on destruction by the sudden withdrawal of 10 million dollars worth of funding of one of the major activist environmental groups by it's prime benefactor. The withdrawal is public and ugly and he is later found to have wrecked his car on an isolated stretch of beach road and died in the accident. From this, rise an unlikely band of Lancelots to charge off into the fray and try to prevent the catastrophes from taking place. Who they are and how they go about doing it is what makes this a novel. Woven throughout the book is considerable discussion and debate about the perceived state of our world environment and how to go about dealing with it.

The key chapter in the book from my perpective, takes place between Evans, the philanthropist's lawyer, one of the Lancelots and Professor Norman Hoffman a famous sociologist who is extremely critical of environmental beliefs.

One of his tenets is that every soverign nation needs to exert social control over the behavior of its citizens and that the best manager of social control is fear. Not earthshaking perhaps, but the dialogue that follows is something that a reader could well read and reread until it is underlined and dog eared.

How the storyline plays out I will leave to the reader, as this book has a larger lesson which is highlighted in a somewhat lengthy author's message at the end.

If you have to read only one book this year, I urge you to buy, rent or borrow this one. It is that important and you will never look at this issue the same way again.