Goodreads | State of Fear

Nathan rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

09/20/07

bookshelves: books-i-hope-die, fiction

Read in July, 2006

recommends it for: People who model their life on Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park.

State of Fear is centered around a plot by eco-terrorists to bring world attention to global warming by, you guessed it, blowing up half the world. Yes, the nonsensical plot that makes up the spine of this book leaves the rest of this skeletal narrative in the hands of a man we've rarely seen: Michael Crichton, political philosopher. First of all, the book, released in 2004, asks you to believe that there is a "state of fear" being pushed on the public in order to "scare" the...more State of Fear is centered around a plot by eco-terrorists to bring world attention to global warming by, you guessed it, blowing up half the world. Yes, the nonsensical plot that makes up the spine of this book leaves the rest of this skeletal narrative in the hands of a man we've rarely seen: Michael Crichton, political philosopher. First of all, the book, released in 2004, asks you to believe that there is a "state of fear" being pushed on the public in order to "scare" them into belief of Global Warming so as to wreck the US economy and maintain elitist academia's stranglehold on the world. I.F.O.N.L.Y. The premise, that politicians, journalists and celebrities use fear tactics to control the population is as old as time itself. It is a practice that has been used in the history of every society on the face of the planet at some point, throughout human history. That Crichton presents this as a supposedly revolutionary idea is just the start of this novel's problems. What's more striking is that despite coming out in 2004, in an age where (until 2006) Republicans won election after election based on fear tactics (whether it's Fear of Gay Marriage or Fear of Terrorism), no mention is made anywhere in the novel of the modern state of fear we are all really, genuinely, disturbingly living in. It is telling that Crichton has good friends in the oil industry, won an award for "journalism" for this book from oil producers in the US (the first award of its type, created specifically for him), and that Crichton was one of a handful of people who got a private audience with George W. Bush to "advise" him on Global Warming. There's an old saying that people often accuse others of what they're most likely to do themselves. One has to wonder how much of Crichton's "state of fear" is really the result of his own work. (Beware those powerful, evil climatologists and academics!) I'd love to live in a country where the only real "fear" was a "fear" of liberal pacifists who were worried about the weather, rather than a country where I'm told daily to fear everything about the world, and told to fear my own gut instincts, and told that questioning my government was a form of aiding terrorism. If that's not a controlling state of fear, I don't know what is. That "state of fear" is mentioned nowhere in Crichton's love letter to his friends in the oil Industry and the White House. Crichton's State of Fear, instead, follows bumbling environmentalist Peter Evans, a basically good-hearted but naive, brainwashed liberal. Over the course of the story, he receives his "education" on the evils of the climate change lobby by John Kenner. Kenner is a rogue agent of some mysterious government detective agency, because it could only be, obviously, a shadowy CIA-like agency that would have the courage to stand up to the vicious tree huggers. The character of Kenner is about as filled out as a picture tube, and it is clear from the beginning that Kenner is actually Michael Crichton himself, or rather, a mouthpiece for Crichton's views. Nowhere in the novel is the action as heavy as the dialog, and Kenner takes up most of the space with his self-indulgent rants. Consequently half the novel reads more like a transcript of an O'Reilly Factor episode than a fiction novel. The characters are flat, lifeless and dull, and nothing in this book is as intelligent, quirky or interesting as the plot devices and concepts Crichton has come up with in his other works. Disappointing as a fan of his imaginative fiction, disappointing as someone smart enough to pick up on being lectured to (an even cursory examination of his "sources" reveals how dodgy they are, hence he clearly didn't intend the novel to be of interest to anyone with one year of college under their belt), and disappointing to anyone who thinks the agenda of a work of literature should be better hidden behind solid writing (though arguably that last group would include those evil academics).

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Scott rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

06/04/08

bookshelves: fiction, mystery-thriller, political

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: folks who a)think before speaking and b)dispute global warming and want someone to agree with them.

I was nervous about starting this book because I more or less knew the plot and the ending because of a few conversations with folks who read it when it first came out a couple of years ago. Despite my reservations, I dove in and found the book to be very enjoyable, with a few minor caveats.

Michael Crichton is well known for his views regarding environmental action groups and the policies they advocate, and t...more I was nervous about starting this book because I more or less knew the plot and the ending because of a few conversations with folks who read it when it first came out a couple of years ago. Despite my reservations, I dove in and found the book to be very enjoyable, with a few minor caveats.

Michael Crichton is well known for his views regarding environmental action groups and the policies they advocate, and this book more or less sets forth these opinions in an accessible and entertaining novel. Crichton heavily employs journal references and hard data to support the factual aspects of the plot, which does appear to lend some credibility to his claims regarding global warming and stands in contrast to much of the other popular reading I've seen on the same subject.

That said, a quick look at the entry on Wikipedia for this book shows that much of the science and data Crichton uses--as well as the way he uses it--has caused a fair amount of criticism from the scientific community. While such criticism serves as a reminder that the book is in fact a work of fiction and not a scholarly text, I couldn't help but notice a funny similarity between this book (and criticism of it) and my personal favorite, Atlas Shrugged. While the latter is, in my opinion, a timeless landmark of a book and the former is just a thought-provoking and fun read, critics of the two books seem to fall right into harmony with the antagonists portrayed in the plots.

To clarify, when I talk with someone who is a critic of Atlas Shrugged, the arguments they make remind me a great deal of things James Taggart says to his sister Dagny throughout Atlas Shrugged. Similarly, when I read what critics of State of Fear said about the book, the statements were often exactly what the critics of the protagonists in the plot were saying. In other words, such authors seem to know their critics very well. This is an interesting form of persuasive writing, because it attempts to discredit critics by preemptively discrediting them through a fictional counterpart.

As for the story itself, I found it really entertaining and engaging. The book (at least the version I read) is over 600 pages, and I read it in about 3 days. Very fast-faced (meaning the plot unrolls over the course of a week or two) and James Bond-ish, in that it involves multiple locations around the globe, high technology, beautiful women, and plots to destroy the world (sort of). Because I'm a lover of anything related to James Bond, this was a very pleasant aspect of the book.

Caveats?

First, the book has horrific language. Not as bad as, say, The Bourne Ultimatum or that ilk, but bad enough to make me bust out a pen half-way through to blacken out the curses in the event that my wife decides she wants to read it.

Second, all of the characters opposing the theory of global warming were portrayed as intelligent and ethical. This is not realistic, and this attribute of the novel bugged me from start to finish, even if I am sympathetic to their views.

Lastly, and relatedly, there was not a single character in the book that was simultaneously a) in favor of the theory of global warming, b) intelligent, c) educated (not the same as intelligent!), and d) ethical. This was, to me, the single biggest flaw in both the story line and in Crichton's case against the theory of global warming. It appears that he is suggesting between the lines that such individuals do not exist, since anyone who sincerely thinks and uses science and reason will come to the exact same opinions as the protagonists, which I dispute firmly. ...less

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Robert rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

11/14/07

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: nobody

I never expected to read this book. But my mom left a copy of Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear at my house, and I found myself reading it. The book is an odd mix of fiction and pseudo-scientific argument.
As a fiction piece, it’s actually okay. For reasons that are irrelevant to the plot, evil villains are trying to shear a big iceberg off into the ocean, create a flash flood in a canyon, and make a tidal wave hit LA. The good guys are of course trying to stop them, and manage to sto...more I never expected to read this book. But my mom left a copy of Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear at my house, and I found myself reading it. The book is an odd mix of fiction and pseudo-scientific argument.
As a fiction piece, it’s actually okay. For reasons that are irrelevant to the plot, evil villains are trying to shear a big iceberg off into the ocean, create a flash flood in a canyon, and make a tidal wave hit LA. The good guys are of course trying to stop them, and manage to stop them just in time. Crichton’s a good writer, and this book is fun to read. For a Crichton book, though, it is one of his worst, and nowhere near as entertaining as Andromeda Strain. Mostly this is because his rhetorical goal for the novel continually gets in the way of the plot.
The central argument of the book seems to be: “It’s not clear global warming is caused by people, and even if it is it’s not clear how bad it’ll be, therefore we should do nothing.” The evil villain of the book is a cabal of environmental groups determined to scare the populace to maintain funding for the military-industrial complex in the post- Cold War world. Global warming is thus fundamentally a hoax perpetrated by tens of thousands of people, in Crichton’s view. Even better, they all manage to keep the hoax secret. Apart from errors of fact, of which there are several, the book also makes several serious errors in its reasoning.
First is the widespread use of anecdotal reasoning. For instance (and yes, I see the irony here), Crichton makes a big deal about how the warmest year on record in the US was 1934. Whether of not this is true depends on how you calculate average temperature, but it doesn’t really matter- 1934 was really warm. But, fifteen out of the 25 warmest yeats since records started being kept in 1895 have occurred after 1981. Globally, the trend toward warmness is even stronger. Particular anecdotes are irrelevant; in a large enough body of data or a large enough collection of papers you can find a factoid to support almost anything.
Second is the intentional misrepresentation of scientific uncertainty by Crichton. For example, he talks about how global circulation models are uncertain about how increases in temperature will affect cloud cover and hence albedo. This is true, there is uncertainty on this point, but it doesn’t necessarily follow logically that everything about the model is wrong. When I estimate that a townhouse in Cambridge costs $350,000 to $500,000, I have some uncertainty in my estimate, but that does not imply the true value if zero. When the IPCC says the net radiative forcing of human activities on climate is +0.6 to +2.4 W/m2, there is some uncertainty in that estimate, but that does not imply the true value is zero.
Finally, Crichton has misunderstood how science works. The process of peer review is a blind review of the facts cited in a paper, exactly the opposite of how Crichton portrays it. There is intense competition in science, with multiple groups analyzing the same data, exactly what Crichton calls for. Sadly, Crichton’s book of fiction was not peer reviewed, nor did he face any competition from competing scientific interpretations of the literature about global warming, which allowed this travesty of a rant to be published.
-The Cosmopolitian Ecologist ...less

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Estrina rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

08/28/07

bookshelves: crichtons, favourites

Read in March, 2006

I bet everyone, I mean, everyone who has been to school and studied science knows what global warming is and perhaps it's the hot enviromental issue for the past a few decades. There are a number of campaigns to overcome this threat, to save the earth. But this book justifies that no such threat exists or at least it will not threaten the earth for a few hundred years. Questions were raised and answered with proof and statistical data. Convincing indeed. The twist started when this guy called Ni...more I bet everyone, I mean, everyone who has been to school and studied science knows what global warming is and perhaps it's the hot enviromental issue for the past a few decades. There are a number of campaigns to overcome this threat, to save the earth. But this book justifies that no such threat exists or at least it will not threaten the earth for a few hundred years. Questions were raised and answered with proof and statistical data. Convincing indeed. The twist started when this guy called Nick Drake wanted to get quick bucks from NERF (guess you know what this is.. some kind of non-profit environment organisation) by supporting a lawsuit for Vanutu, a remote country with only 1 feet above the sea level that claims to be affected badly by the global warming. There was a theory that global warming could raise sea level. So based on this conclusion, Vanutu might vanish along with the increase of the sea level. However the scientists at NERF, including Drake himself knew that the theory of global warming was not proven yet, moreover the average temperatures of some places on earth proved to be declining over the years while in some places the data showed a fair increase of the temperature. So noone had a right to say that global warming had really occured because the term 'global' represents all over the earth. George Morton, a tycoon and an enviroment-enthusiast, agreed to fund the lawsuit for $10 million, but when he found out that Drake was gonna play fool with the money, he took back the fund and disappeared.

Desperate looking for money and upset by the withdrawal of the fund by Morton, Drake and some scientists set up some environment disturbance to attact the media so that they could convince the public that global warming was proven and it caused the catasthropes or whatever changes in climate. This way, he would be able to get support for the Vanutu lawsuit and he would get the bucks. So there he made the ice in Antartics melt by blowing off the iceberg, then launched a number of rockets to mess up the weather to create flash floods, and in the end created a huge landslide in Solomon Islands to generate tsunamis that would travel 500 miles an hour, to swip the coast of California.

Professor John Kenner from Tokyo with his assistant Sanjong Thapa, Peter - Morton's attorney, Sarah - Morton's PA, and Kenner's niece, together with the help of Morton himself who reappeared at the last chance to win over the war, tried to halt the evil plan. The long journey across the world, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, to Mount Terror in the Antartics, to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, and in the end to the Resolution Bay in the Solomon Islands, is very engaging and tense with all the obstructions - the murder plot in the crevasse in the Antartics, the Canibals in Solomon Islands and a number of attempts to stop their mission. In the end they succeeded with only minor damage to the earth. Though I somewhat believe that global warming really occurs, I don't have a say on the scientific data that on some places the temperature has been declining for the past few decades or even a couple centuries.

Well, whether global warming exists or it is a mere theory, what matters most is how to conserve the earth, how to keep the nature for the future, for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren. Start recycling, be a friend to the environment....less

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Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

03/23/08

bookshelves: fiction, science

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone who likes a great story

Do you enjoy seeing pompous, self-righteous jerks get their rightful comeuppance? Then you will like this book. Dr Crichton delivers his usual competent tour through a scientific realm, mixing a decent amount of action and suspense with actual facts. Global warming zealots are the target here and he hits the bull’s eye, judging from the reaction about this book. The book reads exceptionally fast for all the science and background explanation necessary. For the average person with a little com...more Do you enjoy seeing pompous, self-righteous jerks get their rightful comeuppance? Then you will like this book. Dr Crichton delivers his usual competent tour through a scientific realm, mixing a decent amount of action and suspense with actual facts. Global warming zealots are the target here and he hits the bull’s eye, judging from the reaction about this book. The book reads exceptionally fast for all the science and background explanation necessary. For the average person with a little common sense, this story is a great read that will leave you shaking your head as you ponder the far-left fanatics of the environmental movement.

The story revolves around a lawyer and his rich client who donates money and dabbles in the environment advocacy arena. On the other side is the Earth Liberation Force and associated fellow travelers, like the front group “NERF” who seek to control the political agenda. The problem is the science is not working out for the global warmers. So the more radical elements decide to kind of push Mother Nature along with a few “natural” disasters, aided by technology. Some of the selected disasters are more believable than others. They are all timed to reinforce the outcome of a conference on global warming and a “call to action”.

Things pick up at the beginning as a shadowy MIT professor and a friend come into the picture to warn the rich guy off because his money is going to support terrorist activity. The rest of the book is essentially discovering what the terror targets are and trying to stop the attacks. I thought the book was weak in a few areas. Many of the characters are caricatures, the wimpy lawyer, the drunken big-shot Hollywood actor (who has a delicious part), the strong silent government agent, the hyperactive, crazed global warming activists, the ditzy wife of rich LA guy, etc. Frankly, there needed to be more activity by some of the real official organizations charged with investigating and stopping terrorist activities and less freelancing by the hodgepodge team that comes together to stop the bad guys. It would still have made a great story and more realistic.

Global warming advocates are on a religious crusade, faith in rapid heat rise and world collapse replacing the more conventional religious doctrines. This book does great service by giving facts and references to seek out more knowledge on the topic. The idea that the earth’s status was somehow at a perfect temperature state in the recent past and shouldn’t change seems pretty arrogant and childish.

Crichton skewers the people behind the global warming hysteria. The actors with their 15,000 sq. ft. homes, SUV’s, private jets, vacation homes, etc want everyone else to live frugally but not them. As if to punctuate the buffoonery on the enviro side, an article by Andrew Ross Sorkin, published 20 Mar 08, details a gathering of business and political guys to discuss saving the world and getting rich. Google it: “At island retreat, Branson and friends seek to save a world 'on fire' “
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Anthony rated it:

(review of isbn 0739448153)

06/27/08

bookshelves: fantasy, politics-political-thought, science-medicine

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Anthony by: Dennis
recommends it for: Adults who have uncertanties in the debate on man-made global warming

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a novel that presents a bit of a reviewers dichotomy for me. It is based largely on the often radical, always irrational, religion of environmentalism and it’s deleterious impact on society. A religion which holds man-made global warming as original sin, celebrities like Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz as prophets, Carbon Credits and “Cap and Trade” as tithes and indulgences, and Al Gore as savior. The positions and clichéd hyperbole...more Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a novel that presents a bit of a reviewers dichotomy for me. It is based largely on the often radical, always irrational, religion of environmentalism and it’s deleterious impact on society. A religion which holds man-made global warming as original sin, celebrities like Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz as prophets, Carbon Credits and “Cap and Trade” as tithes and indulgences, and Al Gore as savior. The positions and clichéd hyperbole of the “environmentalists” represented in the book, from the simply ignorant and ill-informed “social” environmentalists, to the militant activists and radical eco-terrorists, are only too familiar. Crichton effectively exposes the irrational, illogical, and emotional half-truths, distortions, fabrications, and talking points you have heard again and again in the media and from your co-workers. The well documented, clearly articulated, and thoroughly referenced truths, which so clearly contradict the hysterical artifice of these fatuous environmentalists, are refreshing to see in print. If only we regular folk had this wealth of scientific data at our fingertips every time we were confronted by one of these inane environmentalist zealots.

That said, it is unfortunate that the clear, evocative, and entertaining discourse on the fallacies and consequences of the “religion” of environmentalism was marred by some really bizarre and implausible plot development. For example, the “Black Ops” type federal agent, charged with investigating and stopping the terrorists, repeatedly, deliberately, and for no plausible reason, includes a couple of New York corporate attorneys, a fat old disenfranchised former environmentalist millionaire, and his hot personal secretary, in his operations around the globe. He flies them from one end of the globe to another, gives them weapons, and sends them off, often alone, to confront the violent, murderous terrorists. Really, that’s going to happen? In the final operation he not only takes his crack team of “highly trained counter terrorist corporate attorneys and secretaries” he also includes a couple of vacuous, outspoken, environmentalist, has been TV actors, one of whom, inexplicably, ends up cannibalized alive, and disturbingly graphically, by a group of cannibal rebels. What???!! Where did that come from??!

For clear and articulate discussion of timely environmental issues, five stars for State of Fear, for absurd, if still occasionally exciting, plot development two stars.

State of fear contains considerable profanity, sexual reference, violence, and a very disturbing account of cannibalism, and is certainly not for children of any age. If you occasionally find yourself wondering where the truth lies in the often hysterical debate on man-made global warming and environmentalism you ought to read this book. You will probably find it illuminating.
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Debi rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

08/27/08

bookshelves: garbage

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: my worst enemy

Truly one of the worst books I have ever read. This book started with a great deal of promise. A series of vivid occurrences of espionage linked to scientific pursuits in exotic locales. Eco-terrorism, shady business dealings and a cast of potentially interesting characters. And then...it all self-destructed into a ludicrous mess that was not only idiotic in its pacing and plot contrivances but preachy and annoying, with characters of such brutish ignorance being lectured by such emotionally-voi...more Truly one of the worst books I have ever read. This book started with a great deal of promise. A series of vivid occurrences of espionage linked to scientific pursuits in exotic locales. Eco-terrorism, shady business dealings and a cast of potentially interesting characters. And then...it all self-destructed into a ludicrous mess that was not only idiotic in its pacing and plot contrivances but preachy and annoying, with characters of such brutish ignorance being lectured by such emotionally-void snobs that you end up not liking anyone and just wishing this interminable muddle would end. As a reader who has been a fan of Crichton for several years, I have to say that it is the type of book that made me wonder how far he has sunk in his now-endless endeavor to get another book to the screen. I imagine him writing these ridiculous action scenes as if he is some pseudo-Spielberg lining up the shot and working the formula with just the right John Williams-type music in the background. In his quest to achieve what he mistakes for a riveting nailbiter, Crichton even has one character endure an escape from an Antarctic crevasse, an escape from eco-terrorist gunmen, an escape from a vehicle in a flash flood seconds before it crashes down a waterfall, an escape from a potentially fatal rare mini-octopus bite, an escape from cannibals, and an escape from a series of tidal waves...all in the course of a few days! And this is a character that in any realistic scenario would not have been asked to come along on any of the specialized military jaunts that produce these outcomes in the first place. For some reason, instead of utilizing a force of well-trained military agents to carry out the attack operations necessary to combat the highly-organized evil villains in the book, Crichton believes the uber-genius special agent in his book would use a reluctant young trial attorney, a secretary, an actor, and the agent's untrained niece to do the lion's share of the work needed to disable sophisticated machinery, track down veteran assassins, utilize a range of munitions and infiltrate areas that the Delta Force would find too challenging. I have rarely been so disappointed in a book. If Crichton were to walk into the room after I had finished it, I may have slapped him. And don't even get me started on the haughty pompous tone of the book and its one-sided caricatures meant to represent ecological viewpoints. I think from now on, I will just reread an early Crichton book if I get the urge to try a new one from him. He used to take brilliant scientific notions and utilize them in well-conceived stories that had some depth and an understanding of the inner life of a character. Now, he writes screenplays full of fools in such overblown action scenes, they would make Michael Bay blush.
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Sonny rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

04/30/08

Read in April, 2008

I already totally didn't believe in global warming, because I was following the scientific debate, and the case for it was so lost by 2007 that the IPCC didn't even bother to try to hide that their report summaries are written by UN bureaucrats and approved by UN diplomats without any scientific input or review, like they tried to hide it back in '95. In other words, as of 2008, only the sort of morons who don't know that politicians lie, and don't know or don't care that all their speeches and ...more I already totally didn't believe in global warming, because I was following the scientific debate, and the case for it was so lost by 2007 that the IPCC didn't even bother to try to hide that their report summaries are written by UN bureaucrats and approved by UN diplomats without any scientific input or review, like they tried to hide it back in '95. In other words, as of 2008, only the sort of morons who don't know that politicians lie, and don't know or don't care that all their speeches and books have been ghostwritten since at least JFK, still believe in global warming. So it was kind of late to read this book, and the opinions in the book were not really daring or fresh. Maybe they would have been if it had been written in '99, just after the record hot weather year of '98 that made alarmist predictions of global warming catastrophe a popular topic.

It was fun to laugh at the characters who didn't know that global warming was all a crock yet, as they took time to be clued in. The graphs make that a richer experience, as you can think back to looking over some of the same graphs yourself for the first time, and be reminded of your own learning experience. That isn't as boring as it sounds, because it's given a pique by being put in the setting of a violent action novel.

The part with cannibals was over the top and at a similar point in the story structure as the use of cannibals in Forrest Gump. It was also a ham-handed way to express a comeuppance wish on people who have naive views, in the author's opinion, about primitives or savages and nature.

The portrayal of terrorism and terrorist groups and their motives is surprisingly cartoonish, standard action novel/movie fare, which is surprising given that the book was presumably written after 2001, which should have caused some thought. It's an area where you have to do your own thinking, taking the novel as an example of what people imagine, without any helpful commentary from within the novel. People imagine terrorists and secret agents killing each other with abandon, each believing they're doing what is necessary for ultimate good purposes, saving lives really. That imagination seems so far from reality. I wonder if there are people who believe that as their reality and go around killing on sight whoever is their enemy or target, according to the plot as they see it, and aren't just suffering from paranoid delusions....less

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Peter rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

09/04/07

bookshelves: 2007, fiction, science-fiction

Read in February, 2007

As with every Michael Crichton book I have ever read, I have very mixed feelings about this book. As always, Crichton has researched his subject very thoroughly which means that his thoughts and criticisms that permeate this book cannot be dismissed as purely “popular science.” In fact, I think that he can adequately be called a “futurist” - someone who looks at the current state of science - especially cutting edge research - and extrapolates the potential social, political, and scien...more As with every Michael Crichton book I have ever read, I have very mixed feelings about this book. As always, Crichton has researched his subject very thoroughly which means that his thoughts and criticisms that permeate this book cannot be dismissed as purely “popular science.” In fact, I think that he can adequately be called a “futurist” - someone who looks at the current state of science - especially cutting edge research - and extrapolates the potential social, political, and scientific outcomes of such research. However, this book seems to have crossed over into discussing the present state of science rather than a possible future and I am not sure that Crichton is aware of the distinctions.

While in looking into the future, a writer is free to take the thoughts of some scientists, politicians, etc and showing how those thoughts could play out. Conversely, when dealing with the present, authors have to look at the thoughts and ideas of not just individuals or small groups but also of the scientific or political community as a whole. This is something that is lacking in this book. Crichton takes the views on global warming of small minorities and creates a book that treats those views as the only reality while ignoring the opinions of a majority of scientists, politicians, and others. While I understand that this rule should be universally followed when dealing with fiction books (since fiction books do not have to be not factually true), it should be applied in this case since it is obvious that the author is attempting to converse with the real world through this book.

I think that this book is a good read (although his characters are much more prone to long winded, barely masked tirades) and does highlight many of the issues facing us as we attempt to make science and politics interact. However, Crichton’s insistence on only highlighting the polar views on global warming limits the use of this book in furthering a global discussion on this issue.
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tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

04/23/08

bookshelves: sf

This is propaganda written by an ultra-rich person. Utterly despicable. I just thought Crichton was mediocre until I read this. Now I think he's insidious. There're 2 basic thrusts: Global Warming is a myth & ecology activists are phenomenally stupid. I don't actually have much of an opinion about global warming one way or the other so I don't hate this novel so much b/c it's a threat to mass consciousness there. I hate it b/c it's so repulsively propagandistic (w/o any self-acknowledg...more

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George rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

05/18/08

bookshelves: burn

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: nobody

I disliked this book intensely. Right from the beginning it was critical of enviornmental subjects such as global warming. I was involved with through such studies in the 1990s and into the new century, and many of his opinions were ill-founded: although I recognized that the problems he spoke of exist, they are hardly dominant in any of the enviromental fields.He claimed to be a defender of the scientific method regarding an approach to the crises apparent in the world, yet there were obvious g...more

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Punk rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

06/20/07

Read in August, 2006

Fiction. Is global warming real? Peter Evans always thought so, but now, on the trail of a radical environmental group, he's beginning to question his long-held assumptions. This is, in fact, fiction, and veers wildly between your basic action/suspense novel and an infodumpalicious anti-global warming manifesto. It's an awkward mix of statistics and action, with the story literally alternating between being shot at and sitting down and listening to reasons why global warming is a myth.

Crich...more

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Rachel rated it:

08/01/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: those who do or don't believe in statistics

This book was intriguing to me. It is not what I would consider my normal genre, but the student I tutored last year did a report on Michael Crichton and this book was in a lot of the research we did. I had no idea Michael Chrichton was so multi-talented.
Anyway, my husband had listened to this book on CD while driving, and really enjoyed it, so I picked it off the shelf. Once I started reading, I had trouble stopping for food, drink, bathroom breaks, or even sleep. (This is the reason I ...more

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Marc rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

07/07/08

Read in June, 2008

If you're a liberal, left-wing environmentalist, this is NOT the book for you.

But maybe it should be.

Unlike in many of his other books, Crichton is out to make a point with this book. It centers around a billionaire philanthropist, his young lawyer, and his young assistant. The philanthropist gives vast sums of money to environmental organizations, but the money isn't going where he expects it to go, and the protagonists must race against time to stop eco-terrorists bent on getting t...more

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Ellie rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

05/10/07

Read in January, 2005

Unfortunately, Crichton is too convincing in his anti-global warming propaganda piece. The story is great, sure, but this book is just that – a very thinly veiled piece of propaganda for the right wing oil industries and politicians who want us to believe that there’s no such thing as global warming. And he is very, very convincing. My mother says she read that he’s actually receiving kickbacks from oil companies. I can’t even counter the arguments, so I’ll have to read more about it. ...more

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Steve rated it:

(review of isbn 0739448153)

03/20/07

Read in December, 2006

recommends it for: Global warming advocates and opponents

Michael Crichton continues to impress with both his story telling and with his researching capabilities. State of Fear, on its surface, is a novel about the global warming debate. But the issues it touches upon go deeper than just whether or not global warming is a phenomenon we should be concerned about.

A particularly cogent theme of the book is the role of politics in shaping scientific research. In particular, Crichton delves into how global warming research is shaped by political agen...more

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Mark rated it:

01/02/08

Read in May, 2005

"The threat of global warming is essentially nonexistent. Even if it were a real phenomenon, it would probably result in a net benefit to most of the world." -p407

I just finished reading "State of Fear," Michael Crichton's (creator of ER and author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and many others) latest novel. We discussed this a few months ago but I must say this book really is a delicious slap in the face for ill-informed environmentalists. If you have environmentalist lea...more

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Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

05/31/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: Readers of thrillers and science writing

A courageous piece of writing from an author who has done his homework and who had every reason NOT to write this book but chose to do so anyway. Despite the fact that the book is fictional, the real studies sited and real data collected will make any reader want to take a closer look at the global warming debate. (The references in the back of the book are at least as comprehensive as most non-fiction books.)

Given his chosen topics of writing it may seem strange but Michael Crichton is not ...more

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Debbie rated it:

(review of isbn 0061015733)

03/20/08

Read in June, 2006

I'm sad to say I didn't care for the writing in this book. It came across as a soapbox. The reason I'm sad to say that is because I, as a geologist, agree with Crichton that the evidence supporting humans as the driving factor in global warming isn't sufficiently supported by the available science. However, the book confuses the issue by rolling in debate about wether or not global warming (for whatever reason) is even happening, a distinction I've found many people don't understand. I doubt...more

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