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Michael Crichton’s novels include Pirate Latitudes, Next, State of Fear, Prey, Timeline, Jurassic Park, and The Andromeda Strain. He is also known as a filmmaker and the creator of ER. One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold over 150 million books, which have been translated into thirty-six languages; thirteen have been made into films. He remains the only writer to have had the number one book, movie and TV show at the same time.
Richard Preston is an internationally acclaimed bestselling author of eight books, including The Hot Zone and The Wild Trees. Many of Preston’s books have first appeared in The New Yorker. He has won numerous awards, including the American Institute of Physics Award and the National Magazine Award, and he is the only person not a medical doctor ever to receive the Centers for Disease Control’s Champion of Prevention Award for public health. He lives with his wife and three children near Princeton, New Jersey.
Ironically, for someone who is credited with selling over 150 million books, Crichton initially avoided writing because he didn't think he would make a living at it. So he turned to medical school instead, graduating with an M.D. from Harvard in 1969. The budding doctor had already written one award-winning novel pseudonymically (1968's A Case of Need) to help pay the bills through school; but when The Andromeda Strain came out in the same year of his med school graduation, Crichton's new career path became obvious.
The Andromeda Strain brilliantly and convincingly sets out an American scientific crisis in the form of a deadly epidemic. Its tone -- both critical of and sympathetic toward the scientific community -- set a precedent for Crichton works to come. A 1970 nonfiction work, Five Patients offers the same tone in a very different form, that being an inside look at a hospital.
Crichton's works were inspired by a remarkably curious mind. His plots often explored scientific issues -- but not always. Some of his most compelling thrillers were set against the backdrop of global trade relations (Rising Sun), corporate treachery (Disclosure) and good old-fashioned Victorian-era theft (The Great Train Robbery). The author never shied away from challenging topics, but it's obvious from his phenomenal sales that he never waxed pedantic. Writing about Prey, Crichton's cautionary tale of nanotech gone awry, The New York Times Book Review put it this way: "You're entertained on one level and you learn something on another."
On the page, Crichton's storytelling was eerily nonfictional in style. His journalistic, almost professorial, and usually third-person narration lent an air of credibility to his often disturbing tales -- in The Andromeda Strain, he went so far as to provide a fake bibliography. Along the way, he revelled in flouting basic, often subconscious assumptions: Dinosaurs are long-gone; women are workplace victims, not predators; computers are, by and large, predictable machines.
The dazzling diversity of Crichton's interests and talents became ever more evident as the years progressed. In addition to penning bestselling novels, he wrote screenplays and a travel memoir, directed several movies, created Academy Award-winning movie production software, and testified before Congress about the science of global warming -- this last as a result of his controversial 2004 eco-thriller State of Fear, a novel that reflected Crichton's own skepticism about the true nature of climate change. His views on the subject were severely criticized by leading environmentalists.
On November 4, 2008, Michael Crichton died, following a long battle against cancer. Beloved by millions of readers, his techno-thrillers and science-inflected cautionary tales remain perennial bestsellers and have spawned a literary genre all its own.
"I'm very interested in 20th-century American art."
"I have always been interested in movies and television as well as books. I see all these as media for storytelling, and I don't discriminate among them. At some periods of my life I preferred to work on movies, and at others I preferred books."
"In the early 1990s, interviewers began calling me ‘the father of the techno-thriller.' Nobody ever had before. Finally I began asking the interviewers, ‘Why do you call me that?' They said, ‘Because Tom Clancy says you are the father of the techno-thriller.' So I called Tom up and said, ‘Listen, thank you, but I'm not the father of the techno-thriller.' He said, ‘Yes you are.' I said, ‘No, I'm not, before me there were thrillers like Failsafe and Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate that were techno-thrillers.' He said, ‘No, those are all political. You're the father of the techno-thriller.' And there it ended."
"My favorite recreation is to hike in the wilderness. I am fond of Hawaii."
"I used to scuba dive a lot, but haven't lately. For a time I liked to photograph sharks but like anything else, the thrill wears off. Earlier in my life I took serious risks, but I stopped when I became a parent."
"I taught myself to cook by following Indian and Szechuan recipes. They each have about 20 ingredients. I used to grind my own spices, I was really into it. Now I don't have much time to cook anymore. When I do, I cook Italian food."
"I read almost exclusively nonfiction. Most times I am researching some topic, which may or may not lead to a book. So my reading is pretty focused, although the focus can shift quickly."
"I have always been interested in whatever is missing or excluded from conventional thought. As a result I am drawn to writers who are out of fashion, bypassed, irritating, difficult, or excessive. I also like the disreputable works of famous writers. Thus I end up reading and liking Paul Feyerabend (Against Method), G. K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy, What's Wrong with the World), John Stuart Mill, Hemingway (Garden of Eden), Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Alain Finkielkraut (Defeat of the Mind), Anton Ehrenzweig (Hidden Order of Art), Arthur Koestler (Midwife Toad, Beyond Reductionism), Ian McHarg (Design with Nature), Marguerite Duras, Jung, late James M. Cain (Serenade), Paul Campos.
"Because I get up so early to work, I tend to go to bed early, around 10 or 11. So I don't go out much. I suppose I am borderline reclusive. I don't care."
In the darkness, he touched her arm and said, "Stay here." She did not move, just waited. The smell of salt water was strong. She heard the faint gurgle of water.
Then the lights came on, reflecting off the surface of a large open tank, perhaps fifty meters long and twenty meters wide. It might have been an indoor swimming pool, except for all the electronic equipment that surrounded it.
And the very strange device at the far end of the pool.
Jonathan Marshall came back to her, grinning like an idiot. "Qu'estce que tu penses?" he said, though he knew his pronunciation was terrible. "What do you think?"
"It is magnificent," the girl said. When she spoke English, her accent sounded exotic. In fact, everything about her was exotic, Jonathan thought. With her dark skin, high cheekbones, and black hair, she might have been a model. And she strutted like a model in her short skirt and spike heels. She was half Vietnamese, and her name was Marisa. "But no one else is here?" she said, looking around.
"No, no," he said. "It's Sunday. No one is coming."
Jonathan Marshall was twenty-four, a graduate student in physics from London, working for the summer at the ultra-modern Laboratoire Ondulatoire-the wave mechanics laboratory-of the French Marine Institute in Vissy, just north of Paris. But the suburb was mostly the residence of young families, and ithad been a lonely summer for Marshall. Which was why he could not believe his good fortune at meeting this girl. This extraordinarily beautiful and sexy girl.
"Show me what it does, this machine," Marisa said. Her eyes were shining. "Show me what it is you do."
"My pleasure," Marshall said. He moved to the large control panel and began to switch on the pumps and sensors. The thirty panels of the wave machine at the far end of the tank clicked, one after another.
He glanced back at her, and she smiled at him. "It is so complicated," she said. She came and stood beside him at the control panel. "Your research is recorded on cameras?"
"Yes, we have cameras in the ceiling, and on the sides of the tank. They make a visual record of the waves that are generated. We also have pressure sensors in the tanks that record pressure parameters of the passing wave."
"These cameras are on now?"
"No, no," he said. "We don't need them; we're not doing an experiment."
"Perhaps we are," she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers were long and delicate. She had beautiful fingers.
She watched for a minute, then said, "This room, everything is so expensive. You must have great security, no?"
"Not really," he said. "Just cards to get in. And only one security camera." He gestured over his shoulder. "That one back in the corner."
She turned to look. "And that is turned on?" she said.
"Oh yes," he said. "That's always on." She slid her hand to caress his neck lightly. "So is someone watching us now?"
"Afraid so."
"Then we should behave."
"Probably. Anyway, what about your boyfriend?"
"Him." She gave a derisive snort. "I have had enough of him."
Earlier that day, Marshall had gone from his small apartment to the café on rue Montaigne, the café he went to every morning, taking a journal article with him to read as usual. Then this girl had sat down at the next table, with her boyfriend. The couple had promptly fallen into an argument.
In truth, Marshall felt that Marisa and the boyfriend didn't seem to belong together. He was American, a beefy, red-faced fellow built like a footballer, with longish hair and wire-frame glasses that did not suit his thick features. He looked like a pig trying to appear scholarly.
His name was Jim, and he was angry with Marisa, apparently because she had spent the previous night away from him. "I don't know why you won't tell me where you were," he kept repeating.
"It is none of your business, that's why."
"But I thought we were going to have dinner together."
"Jimmy, I told you we were not."
"No, you told me you were. And I was waiting at the hotel for you. All night."
"So? No one made you. You could go out. Enjoy yourself."
"But I was waiting for you."
"Jimmy, you do not own me." She was exasperated by him, sighing, throwing up her hands, or slapping her bare knees. Her legs were crossed, and the short skirt rode up high. "I do as I please."
"That's clear."
"Yes," she said, and at that moment she turned to Marshall and said, "What is that you are reading? It looks very complicated."
At first Marshall was alarmed. She was clearly talking to him to taunt the boyfriend. He did not want to be drawn into the couple's dispute.
"It's physics," he said briefly, and turned slightly away. He tried to ignore her beauty.
"What kind of physics?" she persisted.
"Wave mechanics. Ocean waves."
"So, you are a student?"
"Graduate student."
"Ah. And clearly intelligent. You are English? Why are you in France?"
And before he knew it, he was talking to her, and she introduced the boyfriend, who gave Marshall a smirk and a limp handshake. It was still very uncomfortable, but the girl behaved as if it were not.
"So you work around here? What sort of work? A tank with a machine? Really, I can't imagine what you say. Will you show me?"
And now they were here, in the wave mechanics laboratory. And Jimmy, the boyfriend, was sulking in the parking lot outside, smoking a cigarette.
"What shall we do about Jimmy?" she said, standing beside Marshall while he worked at the control panel.
"He can't smoke in here."
"I will see that he does not. But I don't want to make him more angry.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from State of Fear by Michael Crichton Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
PARIS NORD
SUNDAY, MAY 2, 2004
12:00 P.M.
In the darkness, he touched her arm and said, "Stay here." She did not move, just waited. The smell of salt water was strong. She heard the faint gurgle of water.
Then the lights came on, reflecting off the surface of a large open tank, perhaps fifty meters long and twenty meters wide. It might have been an indoor swimming pool, except for all the electronic equipment that surrounded it.
And the very strange device at the far end of the pool.
Jonathan Marshall came back to her, grinning like an idiot. "Qu'estce que tu penses?" he said, though he knew his pronunciation was terrible. "What do you think?"
"It is magnificent," the girl said. When she spoke English, her accent sounded exotic. In fact, everything about her was exotic, Jonathan thought. With her dark skin, high cheekbones, and black hair, she might have been a model. And she strutted like a model in her short skirt and spike heels. She was half Vietnamese, and her name was Marisa. "But no one else is here?" she said, looking around.
"No, no," he said. "It's Sunday. No one is coming."
Jonathan Marshall was twenty-four, a graduate student in physics from London, working for the summer at the ultra-modern Laboratoire Ondulatoire-the wave mechanics laboratory-of the French Marine Institute in Vissy, just north of Paris. But the suburb was mostly the residence of young families, and it had been a lonely summer for Marshall. Which was why he could not believe his good fortune at meeting this girl. This extraordinarily beautiful and sexy girl.
"Show me what it does, this machine," Marisa said. Her eyes were shining. "Show me what it is you do."
"My pleasure," Marshall said. He moved to the large control panel and began to switch on the pumps and sensors. The thirty panels of the wave machine at the far end of the tank clicked, one after another.
He glanced back at her, and she smiled at him. "It is so complicated," she said. She came and stood beside him at the control panel. "Your research is recorded on cameras?"
"Yes, we have cameras in the ceiling, and on the sides of the tank. They make a visual record of the waves that are generated. We also have pressure sensors in the tanks that record pressure parameters of the passing wave."
"These cameras are on now?"
"No, no," he said. "We don't need them; we're not doing an experiment."
"Perhaps we are," she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers were long and delicate. She had beautiful fingers.
She watched for a minute, then said, "This room, everything is so expensive. You must have great security, no?"
"Not really," he said. "Just cards to get in. And only one security camera." He gestured over his shoulder. "That one back in the corner."
She turned to look. "And that is turned on?" she said.
"Oh yes," he said. "That's always on."
She slid her hand to caress his neck lightly. "So is someone watching us now?"
"Afraid so."
"Then we should behave."
"Probably. Anyway, what about your boyfriend?"
"Him." She gave a derisive snort. "I have had enough of him."
Earlier that day, Marshall had gone from his small apartment to the café on rue Montaigne, the café he went to every morning, taking a journal article with him to read as usual. Then this girl had sat down at the next table, with her boyfriend. The couple had promptly fallen into an argument.
In truth, Marshall felt that Marisa and the boyfriend didn't seem to belong together. He was American, a beefy, red-faced fellow built like a footballer, with longish hair and wire-frame glasses that did not suit his thick features. He looked like a pig trying to appear scholarly.
His name was Jim, and he was angry with Marisa, apparently because she had spent the previous night away from him. "I don't know why you won't tell me where you were," he kept repeating.
"It is none of your business, that's why."
"But I thought we were going to have dinner together."
"Jimmy, I told you we were not."
"No, you told me you were. And I was waiting at the hotel for you. All night."
"So? No one made you. You could go out. Enjoy yourself."
"But I was waiting for you."
"Jimmy, you do not own me." She was exasperated by him, sighing, throwing up her hands, or slapping her bare knees. Her legs were crossed, and the short skirt rode up high. "I do as I please."
"That's clear."
"Yes," she said, and at that moment she turned to Marshall and said, "What is that you are reading? It looks very complicated."
At first Marshall was alarmed. She was clearly talking to him to taunt the boyfriend. He did not want to be drawn into the couple's dispute.
"It's physics," he said briefly, and turned slightly away. He tried to ignore her beauty.
"What kind of physics?" she persisted.
"Wave mechanics. Ocean waves."
"So, you are a student?"
"Graduate student."
"Ah. And clearly intelligent. You are English? Why are you in France?"
And before he knew it, he was talking to her, and she introduced the boyfriend, who gave Marshall a smirk and a limp handshake. It was still very uncomfortable, but the girl behaved as if it were not.
"So you work around here? What sort of work? A tank with a machine? Really, I can't imagine what you say. Will you show me?"
And now they were here, in the wave mechanics laboratory. And Jimmy, the boyfriend, was sulking in the parking lot outside, smoking a cigarette.
"What shall we do about Jimmy?" she said, standing beside Marshall while he worked at the control panel.
"He can't smoke in here."
"I will see that he does not. But I don't want to make him more angry.
State of Fear. Copyright © by Michael Crichton. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.Due to the extensive biblio and fast-paced story by MC, I found this book myth-busting and thought provoking. A solidly contrasting view to the pulp-fiction, believe-what-you-are-told global warming hysteria.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that we have a grave responsibility to be good stewards for the planet. It is, after all, the only one in our solar system that *we* can live on. But I appreciated the reminder to do my own thinking and ask a question or two or ten.
11 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Michael Crichton set out to write this book to confirm the popular notions about global warming. However, when he started doing the research, he was amazed to find that the data convinced him the global warming theory is a hoax. He then changed the direction of his book.
7 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MattKap
Posted November 2, 2008
Michael Crichton¿s book, State of Fear, appealed to both my intellectual and fantasy sides through his understanding of advanced technologies and his eminent knowledge of what keeps a reader hooked. He makes an effort to keep his characters such as Nick, Sarah, and George realistic by interspersing their language with many ¿colorful¿ words, which may have surpassed necessity but conveyed the point that they were regular people. He also keeps his writing fresh and unique by writing about current events, playing on the many fears we have of new technology and how it could be used for ill means. Although he had a solid story with excellent progression, I found that reading the technological information proved the most enthralling. Crichton seems to poke fun at environmentalists and those concerned with global warming in this novel, and it seems to me as though his jibes are a little over-the-top. He appears to reinforce the stereotypes that apathetic people have for the hardcore environmentalists, and portrays them as either bumbling fools or, on the other end of the spectrum, wanton criminals such as the more outstanding members of Greenpeace. Although he effectively maintains the plot throughout the novel, it occurred to me that, even though it is fiction, such a ridiculous chain of events is very improbable and thus unlikely to attract readers without an overactive imagination. Another issue I had with the plot is that one of the characters (I won¿t say who so as not to spoil the book) is randomly struck dead by lightning in the middle of the book. It¿s as if Crichton simply got bored with his story, and decided to spice it up a bit with some useless action. Even though there are certain aspects of this book that I did not particularly enjoy, I still felt as though there was a lot of time and research put into it and would recommend it to anyone with a sturdy intellect.
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 2, 2008
Do your homework! Once again Michael Crichton studies an issue and the science behind it and gives an explanation of his research in relatable terms and packs it into an exciting page turner. A very fair argument to the very controversial issue of global warming. As always with a Crichton novel-a great read!
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 1, 2006
Crichton is a fine writer, but this effort might have been better as an essay. Not unlike the cardboard characters in Ayn Rand's 'novels,' the folks populating this thriller arrive on the scene bathed in cliche and exhibit very few realistic traits. The 'dialogue' between Kenner and the 'herd' who believe in global warming is boring (in a novel) and the environmentalists (all either arch hypocrites or ill-intentioned bureaucrats) is one-sided and obtuse. No character asks any of the questions that one wants to hear Crichton, er . . . Kenner answer. Peter Evans is particularly disappointing. And, really, eco terrorists killing scientists with poisonous octopi, lightning bolt attacks, hysterical actors eaten by cannibals - are we 13 years old? Some of the scientific information presented is interesting and I will undoubtedly follow some of the resources cited in the appendices. I would however, like to point out that Crichton neatly dismisses the environmentalists by keeping the focus only on global warming. There are lots of good reasons to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and curtail pollution that are political (say, isn't there a baseless war being fought?), physiological, and economic - these are not even addressed. He also seems to think that second-hand smoke is not a big deal. Oh well, he can certainly afford new, robotic lungs. Shoot, he can probably design them, too.
5 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 14, 2005
This book dragged, especially when coupled with his reviews of science. He is probably a smart guy, but this book is so one-sided. He leaves out much of the relevant scientific evidence regarding global warming while harping on a couple of minor points and taking data out of context.
3 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I found this book extremely biased. It read like a book written by an oil company's PR team. I find it hard to believe that the writer who inspired me to learn about dinosaurs could write a book for the oil companies so I have to think he was well intentioned. It may be because oil and dinosaurs are related. Lol.
2 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This novel, from the creator of Jurassic Park and ER, tells the story of a struggle against terrorism. It has a swift succession of dramatic scenes across the world and lots of action. It would make a great film - let's hope that it gets made.
The villains are eco-terrorists, who try to create disasters - floods, tsunamis - to publicise their cause. His characters talk a great deal about global warming and its effects. Crichton cites many authorities to back their arguments. These include the International Panel on Climate Change, which admitted in its 2001 report, "In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."
His characters also point out that there is no obvious common global trend of increasing glacier melt in recent years, that El Ninos cause longer growing seasons and reduce the use of winter heating oil, that the Kyoto agreement would cut world temperature by just 0.02 degrees Celsius by 2050, and that energy sources that can support the present levels of world power consumption, without greenhouse emissions, do not exist.
They note that between 1940 and 1970 the overall global temperature fell, although CO2 levels had risen. Similarly, it has not risen since 2000, although CO2 levels have kept rising. Over the long run, the best data, from the USA, show a rise of just a third of a degree Celsius from 1880 to 2000.
Crichton observes out that in late 1989, at the end of the Cold War, the media hyped up climate change stories - all became 'crises' and 'catastrophe'. This was part of a ruling class strategy to control us through fear.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I loved this book! This book is so intense and edge-of-your-seat I had a really hard time putting it down. The characters in this book travel all across the globe and we, the reader, get to go along for the ride. From Los Angeles to Antarctica to the Soloman Islands and more we are on a thrill ride! This book has a lot of scientific and technical sounding words but I think Crichton does a good job making them understandable.
This book basically asks the question of how much politics and money influences the media. Crichton uses the example of global warming to hit his point home. And let me just say here that no, he's not against the environment or anything. He just shows how the media is manipulated. I guess you'll have to read the book to see what exactly I'm talking about.
This book is believable and down right exciting!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 15, 2008
Excellent book that exposes the truth and entertains at the same time.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 4, 2008
This book is fantastic. Great suspense with very visual descriptions of characters and locations. I really enjoyed reading State of Fear. Could not put it down.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 16, 2012
I read this book a few years ago & I still think about it. I really enjoyed it.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 16, 2007
This was just a terrible book. Crichton obviously is trying to make a point, but in doing so, the characters and plot are destroyed. He makes every character who is concerned about Global Warming become either an idiot or an unethical criminal, while the anti Global warming characters are brilliant and honorable. Not only does he make the Hollywood actor dumb, at one point, he has the character try to force himself on one of the women. Be careful Mr. Crichton. You have become the Hollywood pseudo-intellectual you attempt to make fun of. An MD doesn't make you an expert in climate, any more than a math degree makes one an expert in medicine. In your next novel why don't you have a freakishly tall, pompous, fading writer fed to the cannibals?
1 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 14, 2005
I'm a big Crichton fan, but I couldn't help but be a bit let down by State Of Fear.
Crichton goes to great lengths to prove the scientific basis of his story, so much so that the characters fall to the wayside. Most of them are either blandly stupid straw men or the blandly perfect men and women tasked with knocking them down. As a result, it's hard to care about the fate of the characters, leaving you mostly unengaged except on the visceral level.
On that visceral level though, the novel is successful. The action sequences are interesting and often unsettlingly realistic, to the point that you wish they were happening to characters who weren't so unlikeable.
These scenes are also few and far between, with the bulk of the novel serving as a essay of Chrichton's views on environmentalism. This aspect is also very interesting, and rather enlighting in some respects. It certainly changed my outlook on science and the media.
Crichton presents his point very well, with statistical charts, extensive footnotes and strong logical arguments - but perhaps too well. After being deluged with chart after chart, the argument gets repetitive, leaving you saying 'I got the point already!' halfways into the book and impatient for the action to resume.
Previous Crichton novels, like Airframe and Jurassic Park have managed to keep strong cohesion between extensive research and engagingly plausible stories. But in State Of Fear, poor characterization fails to glue those two good halves together, leaving a novel that's vaguely interesting but could have been much better.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 8, 2005
Michael Crichton is a most talented author and in State of Fear he, again, takes some chances with science and public opinion. Like Brown's Da Vinci Code, this book has stirred up some controversy, depending on your point of view regarding environmentalism and the use of the world's resources. There's also some similarity in Crichton's mixing of fact with fiction. Reader beware! Nick Drake is the protagonist and he's out to fix things, even if it takes murder to get the world to see things his way. Drake's outrage and the lengths to which he's willing to go to payback his detractors is nothing short of stupefying! The novel is entertaining and frightening...isn't that the purpose of writing it? Crichton's scientific research shows, even if misused in some instances. As an earlier reviewer pointed out, some of this book's characters seem to be there only for FYI purposes and are not fleshed out. As I read the book, I was reminded of the TV program West Wing. The characters in this show, even the main ones, often appear to spend more time spouting facts and figures and making statements intentionally designed to impart knowledge to the audience, than becoming tangible, identifiable characters. State of Fear is a full-blown page-turner and definitely worth the reader's time. Carolyn Rowe Hill
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 26, 2005
I thought the novel got off to a good start, with millionaire philanthropist environmentalist George Morton promising $10 million to the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF), which is fighting global warming. Morton is unaware, however, that NERF's chief, bad guy Nicholas Drake, is secretly funding bad guys in the terrorist Environmental Liberation Front (ELF). ELF is planning to engineer climatic catastrophes (rising sea level, tsunamis, hurricanes), timed to coincide with a major Climate Conference. The Front intends to terrify the world into believing that environmentalists are right about global warming, and so increase the flow of funds to NERF, enhancing its power and influence. But Morton gets suspicious when some NERF funds disappear, and asks for an audit, threatening to renege on the pledged $10 million. Meanwhile, CIA agent and MIT prof, good-guy John Kenner, who is also a climate expert, is on to ELF. Then Morton disappears, following a mysterious car crash, which is when Kenner enlists Morton's lawyer, Peter Evans, and assistant, Sarah Jones, to help him save the world from the terrorist ELF. From then on, its fast plane trips around the word, and all kinds of narrow escapes, in classic Crichton thriller fashion, as Evans and his blonde girlfriend, Sarah, engage in perilous attempts to save the world from ELF-engineered catastrophes. But unbelievably for me, all this happens without any help from U.S. Government agencies, asleep at the switch. At the end, incidentally, a bad-guy environmentalist is recycled by a friendly cannibal tribe. In 'State of Fear', the bad-guy environmentalists will do anything, including murder and mass murder, to frighten and deceive people into giving them support. I got the impression that they ultimately wanted to stop the heroic good-guy innovators behind all human progress, and stop those who would expand the industrial base that will one day propel humanity to Mars and the stars. 'State of Fear' had enough suspense to keep me reading, but didn't really measure up. I found the plot too skimpy, with far too many boring ecological-data-filled discussions and lectures, and footnotes too, and some thirty mind-numbing graphs, clearly intended to persuade me of truth of the anti-global-warming thesis. The characters were just not believable for me, since we have a complex, unfathomable issue here. Nobody can know for sure if the Earth is up to something big, or if the level of risk we are running is dangerously high. The good-guy anti-environmentalists are simply portrayed as unrealistically good, and the bad-guy environmentalists as incredibly bad. I believe the book's real merit, however, is strategic. It lies in the provocative idea of portraying polluters as good guys, and environment preservationists as bad guys, leaving conservatives gloating and liberals outraged, and the publisher and author counting the loot, but hopefully stimulating useful discussion.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 14, 2004
I'm a big fan of this author and have read all of his previous books, so I was very excited about this new work. Unfortunately I found that it lack a certain something that I was used to in the previous books. I found the story rather boring and the plot twists to be either totally far fetched or downright obvious. A major let down, stick with the earlier works.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 6, 2004
Writing as someone who used to eat up every word he wrote, Crichton's last two novels were a waste of the paper they were printed on. In the movie business, when they do not provide a preview of a movie to critics before it opens, it is considered a very bad sign, quality-wise -- like they have something to hide. Until we actually find out what the book is about -- and the Pearl Harbor release date is not promising -- I am assuming he continues to be a lazy writer coasting on his laurels. I hope I'm wrong! After the piece of garbage, _Prey_, came out last year, I promised myself I would not rush and buy his next book until it proves itself.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 21, 2012
Anybody have a favorite quote from this book?
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Posted April 6, 2012
Amazing!!! It was very well written, I enjoyed the overall purpose of the book. I have read many of his books, this is not his best, but it is very exceptional.
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Overview
"In Paris, a physicist dies after performing a laboratory experiment for a beautiful visitor. In the jungles of Malaysia, a mysterious buyer purchases deadly cavitation technology, built to his specifications. In Vancouver, a small research submarine is leased for use in the waters off New Guinea. And in Tokyo, an intelligence agent tries to understand what it all means." Thus begins Michael Crichton's techno-thriller State of Fear, which takes the reader from the glaciers of Iceland to the volcanoes of Antarctica, from the Arizona desert to the deadly jungles of the Solomon Islands, from the streets of Paris to the beaches of Los Angeles.