State of Fear by Michael Crichton
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Book Reviews of State of Fear
Book Review: Typical great book from Crichton
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this right after reading Next and it brought me back to the typical thriller I expect from Chricton. Great read!
Michael T. Hanley, CPA is the Managing Partner of the Smithtown, NY CPA Firm, Merl & Hanley, LLP and the author of Effective Tax Planning for the MicroBusiness: 30 Minutes With...A Certified Public Accountant: Effective Tax Planning for the MicroBusiness
Book Review: A very fun read with a lot of good insights (and incites!)
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved the book; it is a fun read, even if you don't pay attention to the scientific angle of "global warming." Now, if you do, the whole new dimension opens up - I suspect most of the facts that he brings up about this phenomemon will indeed check out and so the boom does make you think about how "reality" and "hot trend" really overlap in the minds of some people...Book Review: Interesting take on Global Warming
Summary: 4 Stars
I highly recommend this book to get some balance on the global warming propaganda, especially in view of recent news reports of scientists fudging temperature data. As a novel, it is somewhat bland and predictable (reads more like a screenplay), but really makes you think if the science behind climate change is pushing a political agendaBook Review: State of Fear
Summary: 4 Stars
State of Fear is a fast-pace adventure story regarding scientists' stand on global warming and how the government influences that.
It is a great story and I highly recommend it.
Book Review: Enjoyable Reading...To a Point
Summary: 3 Stars
I started this book as an agnostic on global warming and finished it still an agnostic. Crichton's dialogues between the main character Kenner and the other, more "naive" characters in the book, are used mainly to discount most of the hype currently surrounding global warming. However, Crichton goes too far over-the-top, and instead of food for intellectual thought, the book felt like lurching from one anti-environmentalist diatribe after another. The low point is a gruesome fate for a Martin Sheen-like character near the end, after which I almost abandoned the book altogether.
Crichton apparently does not feel the environmental movement has ever done anything useful at all: he even takes a swipe at National Parks and Teddy Roosevelt. By the end, I tired of the author's ranting and just tried to enjoy the book on its more superficial levels: as an espionage thriller and a love story.
Unfortunately, State of Fear is- at best- a mediocre contribution to the spy thriller genre. There are few surprises regarding the "international plot to kill thousands to perpetuate the global warming hoax", and those twists that do occur are highly predictable. Furthermore, the basic plot the environtmentalists are supposed to be perpetuating is so ridiculous and implausible that it does not really allow the reader to suspend disbelief. If Crichton wanted to convince more readers of his view on global warming, he could have inserted a much more plausible "eco-terrorist plot" with better, less predictiable plot twists to keep readers entertained and engaged.
The most engaging aspect of State of Fear- and the reason it merits three stars instead of two- is the love story angle. Crichton's other main protaganist is a tree hugging lawyer, who is also Kenner's audience for most of his anti-global warming sermons. The lawyer, Peter Evans, balances his thoughts on the environment and his fight to stay alive with his overactive libido: he has his eyes on two beautiful ladies that Crichton parades before him, both of whom are more skeptical about global warming than he is. Of course, neither can really commit to him until he changes his "wimpy" pro-environmental views and becomes a "real man" and questions global warming orthodoxy.
Will Peter find his own skepticism about climate change, and win one of these lovely ladies over? Which of the beautiful global warming skeptics will he choose? As hokey as this whole love triangle sounds, Evans and the two ladies in question are the closest Crichton comes to creating multidimensional characters the reader actually cares about. This ended up, for me at least, being the saving grace for an otherwise subpar final novel from one of the greatest popular fiction writers of our time.