This is a difficult review for me to write, because I have been a big fan of Michael Crichton's books since I was a boy. He writes the kind of pop fiction that really works for me, science fiction thrillers that usually start a few steps ahead of cutting edge science and move into all kinds of speculation and what-ifs. He never really pretends that what he is writing about is completely accurate, only that it is conceivable. And he does a great job of presenting readers a Science for Dummies précis of whatever theories he is dealing with, so we can all pretend that we are genius scientists in the midst of amazing discoveries and wild adventures on the frontiers of human knowledge.
State of Fear is a bit of a departure effort.
We are not on the cutting edge of science, we get volumes of footnoted information, and in the end one of the heroes turns into L. Ron Hubbard pointing the way to a new kind of environmental activism that will solve all the world's current hunger problems without requiring us to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. I haven't been lectured like this since college - it was like the end of that South Park episode when they turn to the camera and just tell you what the "moral of the story" is.
State of Fear is a bit of a departure effort.
We are not on the cutting edge of science, we get volumes of footnoted information, and in the end one of the heroes turns into L. Ron Hubbard pointing the way to a new kind of environmental activism that will solve all the world's current hunger problems without requiring us to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. I haven't been lectured like this since college - it was like the end of that South Park episode when they turn to the camera and just tell you what the "moral of the story" is.
The main problem with this book is that the author appears to have started with an agenda, and tried to build a story around that - the way so much Christian rock music seems to have started with a comment something like this:
"Jedediah, we have got to find a way to get these kids to recognize Christ's love for them. Hey, didn't you used to play trombone in the fourth grade? Grab that guitar. Let's see now…what rhymes with crucifixion? Richard Nixon? No..."
The music always sounds just a little bit contrived.
The problem with this analogy is that Michael Crichton really is a good writer. The writing is strong and the story is involving, but in the end these are just a patina of smooth sentences and clever plot twists culled from a lifetime of writing used to mask a disappointing effort. If Crichton wanted to weigh in on global warming, I kind of wish he would have simply written an article in some magazine, instead of forcing it into a novel. This story is good, in fact, and I actually did enjoy reading most of it. But the ending sucked; it seemed like Crichton himself didn't know how to finish it, but had already painted himself into a corner he had to get out of in time for the Christmas sales season.
"Jedediah, we have got to find a way to get these kids to recognize Christ's love for them. Hey, didn't you used to play trombone in the fourth grade? Grab that guitar. Let's see now…what rhymes with crucifixion? Richard Nixon? No..."
The music always sounds just a little bit contrived.
The problem with this analogy is that Michael Crichton really is a good writer. The writing is strong and the story is involving, but in the end these are just a patina of smooth sentences and clever plot twists culled from a lifetime of writing used to mask a disappointing effort. If Crichton wanted to weigh in on global warming, I kind of wish he would have simply written an article in some magazine, instead of forcing it into a novel. This story is good, in fact, and I actually did enjoy reading most of it. But the ending sucked; it seemed like Crichton himself didn't know how to finish it, but had already painted himself into a corner he had to get out of in time for the Christmas sales season.
The really depressing part is that he didn't even need to debunk global warming to sell this plot. It could have been a fine book if he had just left that part out, and, of course, spent more than ten minutes writing the last chapter. I swear the thing was completely predictable. What a let down.
Almost everyone in State of Fear is an environmentalist, except some of them are bad environmentalists. The bad environmentalists are up to no good in the form of generating natural-looking disasters in hopes of creating fear in the general population, which will hopefully translate into more donations to the environmental movement. In fact, this is a great idea, and the science they are misusing to wreak such havoc is fascinating! The male heroes are as clever, smart and shrewd as usual, and the book is chock full of adventures and narrow escapes. It was not necessary to disprove global warming to further the plot - all he needed to do was acknowledge that global warming wasn't yet producing the types of events that really bring in those big donations. And that is what any author who didn't start this whole process with an agenda would have done.
Almost everyone in State of Fear is an environmentalist, except some of them are bad environmentalists. The bad environmentalists are up to no good in the form of generating natural-looking disasters in hopes of creating fear in the general population, which will hopefully translate into more donations to the environmental movement. In fact, this is a great idea, and the science they are misusing to wreak such havoc is fascinating! The male heroes are as clever, smart and shrewd as usual, and the book is chock full of adventures and narrow escapes. It was not necessary to disprove global warming to further the plot - all he needed to do was acknowledge that global warming wasn't yet producing the types of events that really bring in those big donations. And that is what any author who didn't start this whole process with an agenda would have done.
However, Crichton spends a tremendous amount of time focusing on how global warming just isn't occurring, and on footnoting the sources that led him to believe this. I mean to tell you he spends a LOT of time on it. And he explains his clear motivation for writing the book in the "Author's Message" at the end of the book (p.569). He actually makes some really good points here as well as in the story and brings up a lot of things to think about, like his notion that the powers that be like to keep the masses in a state of fear in order to maintain control over them. Also that scientists are sometimes wrong, and that sometimes the overwhelming majority of them are wrong. Of course, scientists themselves recognize that they are almost always at least a little bit wrong, and quite often extremely wrong. That is a huge part of the scientific method - as new information comes in, you revise your hypothesis.
