Customer Reviews
an inconvenient alternative truth? - By: ragamuffin, 14 Sep 2008 
Michael Crichton's use of fear & uncertainty to attack the way governments & the media use fear & uncertainty to manipulate public opinion is deliciously ironic. If you have watched An Inconvenient Truth you might want to read this book. And if you read this book you might want to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Then we can alll make up our own minds! Great read whatever your views on global warming. One of those books it is difficult to put down.... though not quite in the class of Prey - now that is one scary book!!
A readable thriller - By: Mr. M. Robertson, 19 Aug 2008 
State of Fear is an average, easy reading environmental thriller. You know, it's the sort of thing that's just begging to be made into a film with Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. The plot is the fairly standard good guys vs bad guys stuff, characters are cookie cutter handsome guys & beautiful women & so on & so forth. You'll fly through it on long flight or train journey. For me that was good enough.
The most interesting thing about the book is not so much the plot or the characters, but what it makes you think about after you've finished reading it. Many people believe in global warming etc. but few of us can say that we reallly understand the issue in any detail & are highly reliant on so-callled experts & the media for information.
Whether or not you agree with the author, you'll probably take more of an interest in finding out things for yourself after reading this book. So, alll in alll, this book is worth reading if you need something light & easy to occupy yourself with.
Great book, highly recommended especially for thinkers! - By: Jas, 25 May 2008 
This is by far the best book Crichton has ever written! An absolute page-turner & the amount of knowledge gained from his insights is worth the time spent to read it. It provokes the mind into thinking outside the box & is incredibly relevant to this day in age with its well researched content. I am also most impressed with the last few pages, where Crichton writes a few words about his own thoughts on the novel, & the appendix section, where he elaborates on issues raised by the 'global warming' ideology. I reallly admire Crichton for having the courage to speak his mind into a novel.
Bearing in mind of Crichton's scientific background (he was a medical graduate from Harvard), it is not surprising to see how he goes about backing up his fiction with the large amount of literature references as some reviewers have already noted. I find this makes the book alll the more interesting to read; almost like going through scientific journals set in an easy-to-read action-packed thriller genre. But of course, I can also understand how this may put some people off who may not like the overtly scientific content. And having read some of the poor reviews of this book, this is alll the more emphasised. However, if you have an open-mind & would like to be challlenged intellectuallly, then I highly recommend this book to you. You will not regret it!
(N.B. A good carry-on documentary that is relevant to this novel is callled 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' aired on Channel 4 in UK recently. It can be downloaded online & I highly recommend it to people who have already read the book & want to learn more about the scientific controversies raised in the novel.)
Five friends and the Eco-terrorists - By: A. L., 20 May 2008 Do you "believe" in Global Warming? Crichton takes it upon himself to lecture us about the dangers of what he callls "political science". Yet, it turns out being the godfather (of the remnants) of modern science fiction doesn't make you a scientist. But give him a chance - this book is one that real experts took the trouble to "debunk", & has earned him rather "fundamentalist" critiscism from non-scientists.
The plot: A rich ecologicallly-minded philantropist disappears after crashing his Ferrari, in an apparent drunken bout of dispair over fellow environmental acticists who divert his money into dark channels. Now it's up to a mollycoddle-but-honest lawyer to unravel the conspiracies & defeat the bad guys & girls in James Bond fashion, guided by a mysterious secret agent armed with lots of unpopular knowledge about environmental issues. As our hero gains experience in escaping death traps to the left & right, he graduallly matures & is able to overcome his naive, emotional faith in the simplistic views of his environmentalist friends, who, as it turns out, are willing to do almost anything to convince the world of the impending disasters Global warming holds in store.
While the overalll storyline is unconvincing - Would any government agent pit two lousy professionals against terrorists who threaten to bring about natural disasters, dragging a not-too-bright lawyer & a bunch of lawyer broads to Antarctica for the benefit of educating them on climate change? - Crichton goes to great (and entertaining) lengths to get his Global warming criticism across. He doesn't outright calll it a "swindle", but claims it's based on faulty climate modelling at best. So unreliable, if fact, that it wouldn't hold up in a court of law. For good measure, he throws in some astonishing off-topic claims, like "Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler". It's these "germs" that make the book an eye-opener, given that I immediately felt the urge to google them up afterwards. After alll, this is Crichton, not Alex Jones!
No, he hasn't lost his mind or gone over to the dark corporate forces, but merely stretched the liberties of fiction & promptly falllen on his nose. Writing a good novel doesn't require solid facts, but preaching anti-establishment sermons & being taken seriously does. Many of his claims are half-truths (find out which ones) & a good antidote against Global warming alarmism & conspiracy theories, yet I can understand why scientists - even the ones he quoted - should be offended. The book is an implicit attack on the integrity of the whole community, by an outsider whose opinion is generallly overrated. Despite his wise observations about the nature of beliefs or trends, Crichton also makes clear he doesn't reallly understand what he's talking about. He isn't immune to what he identifies in the actor/anti-hero of his book: vanity & being praised for the wrong reasons.
But even celebrities have a right to be wrong (they rarely become presidents in an ideal society). If you can't (preliminarily) tolerate outrageous ideas, you won't have much fun with this book, as the plot is weak & the characters rather old-fashioned stereotypes, only with male/female identities partly reversed. The story lacks challlenging twists & turns, but the notion of eco terrorism on this level is exciting & Crichton is creative in the details.
Crichton can do better - By: B., 27 Apr 2008 When it comes to Global Warming I only know what I've heard on tv. Experts tell me it's bad... Brad Pitt uses solar panels to heat his home, & the evening news reminds me global warming is responsible for the extreme weather footage I see on my tv each day. Surely that's enough to prove its existence, right? Perhaps this is why I didn't mind the reams of notes, charts & graphs Michael Crichton provided in STATE OF FEAR. He was dumbing it down for novices like me - something I actuallly appreciated.
State of Fear tackles the high stakes of eco-fundraising & the lengths both industry & environmentalists go to in order to prove their point. It's fast-paced, full of action & adventure, & manages to educate without leaving the reader feeling as if they've been talked down to. Kudos to Crichton on those points.
However, what takes a hit (and this is my constant of Crichton novels) is character development. He introduces us to potentiallly fascinating people & then leaves us hanging. Perhaps he felt that with such a political novel something had to give... & robust, likeable protagonists got the ax.
All in alll I don't regret the time spent reading State Of Fear (and it was quite a commitment - it's a looong book), I just wish I'd come away with more of an attachment to the leads.
