02/05/2006 11:11 PM
Posted by VeggieSteph

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

It has been a little while since I have read any Michael Crichton books, but I remember Jurassic Park and Airframe fondly. So when I saw my brother reading State of Fear the other day, I pried it from his fingers when he was done. I was excited about getting back to Crichton’s part-science, part thriller adventure books. Unfortunately, State of Fear was not the Crichton I remember.

State of Fear is Michael Crichton’s treatise on global warming and environmental organizations. Peter Evans is a lawyer who works jointly for George Morton, a very rich man who likes to give his money away to good causes, and for Nick Drake, the head of a charitable environmental organization. Morton finds something fishy going on, and on the eve of announcing some very disturbing news, he dies in a terrible accident. Peter ends up working with Morton’s assistant Sarah to find out what George really knew about Drake’s organization and why all of a sudden he is being threatened and almost killed. Along with John Kenner, a professor with a CIA type background, these guys fight celebrities with over inflated egos and bad sound bytes, crazed environmental terrorists, and lawyers to bring the truth of global warming to the public.

On one hand, I was disappointed in this book. There were a great number of times when I felt like I was reading a report or a dissertation on climate, global warming, and environmental organizations, rather than a thriller/adventure. Kenner confronts people’s misconceptions on environmental concerns on practically every other page, and it rips you right out of the story. Crichton was obviously trying very hard to back up the points he was making, but it only served to preach and ruin the tension. If he had put in a little less fact, and saved it for the already extensive footnoting he had in the appendix, the book would have scored much higher in my opinion.

On the other hand, the points he made in this book were very interesting. The new ice age, the melting of the glaciers, and rising temperatures were all thoroughly explained in layman’s terms. He makes points about the nature of charitable organizations (that many environmental charities are more lawyer cash machines spouting 40 year old data than anything else). He also covers the “state of fear” that our country (and our world) has moved into over the last 30 years. (If you have seen Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, he touches on this idea as well.) What I found most interesting were the appendices where he documents why he thinks politicized science can only damage our growth and future. He specifically mentions Eugenics, and goes into many examples that are very eye opening.

Overall, I feel mediocre about the book itself. However, it has been a book that has plagued my thoughts, and really made me rethink some things. I want to look into some of the things he brings up, and if a book makes me feel that way, I can’t say it wasn’t worth the time it took to read it.