Michael Crichton wrote some of the greatest thrillers of all time. State of Fear isn't the best, but it does something just a touch more. Amidst the race to understand and prevent a disaster from taking place it forces the reader to think. State of Fear deals with eco-terrorism and attempts to give a different perspective on global warming than one normally hears. It could be filed away as just part of the fiction, but it also asks the reader, as Evans is asked, to look beyond what others have told you and look into it yourself. This novel was never meant to force an opinion or turn things on its head. It was meant to make you think, to have you question, research, decide something for yourself and then to act on what you believe. And in the end, that is really what every good book is meant to do. Reading is a pointless exercise if at the end of it something hasn't made you stop to wonder. to question, or to think. ( )

Michael Crichton tells a good story (hence the stars). He researches well too. However, the politics of the science of global warming are so complex that I regret his entering the foray. If you can find a ton of sources speaking of *facts* that Iraq did have WMD, then you can imagine the kind of (even more actual) facts that can be played on a topic which is truly complex. ( )

A great story but also a well researched book about global warming. The truth about global warming is not what the masses think it is. Curious? Read more ... ( )

If you believe in man-made global warming, read this book. If you don't believe in man-made global warming, you may still enjoy this book.

For those already familiar with the science, the book may seem a bit repetitive, but even still the story that packages the science is excellent. ( )

It is almost as if someone took over the late Michael Crichton's brain. This polemic against global climate change is rife with erroneous information, that actually borders on being decietful and misleading. As someone who has thoroughly studied paleo-climatology at the graduate level, I was appalled by nearly every aspect of this book. It is an amazingly bad artifice that is without question the worst book Michael Crichton ever wrote, and I am a fan of several of his other novels.

This is one book that I wish he had not wrote, or failing that, at least not published. ( )