State of Fear (original 2004; edition 2005)

This book is terrible. It's righty anti-environment propaganda, for one thing, and Crichton should have known better; but for another thing, it's really badly written.

I like Crichton usually, but this is a very bad book. ( )

This book had made me reconsider my beliefs on climate change, but frankly, the story just wasn't that good. ( )

I love the fact that Crichton challenges the reader to judge the science based on SCIENCE not media publicity!! Plus an exciting suspense/thriller... ( )

Michael Crichton would really like to let you know that there’s no such thing as global warming. Also, the media keeps you in a constant state of fear about whatever crisis or catastrophe is coming next. You’re more easily controllable that way. To that end, he has carefully crafted a science fiction thriller with handy real-life corollaries and a multitude of footnotes. He even includes a forward that seems to assert the truth of this entire tale. A more malleable mind might take him at his word and believe the work to be non-fiction. In fact, US Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who chaired the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, made State of Fear “required reading” for members of said committee. Because fiction novels should absolutely inform public policy.
Crichton’s novel almost works as a thriller; a group of people race around the world trying to stop members of the EarthEnvironmental Liberation Front from creating “natural” disasters to coincide with a big Abrupt Climate Change Conference. Unfortunately, the leader of the group, John Kenner, keeps engaging people in conversations in which he points out how silly and wrong-headed their media-informed opinions are about climate change, wildlife management, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and more. He’s really quite a dick about it. Also, it’s difficult for suspense to build when every plane ride to the next disaster consists of this guy pontificating. With footnotes! Did I mention the footnotes? There are tons of them. A cursory Google search of the book will produce several different scientific organizations who have gone pretty much point-by-point through Crichton’s arguments and poked holes in all of them, but as Kenner would say, that’s because the scientists are in the pockets of the environmentalists. Which is just about as ridiculous as his denigration of the people who dismiss contradictory studies because they were funded by industry. Who even knows what the science is really saying anymore? Which scientists should one believe? That actually seems to be the conclusion drawn by the book, that science should be blind to funding. Which, theoretically, is a great idea. It’s just too bad Crichton has to bash most of the scientists on the planet in order to make that (arguably unrealistic) point. ( )

Finally a book that is not one-minded about climate change. It's Crichton's SF mixed in with real science. A must read.In italian: ne ho parlato nel mio blog http://www.carloamoretti.it/blog/?p=34&language=it ( )