Book Review: Michael Crichton's State of Fear

Anyone remember the good old days when everyone thought global warming was real? Wait, they still do? Well, after this past year's scandal in regards to supposed fact fudging on the part of global warming studies, the number of people who believed in the phenomena went down quite a bit. (Let's face it, they were looking for any excuse.) One person who never really believed in the global warming hoopla was Michael Crichton, the writer of such pseudo-scientific books as Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and Sphere.

The book is about the evil, dreaded environmentalist, and how they are only there to take your money and commit acts of terrorism in the name of trees. (Or icebergs or volcanoes, or whatever is around them at the time.) No, I am not kidding. We should hear Crichton out though. In this critic's opinion, he got it right for the most part. Modern day environmentalist groups fall into two categories... terrorists like ELF or bureaucratic machines whose main goal is to make money. How do they do this? Well by making us afraid. Turn on the news and it's a rare day when you don't hear about some environmental disaster. Crichton's view is that society is kept in check by the politicians, media, and corporations working together to keep us afraid. I personally don't see how this could be accurately disputed.

My problem with the book is how Crichton makes the whole environmentalist movement look liked Snidely Whiplash. They create disasters, they kill people, and even use complex Bond villainesque ways of doing these things. It's pretty preposterous even for Michael Crichton. Seriously, I thought at times that I was reading a novelization of a Roland Emmerich film! The characters were bland as hell, there was a lot of traveling, lots of imminent disasters, and I'm pretty sure Randy Quaid is being abducted by aliens in there somewhere.

All in all, I guess the book was okay if you don't mind being preached too. I already pretty much agreed with Crichton here, but if I didn't, I can tell you I'd probably have disliked the book. It does get rather "out there" towards the end, but then again, so do over half of Crichton's other books. I can at least say I enjoyed it better than his previous book, Prey.