State of Fear by Michael Crichton

A wonderful science debate cradled in a hard-to-swallow action story

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

State of Fear is really two books. One is by Crichton the science essayist. Crichton's scientific comments about the environmentalist movement are most interesting and well-put. This is the only work of fiction that I've read with actual footnotes in it! Crichton throws down the gauntlet in this one and wants you to look into it for yourself. If only Dan Brown had done the same with The DaVinci Code!

Crichton the story-teller is not at his best here. The plot is, for all practical purposes, merely a shallow medium to carry forth Crichton's scientific arguments. It does that but it is not, in and of itself, terribly interesting. If the scientific debates were removed from the book, the action could not carry the book on its own merit.

Read it for the different perspective on global warming, not for the plot. I give the scientific debate (with footnotes) 5 stars, the plot just one star. That's an average of 3 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: State of Fear

Reviewed on July 27, 2006.