State of Fear by Michael Crichton

THERE BE SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED


World-Building: Decent
Characterization: Shoddy
Plot: Page-turner, though it has it's slow moments compared to other Crichton works

State of Fear starts off as a real page turner. Like the other great Michael Crichton novels it starts off with a series of mysterious and intriguing events and the reader is compelled to read on to find out what these events and people have to do with each other and how the plot will unfold. So far so good.

The story then settles into the POV of the main characters. George Morton is a rich billionaire who supports an environmental organization NERF, and Peter Evans is a Lawyer who represents him. The story is told mostly from Evans' POV and it centers on George's relationship with NERF and his growing doubts about their honesty and the truth behind their cause. At least, at first.

Soon the story veers off into a series of unelievable adventures where Peter teams up with George's csecretary and a secret agent named Kenner whose job it is to thwart the evil plans of a group of eco-terrorists. These guys are planning to engineer several catastrophic weather events in order to convince the public that global warming is a real threat - presumbaly thereby forcing the government to take action against global warming.

I must admit when I started reading this book, I thought that it was going to be mainly about the Vanutu lawsuit, which is mentioned at the start of the novel. This was a lawsuit against the US Government for being the biggest contributors to Global warming, which was putting the island of Vanutu under threat of submersion. I thought that Crichton was going to show us a fictionalized account of why the lawsuit had been dropped - a series of murders and thefts and sabotage of scienfic experiments, or something of that nature. It turns out that Crichton's main aim in this novel is to prove that Global Warming is a hoax/conspiracy and that environmental organizations and some scientists are fudging the data and manipulating the public into thinking it's real.

I actually don't have a problem with this. If that's what he wants his book to be about that's fine, and I could enjoy the novel for what it is. I know enough about science to agree with the main premise that people should look for accurate sources and think about these types of issues deeply and seriously before making up their minds and deciding to go on a mission to save the planet. The reader is still free to make up his or her own mind and I'm sure anyone looking for actual information will not restrict themseves to this novel as their only source of information. However, the way that Crichton did this is nowhere near as elegant as it could have been and so the book begins to get really irritating.

One of the first things that got on my nerves (aside from the excessive use of charts and graphs) is the ease with which Peter Evans allows himself to get carried off on the first adventure to Antartica. Peter Evans didn't trust Kenner when he first saw him. He also had reasons to suspect Kenner of being implicated in George Morton's death. And then, out of nowhere, he is suddenly allowing himself to be dragged onto a private plane with this man on an unknown mission to an undisclosed location because Morton left him a vague hint about a list being important... no really? It was bad enough that this lawyer allowed himself to be bullied into being videotaped by the lawsuit guys, but for me the first antarctica trip was a step too far. It didn't make sense. Kenner did nothing to earn Peter's trust.  His monologues on why Global Warming doesn't exist were also really annoying. Bad characterization all round. And it gets worse when you throw in the hollywood actors and the rest of the characters that just randomly tag along on the missions.

The second issue I had with this book was the hypocrisy. Kenner and co. were more than ready to chastise Ted Bradley for the wasteful, luxurious life he lived. They acted like they understood the plight of poor people and third world people much better than Bradley could ever hope to, but all their interactions with such people made me want to yell at Crichton (no use yelling at Kenner, his characterization was so bad that this would not seem remotely relevant.) First of all, the cannibal rebels didn't even really need to be in the story (it was obvious before they even got caught that the main characters would make itand that something terrible would happen to Bradley). And then, of course, Henry, the pilot, was so badly abused as a character. It boils down to this, the only people of color in this story end up being traitors and cannibals and are killed off without a second thought.

Finally, I had a problem with Crichton's laughable claim in the footmotes: "Everyone has an agenda - except me." Wow.

In conclusion, I wouldn't go as far as telling you to not read this book, do read it, but you will probably end up being bored by the monologues, annoyed by most of the characters, and highly amused by the author's message to think hard about what you're being told, but take his word (in a fictional novel!) as the unbiased truth.