Any Pelican Read Crichton's "State of Fear"? (Enviro-Apocalypse)

[Overpaid Slacker]

I haven't, but it looks like it might be an entertaining read.

Any P-heads have a review?

JP

[cowtown]

Working on it right now...the jury is still out.

I've always like the way Crichton creates little self-contained environments (groups of specialists in the jungle, underwater stations, etc.), then pokes at them to see what happens. This time, it's not quite so focused.

[Don Wohlfarth]

I've read the book and liked it. Like all Crichton books it's entertaining. It does have some charts and graphs showing that some of the claims about global warming may not be as clear cut as some of the greenies would like you to believe.
What was interesting to me is that it's a work of ficton with footnotes that show the sources for his stated facts.
I agree with the reviewer, Kenneth Green, who summed it up nicely:
"State of Fear is an excellent novel that concisely and clearly presents the arguments long asserted by those who are skeptical of claims that we know the climate is changing, that we know what causes the climate to change, and that we know enough to take control over the global climate through the manipulation of greenhouse gases."

[cowtown]

Okay, I finally finished this book and am wondering what everyone thought of it.

I was somewhat disappointed with this one. Crichton used the characters' endless airplane flights as his "soapbox time," which was fine. He set up Kenner to discuss a bunch of temperature data and warming trends. But the targets of Kenner's arguments were invariably thinly-drawn intellectual luddites who did not debate on the same plane. The actor who tagged along toward the end (who I think was supposed to evoke Martin Sheen) was stereotypical - a drunken, talking-point spewing dupe, who did not understand any of the science behind what he was spouting. I thought that approach really did a disservice to Crichton's argument. If he had made the debate between two well-qualified scientists, and he spent some time researching the "mainstream" beliefs he was trying to discredit (and I'm sure he could), it would have been more believable.

On top of that, the characters were automatons. Evans was 1)trapped by a glacier 2)paralyzed by an octopus 3)shot 4)beat up by thugs, and yet he still didn't sleep much, and didn't show any emotion such as, oh, mental breakdown. The love triangle didn't go anywhere, and the personalities were basically interchangable.

One thing that I really did like was Crichton's overall theme that we should constantly question our beliefs and assumptions. A bit more of that would lead to far less fanaticism in the world.

I also liked his point that warming and climate may or may not exist, but that the data are inconclusive - and yet, the politics, money, and structure of academic research projects compel many to draw conclusions anyway.