State of Fear

The plot is shaky, and feels at times as if it is just a cheap ploy, secondary in importance to its purpose, which is to create opportunities for Crichton to insert educational information about global warming into the book.

The characters, while fun and diverse, are all too familiar from Crichton previous works (A wise, eccentric, determined and objective billionaire businessman, a young, cynical, pragmatic nonconformist male scientist, and a brave, resourceful woman with “surprisingly” masculine skills are back bone of the team of “good guys.” The exact same description is true, almost word for word, for Lost Word, Congo, Sphere etc...).

If there are other Crichton novels that you haven't yet read other than State of Fear, read the other ones first.

This sat on my shelf for years. To many books to read, burned out on Crichton, forgot I even had it, etc. Recently, I overhauled my bookshelves & this one just barely missed the giveaway pile. I figured it would be a quick, fun read.

While it was a page turner, it gave me far more to think about than I had anticipated. I'm not here to argue global warming or climate change or what is and what isn't going to happen, but I did find a lot of interesting viewpoints in this book that either I hadn't considered or wasn't aware of.

This book would make an excellent choice for classes or book clubs. There is a lot to unpack and discuss. Plus it's entertaining.