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.