| Subcategories | | Condition (condition-type) | | • | New | | • | Used |
|
|
|
|
State of Fear | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Crichton
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: £16.82
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £16.81 (100%)
Used (62) Collectible (4) from £0.01
Rating:  104 reviews
Sales Rank: 365192
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 624
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0066214130
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780066214139
ASIN: 0066214130
Publication Date: December 31, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Dispatched from the US -- Expect delivery in 2-3 weeks. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 99 more reviews...
A readable thriller August 19, 2008
Mr. M. Robertson (Scotland)
State of Fear is an average, easy reading environmental thriller. You know, it's the sort of thing that's just begging to be made into a film with Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. The plot is the fairly standard good guys vs bad guys stuff, characters are cookie cutter handsome guys and beautiful women and so on and so forth. You'll fly through it on long flight or train journey. For me that was good enough.
The most interesting thing about the book is not so much the plot or the characters, but what it makes you think about after you've finished reading it. Many people believe in global warming etc. but few of us can say that we really understand the issue in any detail and are highly reliant on so-called experts and the media for information.
Whether or not you agree with the author, you'll probably take more of an interest in finding out things for yourself after reading this book. So, all in all, this book is worth reading if you need something light and easy to occupy yourself with.
 Great book, highly recommended especially for thinkers! May 25, 2008
Jas (London)
This is by far the best book Crichton has ever written! An absolute page-turner and the amount of knowledge gained from his insights is worth the time spent to read it. It provokes the mind into thinking outside the box and is incredibly relevant to this day in age with its well researched content. I am also most impressed with the last few pages, where Crichton writes a few words about his own thoughts on the novel, and the appendix section, where he elaborates on issues raised by the 'global warming' ideology. I really admire Crichton for having the courage to speak his mind into a novel.
Bearing in mind of Crichton's scientific background (he was a medical graduate from Harvard), it is not surprising to see how he goes about backing up his fiction with the large amount of literature references as some reviewers have already noted. I find this makes the book all the more interesting to read; almost like going through scientific journals set in an easy-to-read action-packed thriller genre. But of course, I can also understand how this may put some people off who may not like the overtly scientific content. And having read some of the poor reviews of this book, this is all the more emphasised. However, if you have an open-mind and would like to be challenged intellectually, then I highly recommend this book to you. You will not regret it!
(N.B. A good carry-on documentary that is relevant to this novel is called 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' aired on Channel 4 in UK recently. It can be downloaded online and I highly recommend it to people who have already read the book and want to learn more about the scientific controversies raised in the novel.)
Five friends and the Eco-terrorists May 20, 2008
A. L.
Do you "believe" in Global Warming? Crichton takes it upon himself to lecture us about the dangers of what he calls "political science". Yet, it turns out being the godfather (of the remnants) of modern science fiction doesn't make you a scientist. But give him a chance - this book is one that real experts took the trouble to "debunk", and has earned him rather "fundamentalist" critiscism from non-scientists.
The plot: A rich ecologically-minded philantropist disappears after crashing his Ferrari, in an apparent drunken bout of dispair over fellow environmental acticists who divert his money into dark channels. Now it's up to a mollycoddle-but-honest lawyer to unravel the conspiracies and defeat the bad guys & girls in James Bond fashion, guided by a mysterious secret agent armed with lots of unpopular knowledge about environmental issues. As our hero gains experience in escaping death traps to the left and right, he gradually matures and is able to overcome his naive, emotional faith in the simplistic views of his environmentalist friends, who, as it turns out, are willing to do almost anything to convince the world of the impending disasters Global warming holds in store.
While the overall storyline is unconvincing - Would any government agent pit two lousy professionals against terrorists who threaten to bring about natural disasters, dragging a not-too-bright lawyer and a bunch of lawyer broads to Antarctica for the benefit of educating them on climate change? - Crichton goes to great (and entertaining) lengths to get his Global warming criticism across. He doesn't outright call it a "swindle", but claims it's based on faulty climate modelling at best. So unreliable, if fact, that it wouldn't hold up in a court of law. For good measure, he throws in some astonishing off-topic claims, like "Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler". It's these "germs" that make the book an eye-opener, given that I immediately felt the urge to google them up afterwards. After all, this is Crichton, not Alex Jones!
No, he hasn't lost his mind or gone over to the dark corporate forces, but merely stretched the liberties of fiction and promptly fallen on his nose. Writing a good novel doesn't require solid facts, but preaching anti-establishment sermons and being taken seriously does. Many of his claims are half-truths (find out which ones) and a good antidote against Global warming alarmism and conspiracy theories, yet I can understand why scientists - even the ones he quoted - should be offended. The book is an implicit attack on the integrity of the whole community, by an outsider whose opinion is generally overrated. Despite his wise observations about the nature of beliefs or trends, Crichton also makes clear he doesn't really understand what he's talking about. He isn't immune to what he identifies in the actor/anti-hero of his book: vanity and being praised for the wrong reasons.
But even celebrities have a right to be wrong (they rarely become presidents in an ideal society). If you can't (preliminarily) tolerate outrageous ideas, you won't have much fun with this book, as the plot is weak and the characters rather old-fashioned stereotypes, only with male/female identities partly reversed. The story lacks challenging twists and turns, but the notion of eco terrorism on this level is exciting and Crichton is creative in the details.
Crichton can do better April 27, 2008
B.
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When it comes to Global Warming I only know what I've heard on tv. Experts tell me it's bad... Brad Pitt uses solar panels to heat his home, and the evening news reminds me global warming is responsible for the extreme weather footage I see on my tv each day. Surely that's enough to prove its existence, right? Perhaps this is why I didn't mind the reams of notes, charts & graphs Michael Crichton provided in STATE OF FEAR. He was dumbing it down for novices like me - something I actually appreciated.
State of Fear tackles the high stakes of eco-fundraising and the lengths both industry and environmentalists go to in order to prove their point. It's fast-paced, full of action and adventure, and manages to educate without leaving the reader feeling as if they've been talked down to. Kudos to Crichton on those points.
However, what takes a hit (and this is my constant of Crichton novels) is character development. He introduces us to potentially fascinating people and then leaves us hanging. Perhaps he felt that with such a political novel something had to give... and robust, likeable protagonists got the ax.
All in all I don't regret the time spent reading State Of Fear (and it was quite a commitment - it's a looong book), I just wish I'd come away with more of an attachment to the leads.
 Good idea, poor characters, MASSES of lecture notes March 27, 2008
A. J. Sturgess (North Yorkshire, UK)
If you like the novels of Matthew Reilly (ie: all action and cardboard characters) and if you like reading lecture notes, then you'll enjoy this book - otherwise be warned:
The basic plot is simple - eco-terrorists want to cause catastrophic events to kill millions in the name of providing 'proof' of global warming. The action is often so frenetic that it verges on being cartoon-like but (no exaggeration) anything between a fifth and a quarter of the book is made up of pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of graphs and endless lecture-like diatribes about all the evidence that global warming is a myth. One section alone has 6 sides of graphs. 'Tedious' doesn't even begin to describe it. At the end of the book the bibliography of academic writings stretches to 26 sides. That surely should warn you about what you're in for with this 'novel'.
If Crichton had halved the length of his novel and then trimmed it by a further 20%, he could have had a winner. As it is, there is little to recommend it unless you want to practise skim-reading or find something to send you to sleep at night.
|
|
|
www.pcprotech.co.uk | |
