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State of Fear
State of Fear
State of Fear
Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

State of Fear

Written by Michael Crichton

Narrated by George Wilson

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton delivers another action-packed techo-thriller in State of Fear.

When a group of eco-terrorists engage in a global conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters, its up to environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team to uncover the subterfuge.
 
From Tokyo to Los Angeles, from Antarctica to the Solomon Islands, Michael Crichton mixes cutting edge science and action-packed adventure, leading readers on an edge-of-your-seat ride while offering up a thought-provoking commentary on the issue of global warming. A deftly-crafted novel, in true Crichton style, State of Fear is an exciting, stunning tale that not only entertains and educates, but will make you think.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateDec 7, 2004
ISBN9780060817770
Author

Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton (1942-2008) was the author of the bestselling novels The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, Sphere, Disclosure, Prey, State of Fear, Next and Dragon Teeth, among many others. His books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, have been translated into forty languages, and have provided the basis for fifteen feature films. He wrote and directed Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway, Looker, Coma and created the hit television series ER. Crichton remains the only writer to have a number one book, movie, and TV show in the same year. Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis, as well as ten other books. He recently wrote the Earth 2: Society comic book series for DC Comics. Wilson earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as master’s degrees in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He has published over a dozen scientific papers and holds four patents. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Reviews for State of Fear

Rating: 3.435563273979341 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

2,033 ratings95 reviews

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I fine example of how political megalomania can cause the downfall of a once great author. His politics would sneak into his work occasionally but never quite as extravagantly as this.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Terrible way for a good thriller to go out. Utter trash.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good d plot and interesting perspective which gives readers something to think about
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    That was nearly to worst book I have ever read. The only reason I finished it was that I hoped to characters were killed off.
    This was not at all what o expected for a "thriller" from such a well known author.

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I selected this randomly, without fully reading the description. That was a mistake. He uses every straw man argument to cast doubt of global warming, and it’s primarily done by a physicist who also happens to be Jack Bower. He also spends a whole novel on a soapbox warning about the dangers of politics in science using conservative and libertarian talking points to justify reduced environmental regulation and actions by governments.

    The terrible representation of science (even the state of the science when written) overshadows everything other plot point of the book. The attempt at romance is cringeworthy. The action is over the top and the pacing is bad.

    However, what earned the book a one star review, as opposed to maybe a 2 or 3 star one, is the appendix, where he does an in-depth comparison of global warming to eugenics.

    I can’t find anything in this book to justify recommending it to anyone.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have shared his final words in this book many times. The 2 most important parts of the book are the last 2 chapters. Author's note and message from the author.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A most read for the crazy times we live in.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book should be required reading in every high school in the U.S. It is an exciting thriller with an important message; Don’t believe everything you are told by the media and government without employing some critical thought.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    if you can ignore the politics
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Funny, action packed, thrilling and served distilled environmental science
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is really a half/half book. Half of this book is an adventure thriller, and half is a boring lecture (complete with graphs!) about the lack of scientific evidence for global warming. I wish they had been separate! And this is the second book I've read where a murder weapon has been a poisonous octopus! What the? Still, I do agree with the "state of fear" concept, and I am glad I read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    ok
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    very compelling argument that challenges the way I view modern issues
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not a bad book at all, made for excellent airplane reading. One of Crichton's earliest books, A Case of Need, (originally under the pseudonym Jeffery Hudson) was written in a similar style, though the plot was more prevalent and better interweaved there. Nonetheless, I found it a fairly quick and engaging read (even if, at times, I had to suspend disbelief more than a bit), and I'd recommend it if you're at all interested in environmental issues. (For full disclosure, I should also say that I enjoyed the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," whereas most of my friends did not.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    t
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The idea of the book is fair enough - the creation of a state of fear in citizens, and using climate change as the latest example (following on from the cold war). The doubts about climate change are stated clearly enough, although we are now 10 years on from when he book was published. But the plot? It grew more and more unlikely as the book progressed, and the characters have multiple near-death experiences and serious injuries which they recover from miraculously quickly. And don't mention the poisonous octopus... There may be some substance to Crichton's position, but I thought it was undermined by the story telling.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Michael Chrichton a novelist (and a medical doctor also) whose career spanned several decades. I first ran across his works in a high school Science Fiction Literature course where we (gasp) watched the movie, "Andromeda Strain", which I found fascinating.

    His novels were meticulously researched and staunchly bolstered by his typical afterward. His superb style is not lost in this novel, which discusses the argument of what would happen if environmentalists started causing natural disasters, in order to prove that the earth is in danger.

    A thought-provoking novel that moves along at the break-neck pace of a mystery-thriller. Excellent work, Mr. Chrichton - we miss your voice in the world.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A novel with a bibliography

    Like so many others I am concerned about protecting the environment. But I want to read some facts and figures rather than press releases and predictions. Crichton has produced another hugely enjoyable novel and packed it with citations from Nature, Science and other journals. I don’t know enough to conclude anything at the end - although Crichton’s main point is that none of us knows enough to conclude with the current evidence base, so get some more evidence before taking big actions - but I did learn things I don’t get to read about in the mainstream media.

    For Crichton fans, this is a typical story - characters who are incredibly bright, scholarly and good looking take on an impossible scientific challenge with everything in nature going wrong against their predictions. As usual, suspend your judgement about the story arc and enjoy the speed and thrills. But for the first time in a Crichton I have read there are citations throughout in the text. That added to my enjoyment.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Denies climate change.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The first 4 or 5 chapters are completely autonomous, none having any relation to each other. It seems this is the style of Crichton, but even though I knew eventually they would all meld together with relevance, it was a long time in coming. So long, in fact, that I found myself having to backtrack to remember the who, what and how. Next comes the repetitive and constant barrage of off-putting technical jargon, followed by nonsensical environmental issues that went on and on in complete overkill which I did not feel was at all necessary to the story. Bad guys want to change climate; I get it. I dont need to know what they ate for breakfast. It was as if the author contracted to do a certain number of pages and used extensive filler to attain that quota. Massive let down after so many truly great books by this author

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is not a novel. It's Mike Crichton telling you anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a fraud. I don't care for his views on political issues; I have my own views. And, of course, I'm right and anybody who disagrees with me must be wrong. In fact, those who agree with me are wrong too. Well, never mind that. If you hate being told what you should think, don't read this book. Crichton has loads of good novels for you to read. If you believe in AGW, you will hate this book. If you don't believe in AGW you have your own reasons and this book will bore you to death. Oh, yeah. The plot is obvious from the first or second chapter and all the characters are one dimensional and colorless. Try "Micro". It's a great science fiction thriller.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This book is terrible. It's righty anti-environment propaganda, for one thing, and Crichton should have known better; but for another thing, it's really badly written.

    I like Crichton usually, but this is a very bad book.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Michael Crichton would really like to let you know that there’s no such thing as global warming. Also, the media keeps you in a constant state of fear about whatever crisis or catastrophe is coming next. You’re more easily controllable that way. To that end, he has carefully crafted a science fiction thriller with handy real-life corollaries and a multitude of footnotes. He even includes a forward that seems to assert the truth of this entire tale. A more malleable mind might take him at his word and believe the work to be non-fiction. In fact, US Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who chaired the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, made State of Fear “required reading” for members of said committee. Because fiction novels should absolutely inform public policy. Crichton’s novel almost works as a thriller; a group of people race around the world trying to stop members of the EarthEnvironmental Liberation Front from creating “natural” disasters to coincide with a big Abrupt Climate Change Conference. Unfortunately, the leader of the group, John Kenner, keeps engaging people in conversations in which he points out how silly and wrong-headed their media-informed opinions are about climate change, wildlife management, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and more. He’s really quite a dick about it. Also, it’s difficult for suspense to build when every plane ride to the next disaster consists of this guy pontificating. With footnotes! Did I mention the footnotes? There are tons of them. A cursory Google search of the book will produce several different scientific organizations who have gone pretty much point-by-point through Crichton’s arguments and poked holes in all of them, but as Kenner would say, that’s because the scientists are in the pockets of the environmentalists. Which is just about as ridiculous as his denigration of the people who dismiss contradictory studies because they were funded by industry. Who even knows what the science is really saying anymore? Which scientists should one believe? That actually seems to be the conclusion drawn by the book, that science should be blind to funding. Which, theoretically, is a great idea. It’s just too bad Crichton has to bash most of the scientists on the planet in order to make that (arguably unrealistic) point.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A masterwork of climate change denial. I suspect it has been quite successful, too. If you want to understand the climate change debate, it's an important book to read. It reminds me a little of Jacques Roubaud's Princess Hoppy novels, where he mixes fictional narrative with math exercises. Here, Crichton mixes real scientific data and reports into the action-packed thriller story. It certainly motivates the reader to think about the science involved! Crichton is not bashful in the least about the slant he is putting on the data. It's hard to say what Crichton's goal is exactly. He has a grand time bursting the bubbles of the ignorant, but to what end exactly is unclear. He says that people will not be able to stabilize climate. I don't know all the proposals and goals that folks in the climate change world might have, but that's one I haven't heard. Crichton acknowledges that human activity most likely does affect climate. Crichton doesn't quite come out and say that climate change theory is a plot to establish a worldwide totalitarian regime. How else could people control the behavior of people? Hmmm, yet here is Crichton publishing propaganda! It's tricky territory, for sure!Crichton attempts to refute the precautionary principle without quite defining it. It's a bit like atheists who deny God without being careful to define God. Of course there is an extreme version of the precautionary principle that would require people to refrain from any sort of risky activity. Of course just being alive involves a 100% chance of death. That extreme version of precaution is absurd. But to go to the other extreme - just do whatever you want because nobody can be absolutely certain about the results - that is absurd too. This puzzle is a nice example where some kind of middle way between extremes seems called for - I have been advocating a Buddhist Philosophy of Science as a way to cultivate such middle ways.We really do not have the intellectual tools to confront the problem of climate change. Yeah Crichton says that forecasts of resource limits more generally are ridiculous because there have been so many failed predictions. Go back, friend, and read the Scientific American article by M. King Hubbert from I think 1980. The fact that many people are wrong doesn't mean that nobody has anything useful to say. It's a crazy situation. If we were really to take the problem of climate change seriously, it would probably mean the end of the modern world. But if we don't take the problem seriously, it means that we have decided to stop trusting science as a guide to action. Crichton warns us that mixing up science and politics will taint science. But using science as a guide to action is to mix up science and politics. Crichton actually gives a rather confused version of double blind experimental methodology in this book - at least I have never seen double blind used to mean multiple independent teams of researchers. Usually it means that the researchers cannot tell e.g. which subjects are in the control group and which are in the experimental group. But Crichton's version, using independent teams, is a reasonable idea. But if the results are guiding high stakes decisions, at some point the rubber has to meet the road - somebody has to perform the meta-study that combines the reports from the various teams... We seem to be getting to the point where preserving our way of life means we just have to discard science, which, uh, is actually the foundation of our way of life. Rather that walking forward, eyes open, into the end of the modern age, we are going to trip and stumble blindly into it.This is definitely a book to get a person thinking!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
     This is a good story, but the book is not deserving of either the hatred from the political left or the praise from the right. It's a fiction book, not a science book. It's fiction that is built around controversial science (and even more controversial interpretations of the data). Read it; enjoy it; and take everything with a grain of salt.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In this tale of big money, conflicting theories regarding global warming and climate change, eco-terrorists launch a worldwide conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters while environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team set out to stop them. Page-turning suspense, cutting-edge technology, impeccable research combine to make this a thought-provoking, suspense-filled, factual tale as timely as the latest headlines. Readers will find it difficult to set this one aside.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    So I'm up for the next one in the Eclectic Reader Challenge - Thriller/Suspense with an author who's books I have read many time - but not this one...

    Michael Crichton is a great pick it up and read it any where kind of writer - to me anyway. I know he did a lot of research for many of his books and he seems to write like he knows what he is talking about. However, in this book he got too political and totally missed the mark - at least as far as the science goes.

    Plot

    Eco-Terrorists are to blame for global warming and the "fear" of climate change. Climate change, according to the world of State of Fear are a big business, a business of raising funds for climate change supporters who are basically ripping off Government and well meaning philanthropic mega rich.

    While for most of Crichton's books I can look aside from the "science for the stories sake" in this book it was too hard to not get the political agenda. Crichton clearly manipulated real scientific data to suit the needs of his story - which if you read the Wikipedia article - upset some leading scientists who's work was mentioned in the book.

    Leaving aside my personal views on climate change and natural preservation, the story is fast paced and has some thriller aspects when you don't know who to trust and what the "truth" really is. Crichton is a very easy read, in that the story takes you along you don't have to fight it, and he does create some good characters and situations.

    All and all I feel that this book was let down by the politics of the topic - if you replaced the core idea with something hell anything) else and I think the story would have benefited.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Oh my, did this book suck. Coming from the author of Jurassic Park...I really thought that it would be a good--if not terribly challenging--book. Instead, I have to read the same droll argument every three to four pages between two characters discussing the legitimacy of global warming (one character convincing the other it isn't true). Well, it only took that character 3/4 of the book to agree that global warming was a total conspiracy of the environmental organizations...and then it was time to have the same conversations with other hard to convince characters.

    Not entertaining in the least. In fact I wonder if he actually just got bored of writing, and decided to copy and paste, repeatedly.

    Throw in some trips on a private jet all over the world from Antarctica (where characters almost froze to death) to an island off New Guinea (where they were almost eaten alive) to tiny octopi who have the power to paralyze someone within hours...

    Don't waste your time, and certainly not your money on this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book got me started on Torrey House. I figured two could play this game.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I love this book. Michael Crichton has pleased me in every book he's written, of which I've read three others ("Jurassic Park", "The Lost World", and "Timeline"). He has a way of blending action with scientific education, and he's famous for it. He can explain complex scientific theories better than any science teacher I ever had.Characters are a bit of a problem for him though. Maybe because scientists in complex disciplines often turn out to be egotistical jerks. Although he does good at making the bad guys bad, he's not so hot at making the good guys good. I felt indifferent towards the main characters, and I had a hard time keeping track. Everyone kinda talks the same. And you can only tell who's who by the one doing the explaining, and the one asking questions. And he tries to make it more human by inserting a "which girl will he choose?" plotline, which just fell flat.But it's full of action between lectures, almost to a fault. In fact, as soon as the lecture's done, you know it's time for dodging a lightning storm or getting kidnapped by cannibals. Overall, the story was predictable, but that's not why I read it. I read it to get some scientific education about the human effect on the environment in an easily digestible form -- in a story. I tell you, after reading this book, I feel a whole lot better about the world surviving the human effect. Not so good about humans surviving the human effect.