Harper State of Fear

Good read, and questions the climate change "industry"

Ok

I came to this book via a chance reference after missing it first time around. The basic plot is the standard "Seven days to defeat the terrorists etc" but Crichton's superb twist was that the terrorists were eco-fanatics seeking to create a disaster to persuade the world by terror to their point of view. I can well understand the rejection by some reviewers since Crichton chose to shred their ideological point of view by simply quoting real science at them! The plot itself follows the Crichton method of "one damned thing after another" as our heroes face cliff hanger after cliff hanger. Tremendous stuff and fierce pace - but there is little characterization and the narrative does suffer from the fierce didacticism which was Crichton's intention. I found it tremendous fun and fiercely relevant today since Crichton wrote (in 2004) the eco movement has morphed into climate crisis and is even further removed from its real scientific base. Political ideologies tend to be like this, more's the pity. Crichton was NOT anti science - he used real world real time complex scientific data to debunk armaggedon theories and argue for complex difficult pragmatic solutions to realworld problems. Alas! he lost, and the politicians, media pundits and HR diversity, inclusion, white guilt and deindustrilization enthusiasts won. He also has a bash at explaining this as well! Wonderful stuff and a great polemic. RIP Michael - you are very much missed.

When Crichton wrote this I suspect he thought he would be proved right with time, that climate change would be a leftist theory. He wasn't. Its scientific consensus now. The plot is that the heroes fight a fake charity which is trying to manufacture evidence of climate change so that it can get funding. Its painfully stupid stuff, and badly written too. I was shocked that it was possible to get a publisher to print and distribute this rubbish.Dont waste your money on this.

En 2004, l'auteur avait décidé d'inclure son propre point de vue sur le changement climatique à la fin de son livre : il considérait que le monde se réchauffe, mais que les causes, les conséquences, les avantages et les inconvénients de ce changement sont inconnus et donc que rien ne démontre que ce changement ne peut être globalement bénéfique. Il y combattait également avec passion la politisation de la science et militait pour la conservation de la nature et pour la continuation des efforts de recherche relatifs à tous les aspects de l'environnement.