Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
This book is a complete failure because it did the one thing nothing else could do: get me to accept global warming. As a former climate skeptic, I was very eager to read it to strengthen my beliefs, but I was so disappointed by it that I began to doubt the skeptic movement as a whole, eventually becoming a climate change supporter. The whole book feels like its characters and plot were made just to make a statement about climate change, and with lots of preachiness and gratuitous sexuality thrown in, you get a book that feels like it is desperately compensating for something.
Unlike many of Crichtons other books, this one does not age well at all, no need to read.
Did the oil and gas industry sponsor this book? Complete climate change denial propaganda. Arguments against climate change happening are complete trash and make no scientific or philosophical sense.
The most controversial book of Michael Crichton, which, viciously, attacks the very familiar concept of manmade global climate change or global warming. While some of the book characters can be hamfisted and the delivery is heavy-handed, I as a person who knows quite a lot about the phenomena of the global warming and who think that it's one of the most terrible recent events, agree with the message that everything should be scrutinized in a most unbiased way possible.
A lot of the public information effort was needlessly catastrophising and unrealistic, while the real consequences of the decrease of agricultural yields and the spread of infectious diseases have been missed. Another missing theme is the human development, something Crichton had done quite well - nobody in the countries where people live under a dollar per day, wants to live in those conditions,
When this book was written, the concept was not yet completely set and the science was yet quite obscure to the mainstream. Today we know that global warming is about the rate of change, not the absolute degrees, that it's about habitability of the regions of earth for humans, not for all animal species - something that should have been a cornerstone of the informational effort since the beginning, that the global warming already is localized - and is going to be moreso - so there will be winners and losers of it, which is why not all the polluters have an interest in stopping the pollution, in fact many have a vested interest in increasing for geopolitical reasons it and have pulled all the stops in the effort to decrease involvement of the citizenry abroad.
Anyway - the primary message is that the world today is arguably safest and happiest that it had ever been, however, I would disagree with the author in his nonexpert view of the energy field where it is proven that the base generation capacity can be 100% renewable, but where large public and private interests are at work - notably because nobody is willing to retrain all the millions people who would be out of their jobs when the fossil fuel industry closes, and the automation is not going to make it possible to reemploy them.
A good cautionary tale. Make sure to get the electronic version featuring full author's comments and additional material such as the article sources and four of his speeches regarding the place of science and media in the modern society.
A lot of the public information effort was needlessly catastrophising and unrealistic, while the real consequences of the decrease of agricultural yields and the spread of infectious diseases have been missed. Another missing theme is the human development, something Crichton had done quite well - nobody in the countries where people live under a dollar per day, wants to live in those conditions,
When this book was written, the concept was not yet completely set and the science was yet quite obscure to the mainstream. Today we know that global warming is about the rate of change, not the absolute degrees, that it's about habitability of the regions of earth for humans, not for all animal species - something that should have been a cornerstone of the informational effort since the beginning, that the global warming already is localized - and is going to be moreso - so there will be winners and losers of it, which is why not all the polluters have an interest in stopping the pollution, in fact many have a vested interest in increasing for geopolitical reasons it and have pulled all the stops in the effort to decrease involvement of the citizenry abroad.
Anyway - the primary message is that the world today is arguably safest and happiest that it had ever been, however, I would disagree with the author in his nonexpert view of the energy field where it is proven that the base generation capacity can be 100% renewable, but where large public and private interests are at work - notably because nobody is willing to retrain all the millions people who would be out of their jobs when the fossil fuel industry closes, and the automation is not going to make it possible to reemploy them.
A good cautionary tale. Make sure to get the electronic version featuring full author's comments and additional material such as the article sources and four of his speeches regarding the place of science and media in the modern society.
Great book, the best of Michael Crichton I've read so far and one of the best books I've read recently! Dressed up as a thriller in the typical Crichton style, this is actually a book praising the critical thinking. It emphasizes how important it is to check your sources, to question the authorities and the outdated theories, and above all - not to trust blindly everything said or written in the media. We live in the era of science and technology and we cannot afford to stay ignorant on their development and progress, as this is the progress of the entire humanity and sooner or later we'll have to face new problems and we better be prepared for them! I strongly recommend!!!
If you’re gonna write like the fountainhead of climate change it should at least be less tedious
Fifty percent of this book is [a:Crichton|5194|Michael Crichton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1359042651p2/5194.jpg] lecturing about why he thinks climate change is a hoax. The other fifty percent is an over-the-top story where environmentalist super-villains try to cause various 'natural' disasters to convince the world that climate change is real, while the good-guy climate skeptics try to save the planet (irony?). Crichton does raise a couple of interesting points (albeit in the supplementary material), e.g. the politicisation of science, but this is still his worst book by a wide margin.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists thought this book was the best thing since sliced shale, so they gave Crichton their coveted 'Journalism Award' in 2006, despite the book being neither journalism nor even non-fiction. I didn't like it quite as much: I give it 2/5 for the story itself, so 1/5 for the book as a whole.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists thought this book was the best thing since sliced shale, so they gave Crichton their coveted 'Journalism Award' in 2006, despite the book being neither journalism nor even non-fiction. I didn't like it quite as much: I give it 2/5 for the story itself, so 1/5 for the book as a whole.
I have always been a massive fan of Michael Crichton ever since I watched Jurassic Park as a kid. I adore the medical drama series ER, and consume his books in a matter of days.
So, looking for something in the 'action-adventure' vein I picked up State of Fear.
It took an age to actually get going. There were bits of action here and there but most of it was related to global warming, and whether or not this is a real problem in our modern age or we're blowing it out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, part of me loves that Crichton goes into such depth, and doesn't 'dumb it down' for his audience, but when he was referencing genuine scientific journals I got a bit... fed up. I didn't pick this up to be lectured, I picked this up because I wanted a thrill ride.
The actual 'action-adventure' stuff is great. Characters get stuck in the snow, there are lighting storms and all kinds of dangerous weather to contend with. The author really knows how to build tension and keep it going.
The characters are also well thought out and developed. I really liked Evans, a lawyer, who seemed like he'd got all caught up in this accidentally.
So overall, an interesting, pulse pounding piece, but would have been much improved, by more action and less debate.
So, looking for something in the 'action-adventure' vein I picked up State of Fear.
It took an age to actually get going. There were bits of action here and there but most of it was related to global warming, and whether or not this is a real problem in our modern age or we're blowing it out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, part of me loves that Crichton goes into such depth, and doesn't 'dumb it down' for his audience, but when he was referencing genuine scientific journals I got a bit... fed up. I didn't pick this up to be lectured, I picked this up because I wanted a thrill ride.
The actual 'action-adventure' stuff is great. Characters get stuck in the snow, there are lighting storms and all kinds of dangerous weather to contend with. The author really knows how to build tension and keep it going.
The characters are also well thought out and developed. I really liked Evans, a lawyer, who seemed like he'd got all caught up in this accidentally.
So overall, an interesting, pulse pounding piece, but would have been much improved, by more action and less debate.