State of Fear
Posted by admin | Posted in Neurology | Posted on 16-08-2010
5
Product Description
The undisputed master of the techno-thriller has written his most riveting — and entertaining — book yet.
Once again Michael Crichton gives us his trademark combination of page-turning suspense, cutting-edge technology, and extraordinary research. State of Fear is a superb blend of edge-of-your-seat suspense and thought provoking commentary on how information is manipulated in the modern world. From the streets of Paris, to the glaciers of Antarctica to the exotic and dangerous Solomon Islands, State of Fear takes the reader on a rollercoaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear.Amazon.com Review
Amazon.com Exclusive Content
1942: John Michael Crichton is born in Chicago, Illinois on Oct. 23.
1960: Crichton graduates from Roslyn High School on Long Island, New York, with high marks and a reputation as a star basketball player. He decides to attend Harvard University to study English. During his studies, he rankles under his writing professors’ criticism. As an act of rebellion, Crichton submits an essay by George Orwell as his own. The professor doesn’t catch the plagiarism and gives Orwell a B-. This experience convinces Crichton to change his field of study to anthropology.
1964: Crichton graduates summa cum laude from Harvard University in anthropology. After studying further as a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University and receiving the Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellowship, which allowed him to travel in Europe and North Africa, Crichton begins coursework at the Harvard School of Medicine. To help fund his medical endeavors, he writes spy thrillers under several pen names. One of these works, A Case of Need, wins the 1968 Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award.
1969: Crichton graduates from Harvard Medical school and is accepted as a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, Calif. However, his career in medicine is waylaid by the publication of the first novel under his own name, The Andromeda Strain. The novel, about an apocalyptic plague, climbs high on bestseller lists and is later made into a popular film. Crichton said of his decision to pursue writing full time: “To quit medicine to become a writer struck most people like quitting the Supreme Court to become a bail bondsman.”
1972: Crichton’s second novel under his own name The Terminal Man, is published. Also, two of Crichton’s previous works under his pen names, Dealing and A Case of Need are made into movies. After watching the filming, Crichton decides to try his hand at directing. He will eventually direct seven films including the 1973 science-fiction hit Westworld, which was the first film ever to use computer-generated effects.
1980: Crichton draws on his anthropology background and fascination with new technology to create Congo, a best-selling novel about a search for industrial diamonds and a new race of gorillas. The novel, patterned after the adventure writings of H. Ryder Haggard, updates the genre with the inclusion of high-tech gadgets that, although may seem quaint 20 years later, serve to set Crichton’s work apart and he begins to cement his reputation as “the father of the techno-thriller.”
1990: After the 1980s, which saw the publication of the underwater adventure Sphere (1987) and an invitation to become a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988), Crichton begins the new decade with a bang via the publication of his most popular novel, Jurassic Park. The book is a powerful example of Crichton’s use of science and technology as the bedrock for his work. Heady discussion of genetic engineering, chaos theory, and paleontology run throughout the tightly-wound thriller that strands a crew of scientists on an island populated by cloned dinosaurs run amok. The novel inspires the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, and together book and film will re-ignite the world’s fascination with dinosaurs.
1995: Crichton resurrects an idea from his medical school days to create the Emmy-Award Winning television series ER. In this year, ER won eight Emmys and Crichton received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Set in an insanely busy an often dangerous Chicago emergency room, the fast-paced drama is defined by Crichton’s now trademark use of technical expertise and insider jargon. The year also saw the publication of The Lost World returning readers to the dinosaur-infested island.
2000: In recognition for Crichton’s contribution in popularizing paleontology, a dinosaur discovered in southern China is named after him. “Crichton’s ankylosaur” is a small, armored plant-eating dinosaur that dates to the early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago. “For a person like me, this is much better than an Academy Award,” Crichton said of the honor.
2004: Crichton’s newest thriller State of Fear is published.
Amazon.com’s Significant Seven
Michael Crichton kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Prisoners of Childhood by Alice Miller
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD–what are they?
A: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Witter Bynner version)
Symphony #2 in D Major by Johannes Brahms (Georg Solti)
Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa
Q: What is the worst lie you’ve ever told?
A: Surely you’re joking.
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: Small room. Shades down. No daylight. No disturbances. Macintosh with a big screen. Plenty of coffee. Quiet.
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I don’t want an epitaph. If forced, I would say “Why Are You Here? Go Live Your Life.”
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Benjamin Franklin
Q: If you could have one superpower what would it be?
A: Invisibility
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Out of all the millions of dollars this author has made writing books and the amount that he has given the poor or in general to help the present masses is nothing. There are so many causes that affect the poor here in the U.S. that who cares about globel warming and the effect our second or third generation even if they are right. This is a plight of the rich and educated shallow masses that believe not in my back yard. The author should be ashamed of himself thinking that he is making a difference. Mr. Crichton why don’t you write about health care or the struggle of getting a good education without money or thinks that affect the struggle of every day life. When will you wake up!!!!!!!!
Rating: 1 / 5
Michael Crichton is a superb author, I have read and enjoyed several of his books. I have always liked the way he includes hard science in his books, enough to come up with a plausible story. A trademark of a superior story-teller; his ideas might not be correct, but they are believable. In all his previous books, however, the science has always served as a background to his stories. Here he reverses – instead of writing he starts preaching against accpeted science. Why does he have to include notes and explanations? I would not have had a problem with this book if Mr Crichton had limited himself to a thought-experiment, but he seems to claim that he is not writing fiction. Had he stated that it is only fiction I would have given the book four stars.
I see that several reviewers see this book as proof of the death of global warming. I ask them: if the weatherreport predicted sun, but it is raining – would you leave your house without an umbrella? and claim it is an illusion that they get soaked? Denying global warming is really like fleeing from reality.
It is also a fact that people opposed to the idea of global warming has difficulties getting published in refereed journals. That is not because of bias – it is because of their flawed science. Instead they publish in magazines and talk at special interest forums. It is the back-door way to spread their ideas.
Rating: 2 / 5
This book sucked. I should buy it.
Leave vote that my review was helpful.
Signed,
Erica Phillips
(Look me a long time to write this review, the least you can do is vote that my review was helpful. Thanks and have a great day, with love from Decatur!)
Rating: 5 / 5
In State of Fear, Crichton selectively chooses his data in order to convince unwary, non-critical readers that many of the scientists studying climate change have reached the wrong conclusions and we’re subject to a “conspiracy” by most of today’s environmentalists. He claims he’s critically reviewed the data (over the past 3 years), but his agenda shows through, and contradicts his claim of critical review. Like the scientists he claims are overlooking contradictory data, he chooses to overlook much of the available data (and the explanations scientists have for the discrepancies he notes).
Crichton spends entirely too much time in this book attempting to present the “scientific evidence” and not enough time focusing on a plot. It’s a disappointing book with a whimpy ending. He’s lost his touch with this one.
I gave this book 2 stars because he does raise a good few good points about science, as detailed in his Author’s Notes at the end of the book. It’s true that science would be better off with improved funding sources (just look at medical research in universities funded by pharmaceutical giants), and we DO need more scientists running real field studies instead of staying glued to their computers.
But is the book very good? Noooo.
Rating: 2 / 5
Michael Chrichton’s State of Fear is a pedantic and misleading screed in a thriller’s clothing. When there is action, it is suspenseful and fun, but the author’s primary agenda of trashing environmentalists and global warming theory intrudes far too often. Gulfstream flights to one exotic place after another seem to be but setups for Crichton’s know-all character to demonstrate how unenlightened and self-serving and hypocritical environmentalists really are.
In addition to the laughable highly selective use of data to make its anti-environmental point, the book’s action rests on the reader’s willingness to believe that two agents of a US internal-external security agency so secret that no one has ever heard of it would allow a bunch of civilians to tag along with them on super-secret and dangerous missions within the US as well as to Antarctica the Solomons. For a good thriller, I might be willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt, but in this case, Crichton is so intent on giving his characters a chance to show how dumb or smart they are, that he scorns even the most cursory attempt to make this unlikely partnership credible.
The antagonists, moreover, are a bunch of nutty yet very techno-wise and ruthless eco-terrorists who plot to cause environmental disasters in order to use them as part of a massive PR campaign to build and attract money to a particular environmental organization. At their most terrible, eco-terrorists are not nearly as frightening as some of the adolescent males in my own neighborhood. They don’t make confincing evil-doers in a work of fiction, except, perhaps, for the most paranoid fringe of the neocon anti-environmental fringe.
I wish I could demand my money back on the basis of this book’s failure to perform as advertised. If you have read this book and want to check up on Crichton’s evidence, go to the Earth Institute at Columbia University’s website and read their review, or that by metiorologist Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters of WeatherUnderground. Much more informative than Crichton’s own highly selective references.
Rating: 2 / 5