Michael Chricton's _State of Fear_ -- Lookout! Nick Drake the Environmentalist is coming to get you!

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Anybody read Chricton's latest? Apparently this his book about how environmentalists are trying to lie to people and freak everybody out about global warming.

the REAL fun part is that the book's antagonist, a ralph nader-like enviro, is named NICK DRAKE.

He's also on NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday this hour today, which should be even MORE fun.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:08 (twenty years ago)

PINK MOON GUNNA KILL US ALL.

oh yeah and it's "Crichton". my bad.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

uh oh, host Ira Flatow's getting testy. look out, y'all.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)

my dad got this for me for chistmas....................................................................................................................

― John (jdahlem), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

How is it?

― kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

This book could not possibly be short enough.

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

There was a Larry Niven/Steven Barnes book a few years ago with the premise that all the waste heat generated by human industrial activity was the only thing holding back the next ice age. "The Greens" finally come to power and within a few years there are glaciers in Minneapolis.

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Friday, 7 January 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Waste heat is a big thing for Larry Niven. it also comes up in his Ringworld books, with one of the species essentially leaving their sun behind since they no longer need it as a heat or energy source.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

aaaaaaand the review is in!

http://www.theonionavclub.com/words/index.php?issue=4103&r=1

Crichton is admittedly dumbing down a complicated argument for a beach-blanket audience that likely wouldn't touch a non-fiction study of the issues. But even previously uncommitted readers should look askance at the simplistic conflict between the dashing, competent, well-informed heroes who don't buy into global warming, and the smug, shallow, incoherent imbeciles who do. And Crichton's energy is noticeably focused on that debate rather than the adventure that frames it, given State Of Fear's flat, minimal, lowest-common-denominator prose, weak story logic, and randomly misplaced subplots....

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

i got this for christmas.

:-(

― John (jdahlem), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 01:48 (twenty years ago)

i already said that apparently. ahem.

― John (jdahlem), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 01:49 (twenty years ago)

"dumbing down a complicated argument"

And that's a new strategy in the debate over the environment.

― don weiner, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 01:49 (twenty years ago)

anyway i still haven't gotten over it

xpost

― John (jdahlem), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 01:50 (twenty years ago)

"The Greens" finally come to power and within a few years there are glaciers in Minneapolis.

Oh like that'd be a huge fucking change

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 02:02 (twenty years ago)

eight months pass...

So, guess who's on the witness list to testify in front of Senator Inhofe's(R-OK) Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on "the role of science in environmental policy making"?

― kingfish superman ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

Aw, I was expecting Nick Drake's reanimated skeleton. :(

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 28 September 2005 18:31 (twenty years ago)

Ugh. I had a discussion with a friend the other day about Michael Crichton books. We both agreed that they seemed kind of cool in 6th grade, but by the time we were done with middle school they seemed badly written and... well, just bad. Middle school.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 18:51 (twenty years ago)

Crichton's writing skill dropped DRASTICALLY after Jurassic Park. Most everything before then is decent to awesome.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

Science should play no role in evironmental policy making. Hopefully some dude's college roommate will be in charge of this evironment thing.

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 19:01 (twenty years ago)

I don't think his writing skill changed, I think his premises just got worse. Not that they were ever deep, you could pitch any Crichton book concept in one sentence with obvious conclusions.

Sphere: Weird object comes back to earth from a space mission and fucks with a group of scientists deep underwater.

The Andromeda Strain: Weird virus from... ah, fuck.. anyway, there are a bunch of scientists working on it deep... underground.

The Terminal Man: Man with mental disorder becomes epileptic killer after surgery "cures" him.

Congo: Really big gorillas kill people.

Rising Sun: A homicide investigator learns about how the 1980s Japanese business world provides girls and parties to affluent Americans to gain favors.

His "business world" books like Disclosure and Airframe... ugh. Seriously, these books are mostly wooden characters with either poorly-researched science or business plots grafted on. Doesn't he have some autobiographic book where he brags about spoon bending and naked massages?

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 19:37 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't he have some autobiographic book where he brags about spoon bending and naked massages?

that would be "Travels". Some of them are about him tromping about, with an extended bit about him going to some new age compound in the desert and communing with a cactus. He becomes very emotional when he realizes that this particular cactus can never see the sun rise due to the compound walls.

Really.

the book's worth a read, too. I got it from the public library used book sale for fiddy cents.

― kingfish superman ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.