I finished reading "State of Fear" this past weekend (Sunday to be exact), and I have to say Crichton wasn't at his best when he penned this story. I very much enjoyed the suspenseful scenes on the iceberg and in the park, but the times when he dedicated his time to preaching about how global warming isn't really happening got on my nerves. He used this book to get publicity for a pet cause and I would have preferred to see this information presented in a work of non-fiction where it wasn't fighting character and plot development for space.

It's not that I think his point is right or wrong, it's that it bogged the story down to a level I almost couldn't stand. The action would be going top speed, and just when you're adrenaline is pumping you're hit with a 4 page speech/argument/sermon that kills your will to read. At one point after a particularly nasty chapter-long speech I actually put the book down because I couldn't take anymore that day.

The characters were mostly fun to travel with, though the main character (Evans) could get a little whiney at times. The women seem at times like Crichton pulled some notes out of the generic "not gonna take shit from you" hat of characters.

The action was suspenseful, but the mystery lacked a bit of...well...mystery. I never once assumed that Morton actually died, and I never felt true fear for the characters whose lives were threatened by various environments and people. I knew Sarah would survive the lightening strike just as I knew she and Evans would escape the SUV as it tumbled down the flood-swollen river.

Usually Crichton is superb at suspending my disbelief and really getting me emotionally into the life-or-death situations he puts his characters in. Just not this time.

- Katie Wilks
March 9th, 2005