Book Review: State of Fear

Crichton's latest finally boiled up to the top of my reading list, so I mowed through it in seven hours of plane rides to and from Puerto Rico. (Don't ask. I hate Puerto Rico.) As is my custom with book reviews, I'll get the important stuff out of the way. I'd absolutely recommend this book, and not just because it affirms what I've been saying (click here and here and here) about global warming and environmentalism. This book is good on two completely different levels - one is the pleasure reading level; the other is the "does this matter?" level. I'll deal with the first first.

Bottom line, Crichton knows how to push your buttons and keep you turning pages. I attended a writer's conference in San Francisco back in February, and the keynote speaker was a guy named John Lescroart. This guy has written several bestsellers. In fact, he said he submits a new book every year on May 1st, and he follows a very simple formula (simple in theory, of course). Lescroart was kind enough to divulge this formula, the six principles for writing a bestselling novel, as his keynote speech. I can't remember all of them, but the first three are ingrained in my head.

It all starts with a high-concept idea, which is to say, an idea that is almost universal in its appeal. A terrorist threat in this post 9-11 world is a high concept idea. So is a group of environmental activists bent on building a worldwide sense of urgency around addressing the global warming "crisis." That's the central theme of State of Fear, and its appeal is enhanced considerably by the fact that the "good guys" aren't the plotting environmentalists.

Cynical (and admittedly wise) book industry folks will tell you that you have to hook the reader on the first page if you expect them to buy the book. On this, Crichton does not disappoint. He essentially sets up the whole story in about three paragraphs - an island in the south Pacific is suffering because of rising oceans due to global warming, along with an American environmental group, they decide to sue the US, but the lawsuit never happens. The book is the story of what transpired. That's a solid hook if you ask me, especially considering how many people believe in the global warming crisis and who blame the US as the primary culprit.

As an aside, it is not insignificant that Crichton hooks the reader without letting on that he thinks global warming is a scam. Had he tipped us off to this on the first page, my bet is that his book would not be selling as well as it is (or is it? see below). It's sad that it takes a bait and switch to get contrarian views into the mainstream psyche. Nevertheless, State of Fear is high concept, and then some, but a good concept will only get you so far.

Lescroart's second step in his formula is character development. Once he's established a high-concept theme, he begins to think about who will be involved and what they'll be like. There are some key guidelines here. The most important is that readers want main characters who are larger than life. We're not talking super heroes, but we're not talking about immigrant gas station attendants either. Remember that this is about what it takes to write a best seller. If we're reading the great American novel, we want reality. If we're reading Clancy, we want a sexy, take-no-shit, been through the ringer and back, know-it-all, silent type with an axe to grind. Those are the kinds of characters Lescroart tries to create, and Crichton is no different, but he takes a little bit of a twist on it, and I think this is part of why his book scores well in the "does it matter?" category. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The main character, or at least one of them, is a lawyer who works for a rich environmentalist. Far from being a super hero, the guy is actually sort of a boob. Sure, he meets all of the basic standards of a character in a bestselling novel - he has a good job and he's good-looking - but he's significantly outdone by many of the other characters in the book. One such character is a Clancy-esque character, a scientist turned black ops military guy working against wacked out environmentalist extremists. He is the primary vehicle for Crichton's assertions about global warming and environmentalism in general. Other characters, the girls in particular, are either two-dimensional cartoon characters (not meant disparagingly - not every character needs to be drawn in color) or they are smart, athletic, tough girls who can handle themselves in hairy situations. Perfect. The stage is set. Now something has to happen to them.

The third part of Lescroart's formula is plot. You have to get things moving and keep them moving. On this, Crichton also delivers. The main characters find themselves in crazy situations, often in danger of dying, and you're right there with them - thinking about what you'd do or what the options are. That, to me, is how you know you've been sucked into a novel. Given his pedigree - books like Jurassic Park, Disclosure, and Rising Sun - it's pretty much what you'd expect. But State of Fear goes beyond the standard techno-thriller fare.

Since Lescroart was dealing strictly with writing a bestselling novel, he did not bother to mention anything about writing something that would matter in the long run. His point was, quite clearly, to educate us on how to extract as much money as possible from the fiction industry...today. Were Crichton giving the same speech, I wonder if he'd take an aside on using the bestselling novel as a springboard to do something bigger, for that may very well be what he's done here.

As I read the appendices that conclude the book, I found myself thinking about Ayn Rand. The book Atlas Shrugged was a mind-changing book for me. By the time I finally took the plunge, I was already well-steeped in classical liberalism with respect to economics - via Friedman and Hayek - but I had never done what Rand forced me to do. I had never considered what would happen if those who oppose capitalism and individuality (either overtly or unknowingly) actually got what they wanted, what would happen if the doers stopped doing and let the talkers run the show. Thinly disguised in a story about the daughter of a railroad magnate is a 1000 page polemic about the perils of socialism and collectivism, and it is so powerful that it sticks with you...for years and years. State of Fear could end up being similar in this regard.

There's a message in this book that extends far beyond the revelation of the holes in the human induced global warming argument. As Kenner, the black ops anti-extremist of the novel, repeatedly batters with facts the ill-informed purveyors of environmentalist talking points, he also drives home the point that the environment is a highly complex and dynamic system. He questions the notion that preserving the environment is either doable or even worthy of doing. The better approach, he argues, is to determine what we want out of our environment and then to assess the options in terms of cost and benefit tradeoffs. Then, and only then, should we undertake to do something. It's all about cost-oriented management. Unfortunately, this is quite a departure from the way things are done today.

Environmentalists, for the most part, base their views on the idea that our society is destroying the environment. We must, they say, at the very least, stop this process, and hopefully reverse it. But reverse it to what? To the natural state of the environment? What exactly is that? As Crichton points out - if we don't mow and manage our lawns, the natural state of our yard will be an overgrown mess. Since the environment is nothing more than a competition between life forms for space and resources, we can't naively expect that not impacting it will result in something we'd want to live in. Preservation is, therefore, a useless concept. A better one is management. This message, to me, is so unbelievably powerful.

You can take issue all you want with Crichton's position on the global warming debate. (Check out his website, particularly the message boards for some ongoing arguments. Also, here are a couple of pieces that take issue with his assertions - Click here, and here, and here.) But it's hard to deny his perspective on the environmentalist movement. Even if, as is stated in a couple of the linked articles, Crichton's exhaustive footnotes are ill-used, his larger point still stands - we'll all be better off if we look at the environment in a different way.

It is entirely possible to be passionate about taking care of our world while also rejecting the current state of environmental affairs. We first have to move away from reflexively accepting the crisis du jour that is regularly fed to us by the media. (The title State of Fear comes from the idea that political, legal, and media powers that be are occupied primarily with fomenting fear in the masses, fear of whatever will drive them to buy, think, or do what they want.) We also have to be realistic about the results of having our academic research paid for by parties interested in a certain set of results. This, argues Crichton, is why so many "peer reviewed" papers support the global warming hype. On this, of course, many will disagree. But even if they do, there's simply no disputing the fact that scaring people into supporting policies that usually do more harm than good is no way to get what we want. This is a message that matters.

As I said, State of Fear could become one of those books that transcends the standard techno-thriller categorization. It could become a book that changes the minds of the masses, as Atlas Shrugged did. It could become the kind of book that ushers in a new way of thinking about a set of issues that are badly in need of reasoned discourse. Alas, I have concerns that this will never happen. Putting aside the fact that our society often seems unable to absorb information that can't fit on a 3x5 card, I don't see State of Fear being promoted as prominently as, say, John Grisham's latest. Indeed, I've noticed an odd pattern in my travels recently.

As I am in and out of different airports several times a week, I have the opportunity to visit bookstores all over the country. State of Fear is not easy to find, at least it hasn't been for me. Copies abound from all the big name authors, but Crichton's book has consistently either been "sold out" or on the shelf with the older books - one or maybe two copies, at most. Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but this strikes me as strange. Michael Crichton is one of the biggest authors in this country, right up there with Grisham, King, and Clancy. Of course, it could be that he is so popular that his book is flying off the shelves. Fair enough, but how is it that I always happen into bookstores before the new shipment has come in? A coincidence? Maybe. Time will tell, I guess.