Disappointing: poor action, shoddy science., 20 Dec 2008
This could have been a fairly routine page-turning action thriller, full of wildly implausible heroics and bizarre, evil bad-guys with even more unbelievable super-weapons. Unfortunately it is weighed down by a massive amount of sermonising; the author's own pseudo-science masquerading as serious scientific opinion, which it certainly is not. Please don't take Crichton's views on media-manipulation and manufactured catastrophe scare stories by environmentalists any more seriously than the Dr Evil style weather weapons. The ability of the hero to self-rescue from a crevasse having found the ice axe and crampons under the seat, escape from a 4wd going over the rapids, get struck by lightning, bitten by a poisonous octopus, and still be sipping martinis in the back of an executive jet within a few days should make it clear what level of reality we are working with here. Crichton's political science message is riven with internal inconsistency and the edges are just as ragged. The author persuaded himself that global warming was invented because we needed something to be scared of once the cold war was over, but his arguments fell apart even as he expressed them. Michael Moore was much more effective doing the same for the War on Terror in Faranheit 911, but he also unravelled as he got carried away with his own intellectual ramblings.

This novel became tiresome very quickly, and not because I disagree with the author on global warming, he's entitled to his opinion, but because of the way he beat me around the head with it for over one hundred pages, when I just wanted to find out if the lawyer and would-be girlfriend get to save the world from magma lasers, or whatever it was his super-enviro-fascists had put together.

One reviewer compared State of Fear with Moby Dick, an interesting observation, because the Herman Melville classic spends a similar proportion of its pages informing the reader about the whaling industry. The comparison might have been even stronger if Melville had spent another hundred pages attempting to persuade the reader that whales in fact did not exist, but were a fabrication of ship-builders in order to preserve their industry.





and..., 17 Dec 2008
I have been saying this for too long. Recycle, build fuel cells etc. But Global warming. Do me a favour, the world will carry on long after us monkeys (and all the others) have gone. We live somewhere that is forever (until the sun goes all red giant on us) evolving. Have fun, recycle, pester those in control, but please keep a smile on your face.

A typically challenging, substantial and yet rapid read, 23 Nov 2008
I've read all of Crichton's novels except for this. The man died a few days ago and that prompted me to pick this off my shelf after a few years in waiting. It is his most controversial novel, casting serious doubts over the validity of scientific claims about global warming and the many claims of environmental groups.

It is one of Crichton's better novels. He uses multiple plot lines that coalesce quickly to resolve themselves into a pacey and driven narrative. There is less of a science lesson up front than Crichton often feeds us - this is broken down into chunks throughout the novel so that the thriller element takes its grip early.

Crichton's characters are usually fairly two-dimensional and this is no exception. Intelligent, educated, white, middle class with little depth and no family or emotional background - they seem to be miniaturised versions of him, there to articulate a position or argument. He shares that trait with English master John Wyndham a man whose novels I feel often have characteristics in common with Crichton's. Having said that, one or two of the minor characters work well: the eco-actor Ted Bradley, for instance. His primary characters are Peter Evans, a rather ill-informed lawyer who is the reader's eyes and ears and asks the stooge questions we are thinking - and John Kenner, who is a know-it-all `Zellaby' character (cf, The Midwich Cuckoos).

The premise is intriguing - eco-terrorism and climate interference. I wondered when somebody would get around to this as a serious subject. Nobody is better suited than Crichton to tackle big complex issues and turn them into racing thrillers.

Crichton is unashamedly critical of the conventional wisdom, and stacks his knowledgeable characters on the side of the anti-environmentalists spouting references while the idiots and hypocrites and terrorists are all environmentalists who spout fluffy junk. It's effective, if unfair. And you have to judge this as a novel, I think, not as a treatise.

Lively settings, constantly evolving plot and information, tight writing, credible threats and well-managed material make this a very effective story. The lack of depth in the characters does not hold it back or truly matter, Crichton wants to challenge you, to stun you with the enormity of the conspiracy and to put his case through a compelling fiction. He does so expertly.

He has been gathered in before his personal harvest realised its vast potential.


interesting in parts but not brilliant, 09 Oct 2008
Crichton makes some interesting points on Global warming, regardless of whether you believe he has cherry picked his data to prove his point. As others have pointed out, the large quantities of data in the book dont mesh too well with the actual story. There is definitely the feeling that you have a normal thriller and a thesis on global warming and they kind of got mixed in the wash. Crichton tries to blend the two, but the result is not perfect.

Spoiler
My real quibble with the book is why are a large international bunch of well funded, armed and dangerous terrorists being taken on by a small group of mostly unarmed lawyers and later an actor? For the first threat, this sort of works, but as each situation gets bigger and more dangerous, the response looks smaller and more amateur in comparison. They are locating threats by satellite, observing from helicopters, then instead of calling in the Marines, SWAT teams, FBI or an air strike, they go in alone and mostly unarmed. This is just stupid.



an inconvenient alternative truth?, 14 Sep 2008
Michael Crichton's use of fear and uncertainty to attack the way governments and the media use fear and uncertainty to manipulate public opinion is deliciously ironic. If you have watched An Inconvenient Truth you might want to read this book. And if you read this book you might want to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Then we can all make up our own minds! Great read whatever your views on global warming. One of those books it is difficult to put down.... though not quite in the class of Prey - now that is one scary book!!

When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole" and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath", a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.

This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates' most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artefacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages and Crichton marvellously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his axe into the air." Try not to turn the page!

Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the high tech computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armour shining with blood. --Tim Appelo

Disappointing: poor action, shoddy science., 20 Dec 2008
This could have been a fairly routine page-turning action thriller, full of wildly implausible heroics and bizarre, evil bad-guys with even more unbelievable super-weapons. Unfortunately it is weighed down by a massive amount of sermonising; the author's own pseudo-science masquerading as serious scientific opinion, which it certainly is not. Please don't take Crichton's views on media-manipulation and manufactured catastrophe scare stories by environmentalists any more seriously than the Dr Evil style weather weapons. The ability of the hero to self-rescue from a crevasse having found the ice axe and crampons under the seat, escape from a 4wd going over the rapids, get struck by lightning, bitten by a poisonous octopus, and still be sipping martinis in the back of an executive jet within a few days should make it clear what level of reality we are working with here. Crichton's political science message is riven with internal inconsistency and the edges are just as ragged. The author persuaded himself that global warming was invented because we needed something to be scared of once the cold war was over, but his arguments fell apart even as he expressed them. Michael Moore was much more effective doing the same for the War on Terror in Faranheit 911, but he also unravelled as he got carried away with his own intellectual ramblings.

This novel became tiresome very quickly, and not because I disagree with the author on global warming, he's entitled to his opinion, but because of the way he beat me around the head with it for over one hundred pages, when I just wanted to find out if the lawyer and would-be girlfriend get to save the world from magma lasers, or whatever it was his super-enviro-fascists had put together.

One reviewer compared State of Fear with Moby Dick, an interesting observation, because the Herman Melville classic spends a similar proportion of its pages informing the reader about the whaling industry. The comparison might have been even stronger if Melville had spent another hundred pages attempting to persuade the reader that whales in fact did not exist, but were a fabrication of ship-builders in order to preserve their industry.





and..., 17 Dec 2008
I have been saying this for too long. Recycle, build fuel cells etc. But Global warming. Do me a favour, the world will carry on long after us monkeys (and all the others) have gone. We live somewhere that is forever (until the sun goes all red giant on us) evolving. Have fun, recycle, pester those in control, but please keep a smile on your face.

A typically challenging, substantial and yet rapid read, 23 Nov 2008
I've read all of Crichton's novels except for this. The man died a few days ago and that prompted me to pick this off my shelf after a few years in waiting. It is his most controversial novel, casting serious doubts over the validity of scientific claims about global warming and the many claims of environmental groups.

It is one of Crichton's better novels. He uses multiple plot lines that coalesce quickly to resolve themselves into a pacey and driven narrative. There is less of a science lesson up front than Crichton often feeds us - this is broken down into chunks throughout the novel so that the thriller element takes its grip early.

Crichton's characters are usually fairly two-dimensional and this is no exception. Intelligent, educated, white, middle class with little depth and no family or emotional background - they seem to be miniaturised versions of him, there to articulate a position or argument. He shares that trait with English master John Wyndham a man whose novels I feel often have characteristics in common with Crichton's. Having said that, one or two of the minor characters work well: the eco-actor Ted Bradley, for instance. His primary characters are Peter Evans, a rather ill-informed lawyer who is the reader's eyes and ears and asks the stooge questions we are thinking - and John Kenner, who is a know-it-all `Zellaby' character (cf, The Midwich Cuckoos).

The premise is intriguing - eco-terrorism and climate interference. I wondered when somebody would get around to this as a serious subject. Nobody is better suited than Crichton to tackle big complex issues and turn them into racing thrillers.

Crichton is unashamedly critical of the conventional wisdom, and stacks his knowledgeable characters on the side of the anti-environmentalists spouting references while the idiots and hypocrites and terrorists are all environmentalists who spout fluffy junk. It's effective, if unfair. And you have to judge this as a novel, I think, not as a treatise.

Lively settings, constantly evolving plot and information, tight writing, credible threats and well-managed material make this a very effective story. The lack of depth in the characters does not hold it back or truly matter, Crichton wants to challenge you, to stun you with the enormity of the conspiracy and to put his case through a compelling fiction. He does so expertly.

He has been gathered in before his personal harvest realised its vast potential.


interesting in parts but not brilliant, 09 Oct 2008
Crichton makes some interesting points on Global warming, regardless of whether you believe he has cherry picked his data to prove his point. As others have pointed out, the large quantities of data in the book dont mesh too well with the actual story. There is definitely the feeling that you have a normal thriller and a thesis on global warming and they kind of got mixed in the wash. Crichton tries to blend the two, but the result is not perfect.

Spoiler
My real quibble with the book is why are a large international bunch of well funded, armed and dangerous terrorists being taken on by a small group of mostly unarmed lawyers and later an actor? For the first threat, this sort of works, but as each situation gets bigger and more dangerous, the response looks smaller and more amateur in comparison. They are locating threats by satellite, observing from helicopters, then instead of calling in the Marines, SWAT teams, FBI or an air strike, they go in alone and mostly unarmed. This is just stupid.



an inconvenient alternative truth?, 14 Sep 2008
Michael Crichton's use of fear and uncertainty to attack the way governments and the media use fear and uncertainty to manipulate public opinion is deliciously ironic. If you have watched An Inconvenient Truth you might want to read this book. And if you read this book you might want to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Then we can all make up our own minds! Great read whatever your views on global warming. One of those books it is difficult to put down.... though not quite in the class of Prey - now that is one scary book!!

the future is the past, 01 Aug 2008
Read this and saw the movie. I would have to say some part of the story were not the same as to most of the movie-book titles. The team of Chris, Kate and Marek came to rescue the professor; going to the past a period 14 century when Englandd and France were at war.

Chris, Kate and Marek were the main characters fighting their way in between Kate moving from the battlement of France and England. They have to find a secret passage into the castle occupied then by England who kept the Professor prison. They have to return back togather with time not on their side while the in between this war.

One advice, read the book first then watch the movie. I do think the book is as great as some of MC's book but far more better then NEXT. The characters created in this book has weak roles and keep shifting in turns for play in their parts. I would rate this 3.5 Star.

Excellent, entertaining read, 07 Jul 2008
This is first Michael Crichton book I've read. I got it as a present, and took a while to get round to reading it.

I'm sorry I did, because it's an excellent read. Crichton does an excellent job of setting the scene, and really drawing you into the middle ages with the characters.

He also does a good job of trying to explain/justify the science throughout. I thought some of it was a bit ropey, but of course it's difficult to be very accurate about such a theoretical area of physics.

It's undoubtedly a great page turned, and an easy read. Thoroughly recommended.



Well....., 29 Apr 2008
Its a new approach for Crichton.
Medieval/Sci-fi was a combination ha actually pulled off.
Read on!

A tense, engaging read, 10 Apr 2008
I found this to be a highly entertaining read. In TIMELINE Michael Crichton takes us to the Middle Ages. The novel begins with the strange death of a man found wandering in the desert. Gradually we learn that he was the unintentional victim of a top-secret scientific experiment in time travel. A Bill Gates-like uber-nerd named Robert Doniger is responsible; his ITC corporation has been experimenting with methods of sending people through time via quantum mechanics.

Crichton does an excellent job of setting up the possibility of how time travel might come about. He explains it in terms of space/time, and also points out the potential dangers.

The story really kicks into high gear when three historians are sent back in time to rescue their professor. Our time travelers are a Belgian named Andre who is in love with all things Middle Ages; Kate, a woman who finds her athletic skills to be lifesaving when escaping from medieval castles; and a rather dorky scholar who happens to be in love with in love with Kate.

The trio are sent back to the year 1357 to a town called La Roque in search of their professor. There's a distinct danger of being stuck there, as well as many threats from locals who find their sudden appearance suspicious.

The people we meet in the past are a little wooden at times, but overall you come to care for some. The adventure, however, is top-notch, with jousting matches and technical glitches galore. As the characters race to rescue the professor and try not to get killed in the process, another plot twist is introduced: someone previously sent into the past is still there, and working against them. Who he is and why he is doing what he's doing eventually come to light and add a unique threat.

All in all a tense, engaging read.

fantastic, 11 Jan 2008
Whatever anyone tells you about this book, my recommendation-read it, you won't be dissapointed. Michael Crichton brings to life the middle ages with tales of combat and a colourful tapestry of chivalry among the peoples. Only one thing, read this before you see the film, as that is truly awful, especially Billy Connollys' acting!
Ron