Title: instructive; dogmatic; preachy; educational - not a novel
Review: State of Fear is neither fish nor fowl and Crichton's conflicted goals make for a poor novel and lousy characterization. I am listening to the audiobook, and the preachier parts are downright agonizing and drag the action down. The characters are more like caricatures; Peter Evans is the central mouthpiece, but who can identify with his passive voice? It's obvious he's simply a mechanism. The action scenes are good, but not good enough to overcome the reams of techical babble that rightly deserves to be addressed in a non-fiction setting. I agree with much of the premise of the book, but if you're looking for entertainment, or just good writing, this isn't it.
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