State of Fear

By Eilene Lyon

Note: This is NOT about U.S. politics.

This is also not a book review, though inspired by my recent reading of State of Fear by Michael Crichton. I’m not sure how this wound up on my bookshelf; possibly The Putterer picked it up at an airport years ago. While working through my bulging shelves filled with unread works, the title and subject encouraged me to tackle this 700-page tome. It was published in 2004, four years before Crichton’s death at 66 in 2008.

It’s actually a brisk read, though not a particularly well-written story. The characters are paper-thin, particularly the women and the protagonist, Peter Evans. Evans is an attorney, but he’s painted as rather clueless much of the time.

I suspect that Crichton wrote himself into the book as the man-of-action, know-it-all, Dr. Richard John Kenner. Kenner, in particular, is rather preachy, sharing graphs here and there—Crichton’s attempt to sway the reader in a ham-handed manner. If you like thrillers, though, you’ll find enough action to keep you reading, despite the tedious lectures.

I do recommend clicking the link above to Crichton’s Wikipedia article. He was a fascinating man (but not, apparently, someone to be married to). He was a best-selling author of thrillers, most famous probably being Jurassic Park. He had a medical degree, but his love from an early age was writing. There’s no doubt that he was highly intelligent, driven, and talented in his chosen field.

Which is why I found this book rather disturbing.

State of Fear is a novel, but unlike most works of fiction, Crichton peppered it with (cherry-picked) footnotes to real scientific reports. (Some authors of cited works say he distorted them.) In addition, he added an extensive bibliography, author’s message, and two appendices. At the end of his author’s message he states, “Everybody has an agenda. Except me.” Ha ha.

Crichton made no secret of his agenda in this book. He was a climate change denier. Specifically, he denied that humans were causing climate change, and that any global warming was simply the normal course of the planet’s long history of warmer and cooler periods. I do wonder: if he were still living, would the changes of the past sixteen years have altered his opinion?

I am no climate scientist, nor will I claim to have read all the literature addressing climate change. My tendency is to take the long view—the world is not ending, and mass extinction will lead to a resurgence of life in some far-distant future.

But that does not mean I’m blind to the compiled evidence of biodiversity loss, water issues, pollution, growing storm intensity, strange new weather patterns. These have real impacts on all life on the planet, and we should be concerned.

In addition to Crichton’s attempt to dismantle the idea of anthropogenic climate change, he theorized that there is a vast conspiracy to make everyone believe in it—a global collusion between governments, scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and, especially, non-profits dedicated to the environment. I will clarify that Crichton was not anti-conservation.

The issue for me is that this is a work of fiction, but rather than focus on character and plot, Crichton sermonized. He added all this research material to bolster his theory, rather than letting the story play out and leaving the analysis to his audience.

In a recent “Electric Speed” newsletter from publishing guru Jane Friedman, she takes similar issue with the director of the recent film, “The Brutalist”:

“The first half of The Brutalist is indeed remarkable. But after the intermission…the storytelling takes a left turn. Corbet wants you to walk away with a specific message, even moral lesson. He has a point to prove and the movie ends by stating that point directly to the audience.

Interestingly, recent critiques of contemporary fiction have been similar: rather than allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions, the meaning or message is spelled out by the author. Here’s how I want you to interpret the characters and events.”

What is your take on the idea of blatant moralizing, being told what to think, in a work of fiction?

Feature image: The Rapidian dam failure in Minnesota in June 2024. (Wikimedia Commons)