Book Review
"I can't read! I'm not a loser!!!"
-Master Shake
I just finished up Michael Crichton's latest novel, State Of Fear.
Ah, it was a most enjoyable experience for anyone who balks at environmental sciences, giggles at the idiocy that spews from people like Robert Kennedy Jr (who rails against SUVs, then hops in his private jet, and who preaches the wonders of Wind Power, then he and his family oppose the construction of a Wind Farm that would be viewable from his family's estate), and rolls their eyes at the dorks sputtering along on the freeway doing 30 MPH in some stupid lookin hybrid Toyota.
Mr. Crichton weaves a fabulous tale of betrayal, terrorism and action out of an endless thread of documented statistics, scientific journals, articles and speeches. So many references and data are involved that even ax0 couldn't complain! hehe!
The story revolves around a very rich man, George Morton, who is a major donor to an environmental group called "NERF" (no, nothing to do with spongy footballs), who is funding a lawsuit against the EPA by some pacific island country who's highest ground is 20 feet above sea level, and claims that global warming is causing the sea levels to rise and that their country will sink. No really, they're serious, stop laughing at me. The main character is one of the rich man's lawyers, a junior associate at Hassle & Black *snicker* law firm in Los Angeles. hehe. Hassle. Well, he begins to learn that the little island country doesn't have a case cuz hey, the sea levels aren't rising at all! oops! Lots of bad bad stuff. GO read it i'm not gonna sum it all up here. that would be boring. ANYWAYS, we are introduced to Jon Kenner, an agent from the National Security Intelligence Administration who serves as Crichton's skeptical concience in the novel, out-debating every eco-minded character in the book who dares bring up the subject in his presence. Most of his arguements are put forth on long plane rides to exotic places that they must travel to in order to thwart the evil deeds of the Eco-Terrorists that NERF is funding (unbeknownst to Mr. Morton).
A few criticisms: Why would this government agent bring a pansy ass 27 year old lawyer from Beverly Hills, and Morton's twenty-something sexy personal assistant girl to these remote, dangerous locations to fight heavily armed Eco-Terrorists who usually outnumber them 5 to 1? And the situations that these two survive in action are just ridiculous. But it still makes for an exciting read. Obviously Crichton doesn't realize that in Los Angeles, they tend to breed out of you your sense of real self-preservation, survival skills and your general ability to get your hands dirty.
Also, there is the character Nicholas Drake, the head of NERF. Crichton misses the big point of the radical environmental movement, since he failed to provide Drake with a satisfactory motive for his funding of these Eco-Terrorists. Crichton makes it seem as though he wants to fund a handful of man-made extreme weather events simply to create more publicity for his group's Rapid Climate Change summit. But why?! He misses why exactly it is that enviro-fascists want the public to sign on to their agenda. I'm sorry, its not their truly heartfelt fear that we are destroying the planet, no, that fear is merely a means to their end, you and I are supposed to be afraid of destroying the earth so that we support him without question. Anyone who knows how to "follow the money" understands that the high high leadership of these movements are simply communists who are anti-developement, anti-capitalism, anti-corporation, anti-military, and anti-trade. I wish this was in the book, because these enviro-wackos only attack American corporations, American industry and the American military. Crichton points to the fact that after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, that news coverage changed dramatically in this country, and that since the Fear of war with the USSR was gone, it had to be replaced with a new fear in order to keep our population in line. But he missed the point. Radical Environmentalist fear mongering didn't replace our Cold War fear, it was a continuation of it. A new tactic by the commies whose empire had just fallen. Now that America couldn't surrender to the USSR, they had to jump the next train, which is to try and get America to surrender to Kyoto.
But hey, Crichton's book takes us halfway there, at least.
Leave your hate speech at the beep =D
-Master Shake
I just finished up Michael Crichton's latest novel, State Of Fear.
Ah, it was a most enjoyable experience for anyone who balks at environmental sciences, giggles at the idiocy that spews from people like Robert Kennedy Jr (who rails against SUVs, then hops in his private jet, and who preaches the wonders of Wind Power, then he and his family oppose the construction of a Wind Farm that would be viewable from his family's estate), and rolls their eyes at the dorks sputtering along on the freeway doing 30 MPH in some stupid lookin hybrid Toyota.
Mr. Crichton weaves a fabulous tale of betrayal, terrorism and action out of an endless thread of documented statistics, scientific journals, articles and speeches. So many references and data are involved that even ax0 couldn't complain! hehe!
The story revolves around a very rich man, George Morton, who is a major donor to an environmental group called "NERF" (no, nothing to do with spongy footballs), who is funding a lawsuit against the EPA by some pacific island country who's highest ground is 20 feet above sea level, and claims that global warming is causing the sea levels to rise and that their country will sink. No really, they're serious, stop laughing at me. The main character is one of the rich man's lawyers, a junior associate at Hassle & Black *snicker* law firm in Los Angeles. hehe. Hassle. Well, he begins to learn that the little island country doesn't have a case cuz hey, the sea levels aren't rising at all! oops! Lots of bad bad stuff. GO read it i'm not gonna sum it all up here. that would be boring. ANYWAYS, we are introduced to Jon Kenner, an agent from the National Security Intelligence Administration who serves as Crichton's skeptical concience in the novel, out-debating every eco-minded character in the book who dares bring up the subject in his presence. Most of his arguements are put forth on long plane rides to exotic places that they must travel to in order to thwart the evil deeds of the Eco-Terrorists that NERF is funding (unbeknownst to Mr. Morton).
A few criticisms: Why would this government agent bring a pansy ass 27 year old lawyer from Beverly Hills, and Morton's twenty-something sexy personal assistant girl to these remote, dangerous locations to fight heavily armed Eco-Terrorists who usually outnumber them 5 to 1? And the situations that these two survive in action are just ridiculous. But it still makes for an exciting read. Obviously Crichton doesn't realize that in Los Angeles, they tend to breed out of you your sense of real self-preservation, survival skills and your general ability to get your hands dirty.
Also, there is the character Nicholas Drake, the head of NERF. Crichton misses the big point of the radical environmental movement, since he failed to provide Drake with a satisfactory motive for his funding of these Eco-Terrorists. Crichton makes it seem as though he wants to fund a handful of man-made extreme weather events simply to create more publicity for his group's Rapid Climate Change summit. But why?! He misses why exactly it is that enviro-fascists want the public to sign on to their agenda. I'm sorry, its not their truly heartfelt fear that we are destroying the planet, no, that fear is merely a means to their end, you and I are supposed to be afraid of destroying the earth so that we support him without question. Anyone who knows how to "follow the money" understands that the high high leadership of these movements are simply communists who are anti-developement, anti-capitalism, anti-corporation, anti-military, and anti-trade. I wish this was in the book, because these enviro-wackos only attack American corporations, American industry and the American military. Crichton points to the fact that after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, that news coverage changed dramatically in this country, and that since the Fear of war with the USSR was gone, it had to be replaced with a new fear in order to keep our population in line. But he missed the point. Radical Environmentalist fear mongering didn't replace our Cold War fear, it was a continuation of it. A new tactic by the commies whose empire had just fallen. Now that America couldn't surrender to the USSR, they had to jump the next train, which is to try and get America to surrender to Kyoto.
But hey, Crichton's book takes us halfway there, at least.
Leave your hate speech at the beep =D