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State of Fear

Audiobook
1 of 3 copies available
1 of 3 copies available

#1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton delivers an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride mixing cutting edge science and action-packed adventure in State of Fear.

In Paris, a physicist dies after performing a laboratory experiment for a beautiful visitor.

In the jungles of Malaysia, a mysterious buyer purchases deadly cavitation technology, built to his specifications.

In Vancouver, a small research submarine is leased for use in the waters off New Guinea.

And in Tokyo, an intelligence agent tries to understand what it all means.

A deftly-crafted novel, in true Crichton style, State of Fear is an exciting, stunning tale that not only entertains and educates, but will make you think.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Michael Crichton and John Bedford Lloyd make a great audio team. Crichton pits mainstream environmentalists against tree-hugging terrorists set on using high-tech machines and explosives to create "natural" disasters that will make the world take notice and fear global warming. When the heroes find themselves trapped in a glacier, Lloyd makes listeners feel their frigid straining to escape. When they're surrounded by lightning, listeners feel their hair-raising terror. When they face a tsunami, listeners see the wall of water approach. When they're tied to stakes by island cannibals, listeners feel their stomachs churn. Lloyd adds emotional layers to Crichton's characters and makes real what some would call science fiction. D.J.M. 2006 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 7, 2005
      For his latest foray, Crichton alters his usual formula—three parts thrills and spills to one part hard science—to a less appetizing concoction that is half anti-global warming screed and half adventure yarn. This adds a mission impossible element to Wilson's narration: how to make pages of research interesting enough to hold the listener's attention until hero and heroine face their next peril. Unfortunately, Wilson approaches the statistical information like a newscaster communicating via Teleprompter. This earns him an A-plus for elocution and timbre, but a more average grade when it comes to dramatic interpretation. Consequently, the scientific material that Crichton spent three years researching seems even more copious in audio format than in print. And it's certainly much harder to flip past. Wilson is more successful in handling conversational passages, employing accents and adding subtle touches to various voices—a cynical tone for the hero, who's a mildly hedonistic corporate lawyer, and an edgier, less patient attitude for the beautiful, ready-for-anything heroine. As they hot-foot it around the globe, assisting an Indiana Jones–like MIT professor in thwarting evils perpetrated by a mass-murdering environmentalist, Wilson stirs up a little suspense by speaking faster and more energetically. But the book's abundance of statistics would slow any narrator's momentum, and Wilson is no exception. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover (Reviewed,
      PW Annex).

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 1, 2004
      If Crichton is right-if the scientific evidence for global warming is thin; if the environmental movement, ignoring science, has gone off track; if we live in what he in his Author's Message calls a "State of Fear," a "near-hysterical preoccupation with safety that's at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism"-then his extraordinary new thriller may in time be viewed as a landmark publication, both cautionary and prophetic. If he is wrong, then the novel will be remembered simply as another smart and robust, albeit preachy, addition to an astonishing writing career that has produced, among other works, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure and The Andromeda Strain. Crichton dramatizes his message by way of a frantic chase to prevent environmental terrorists from wreaking widespread destruction aimed at galvanizing the world against global warming. A team lead by MIT scientist/federal agent John Kenner crosses the globe to prevent the terrorists from calving a giant Antarctic iceberg; inducing terrible storms and flash floods in the US; and, using giant cavitators, causing a Pacific tidal wave. Behind the terrorists lurks the fantatical, fund-seeking chief of a mainstream environmental group; on Kenner's team, most notably, is young attorney Peter Evans, aka everyman, whose typically liberal views on global warming chill as Kenner instructs him in the truth about the so-called crisis. The novel is dense with cliffhangers and chases and derring-do, while stuffed between these, mostly via Kenner's dialogue, is a talky yet highly provocative survey of how Crichton thinks environmentalism has derailed. There are plenty of ready-to-film minor characters as well, from a karate-kicking beauty to a dimwitted, pro-environmentalist TV star who meets one of the nastiest fates in recent fiction. There's a lot of message here, but fortunately Crichton knows how to write a thriller of cyclonic speed and intensity. Certainly one of the more unusual novels of the year for its high-level mix of education and entertainment, with a decidedly daring contrarian take, this take-no-prisoners consideration of environmentalism wrapped in extravagantly enjoyable pages is one of the most memorable novels of the year and is bound to be a #1 bestseller.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The author of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and JURASSIC PARK has created a combination of thought-provoking commentary and nail-biting action-adventure, which focuses on how scientific information, like the theory of global warming, is manipulated in the modern world. Against a backdrop of international locales, narrator George Wilson brings a pulse-quickening tempo to the action-adventure parts but grows lethargic as the scientists pontificate for long stretches. Sloppy production allows three edits to interrupt the flow of the story. Crichton's volatile mix of gory action and hard-core science challenges many of today's precepts about global warming but ultimately fails to entertain or enlighten. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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