Books: Too cool for school

Although Amazon's annoying "Customers who bought State of Fear also bought London Bridges" seems to indicate there was some similarity between the two, they really don't come hand in hand on just about any aspect. In fact it was by pure accident that I stumbled upon the two books around the same time, but seriously, James, you should spend some time alone, think about what makes a good thriller, instead of popping out more books by the clock.

Reading London Bridges was entirely a depressing experience that had no surprises no uplifting moments. It was pretty much downhill from the very beginning. The mastermind, the Wolf, knows everything about everything, and has connections everywhere. He could get the President of the United States on the phone with a finger snap, shoot the FBI director at point-blank range, blow up Paris from thousands of miles away. He's got FBI, CIA and every secret service in the world on his back yet he gets to do whatever the hell he wants to. The entire plot progresses by the increasing success of the Wolf and the Weasle, with no failure record. Alex Cross, a FBI agent with emotional and commitment problems trails behind the Wolf, always one step behind and one minute too late. I mean I do get a kick out of Patterson's mocking the US government and the FBI's incompetence in managing global crisis, but enough is enough. The book is a page-turner only in the sense that I turn the page with faint hope that the imbeciles will get at least one thing right, but oh no, never.

On the contrary, reading State of Fear is indeed like riding a techno-thriller roller coaster, as promised. The book has its downside. Crichton tries to pack as many mini-lectures on climate and eco-myths in between the life threatening adventures, which slows down the pace significantly. I actually found myself enjoying hearing what Dr. Crichton's had to say about the widely-accepted theories on global warming, and it's even more refreshing to look at the subtle and not-so-subtle social control mechanisms from his PLM (political-legal-media complex) angle. Once again, I witness a really dry academia idea being turned into a thriller, just like the Rule of Four.

Let's not even worry about the authenticity of his research findings and focus on the plot for a sec--it's definitely a change from London Bridges to see some consistent ass-kicking of the baddies. The story is told from the perspective of Peter Evans, a young attorney working for the zealot villain Nick Drake, who heads a group of radical environmentalists in the name of protecting and preserving nature. Together, a team led by the too-cool-for-school MIT professor John Kenner, a true mastermind in every sense, pursued the bad guys, moving quickly from Santa Monica to Antarctica to Arizona to the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, crushing the menacing plots by the eco-terrorists. Armed with the most advanced technologies available and bankrolled by philanthropists and good intentioned but ignorant celebrities, this radical group (NERF) has some horrifying (almost mind-boggling) plans to shock the world into their "reality". Their plans were actually quite ingenious. Creating "natural" disasters (hurricanes, tsunami, blowing off huge chunks of Antarctica, etc) and linking them to climate change wrought by Global Warming, a notion according to the author, simply has no solid scientific basis. In the course of scotching the nefarious doings of these NERFers, our protagonists survived multiple lightening strikes, cannibals, poison, frostbites in Antarctica, dodging a tsunami＃ I know the characters must've all suffered hell in the story, but it was so much fun to read them. If John Kenner happened to meet the Wolf, I can just imagine Kenner looks at him like a python at a rat, and by the end of the book, Evans can take down Alex Cross, easy.

I can say I am a bona fide victim of PLM, if such control does exist. Therefore I will not refute or support Crichton's stance on Global Warming simply because I am not knowledgeable enough in the area, however I do find the following facts interesting:

While most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling tread. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected in increase in mass over the next 100 years to to increased precipitation.
The Sahara desert is shrinking.

Origins and mismanagement of the Yellowstone National Park, a man-made disaster
There is no certainty in the theory of Global Warming.

Oh yes, and the whole eugenics episode back in the twenties. Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex has a quite vivid description of that in action as the immigrants from Europe passed through custom. Now that's something you don't hear everyday.