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In Paris, a young physicist is assassinated after
showing his work to a beautiful woman. Later on, a man, allegedly
from "seismic services", buys cavitation machines
and a research submarine is hired by phony petroleum geologists. In Tokyo,
several people, including a man named Kenner, are tracking
eco-terrorists and detect disquieting activity on the Internet...
The main character of this story, a young lawyer
named Peter Evans, with good intentions and a strong environmental
conscience, works for George Morton, a wealthy philanthropist who
backs environmental causes. Mainly, he is the principal benefactor
of NERF (The National Environmental Resource Fund), whose director,
Nicholas Drake, is fiercely dedicated to his cause. When the story
begins, Morton is about to finance a lawsuit against the USA in the
name of the inhabitants of the Pacific Island of Vanutu, accusing
USA's overuse of carbon dioxide to raise global warning, one impact
of this warming being the rising of the level of water around the
island. However, after questions about where part of his money given
to NERF is gone, and a meeting with Kenner, Morton decides to
withhold his money. From there begins a race to stop several
man-generated climatic catastrophes...
The purpose of Michael Crichton, when telling
this story, is to warn people about false or incomplete information
that has been fed to us about global warning and the threat it
represents for the world. I must admit I knew very little about the
subject previous to reading the book, and therefore I had no bias
one way or another. Michael Crichton's research is pretty convincing
(the bibliography at the end of the book is huge, as with other
novels, Crichton has done his homework well.) If I don't know much
about climate (apparently, nobody else does), I could tell that what
Crichton says about politicians and media working together to keep an
atmosphere of fear is very true: how many impeding catastrophes have
been announced and the last ten years and fortunately never happened? (Think
about the mad cow disease in Europe, which was supposed to kill
thousands, or the Y2K hysteria...). I believe that what Crichton says about nature
being unstable and always changing makes a lot of sense, and the
part about what Indians did to nature to preserve the state of
wilderness simply fascinating...
However, as much as it was interesting and
probably true, I was expecting a thriller, and as a thriller, it
falls short of the reader's expectations. The plot is weak and not
suspenseful at all, the characterization almost inexistent, and the
storyline sometimes ridiculous (how many times can the heroes almost
die, and stand up and go on as if they had no more that stubbed a
toe?). I give it three stars because it is full of valuable and
interesting information, but don't expect an action-packed and
suspenseful thriller, or you will be disappointed...
Rating: 
© Discussing Books, 01/06/2006 |
Critiques