Crichton has long been a crusader against the pseudo-science of today's environmental movement. Lots of great past speeches at www.michaelcrichton.com.

I recently finished it as well. I mostly like it, though it seems to want to be a few too many things at once (mystery/suspense/scientific reference). It has something of the Heinlein problem* of long expository lumps (with footnotes, even), but still fun to read.

* I like Heinlein a lot, except for his last stuff, but he does (did) preach.

Sorry guys, thought the attack on the wacko-environmentalists was great, but the story-line is basically a piece of crap.

Really, is there anyone out there who didn't know the actor was the cannibal victim as soon the we learned of the maneaters?

Crichton has written worse books, but there is far, far away from his best.

Grey,

Yeah, I figured that the actor guy was lunch the minute he started spouting that "nobody has ever been a cannible" line.

That's the part that really got me, though. The description is pretty awful...

The thing I found most distracting (other than the footnotes) was the near-complete absence of a justification for the billionaire, the lawyer, the secretary, and the professor (what, no Gilligan?) being required to save the world. There are places where even a baby airstrike would have stopped the problem faster and more certainly.

Not that the problem is unique to this book. It's the same thing as a cop show where the protagonists drive like maniacs all the way across town to warn/save the soon-to-be victims. What, no cell phones, no patrol cars, never heard of a pay phone? Sometimes it's really hard to suspend that disbelief.

"It's the same thing as a cop show where the protagonists drive like maniacs all the way across town to warn/save the soon-to-be victims. What, no cell phones, no patrol cars, never heard of a pay phone? Sometimes it's really hard to suspend that disbelief."

I hear ya! I find myself worrying about the poor writers. What are they going to do without the oft used device of waiting to trace a call now that call waiting is so prevalent?