The driver, a graduate student, climbed out and clapped his hands with delight. This was Snorrajokul, one tongue of the huge Vatnajokull glacier, the largest ice cap in Europe. In any case, they had reached their destination: directly ahead lay a huge, crumpled wall of dirt-covered snow and rock, stretching up to the mountains behind. Flat gray clouds hung low over the lava that stretched away for miles. A bitter wind blew across the Sprengisandur the rugged, dark plain in the interior of Iceland.

It was three o’clock in the morning, and the sky glowed red, with streaks of yellow from the still-visible sun. The millionaire philanthropist stamped his feet and pulled on gloves, trying to warm himself. Gripping and thought provoking, State of Fear is Michael Crichton at his very best.Ĭhrist, it was cold, George Morton thought, climbing out of the Land Cruiser. The novel races forward on a roller-coaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear. State of Fear takes the reader from the glaciers of Iceland to the volcanoes of Antarctica, from the Arizona desert to the deadly jungles of the Solomon Islands, from the streets of Paris to the beaches of Los Angeles. This is Crichton’s most wide-ranging thriller. Only Crichton’s unique ability to blend scientific fact with pulse-pounding fiction could bring such disparate elements to a heart-stopping conclusion. Thus begins Michael Crichton’s exciting and provocative techno-thriller State of Fear. In Vancouver, a small research submarine is leased for use in the waters off New Guinea.Īnd in Tokyo, an intelligence agent tries to understand what it all means. In the jungles of Malaysia, a mysterious buyer purchases deadly cavitation technology, built to his specifications. In Paris, a physicist dies after performing a laboratory experiment for a beautiful visitor.

The state of fear book