This novel reads like a quickly thought-up story to act as a coat hanger for a science polemic. The result is a forced, boring plot, and a substandard, preachy novel.Strangely enough within this novel is an excellent political essay - Crichton's chapter on the "state of fear". Clearly it was applied inappropriately - we are not in a state of fear about global warming or we would not be driving round our "axles of evil" SUVs, and using up resources like there was no tomorrow. But if you look around you can see places where this essay fits like a glove. This alone is worth one star.Though his science is totally unbalanced, Crichton deserves a little merit for bringing the contrarian evidence on global warming to our attention. I wonder if his next novel will be about Intelligent Design?