Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I found this book on sale in the Miami airport and, unaware that it hadn't been officially released, I bought it. Basically, it's about a young lawyer working for an environmental philantropist. Things get rough when the lawyer discovers that his client had discovered some unscrupulous things about the nature of one of his beloved environment charities. Once our hero discovers that the charity is a front for the eco-terrorism group ELF, his life is in jeopardy. And what is ELF up to this time? Weather control. Forget "Jurassic Park," this is more in line with "Rising Sun" and "Disclosure." Only, here, the "issue" feels dated and uninteresting. Call me crazy, but I don't find global warming a gripping read. Especially since Crichton spends way too much time telling the reader that the global warming "threat" is just hype. There's some action in the vein of DAY AFTER TOMORROW and Crichton's own TWISTER as our heroes race against the clock to stop the terrorists from controlling the weather. But it comes across as being mostly blah, particularly since in this post-9/11 world... eco-terrorists feel like a convenient and lazy choice of villain. Crichton can still move a story forward, but I found myself losing interest with each passing page. By the 15th time you get a chart explaining why global warming isn't a big deal, you'll be ready to put this one down. Incidentially, with books like JURASSIC PARK and CONGO, Crichton made outlandish science seem plausible. That having been said, there's precious little that he can do to make weather control seem possible.