State of Fear/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anvilicious: If Crichton's other filibusters fly over your head, the ending's about as subtle as Man-Bear-Pig tackling you, in which the not very dead guy who appeared to be supporting the ELF more or less says "Focus on the third-world countries that are often the biggest offenders in polluting by tackling poverty, then you can work on climate change. Oh, he hates simulations, despite covering it with Jurassic Park. Simulations won't predict tsunamis ruining your shit or car crashes.
  • God Mode Sue: Professor John Kenner graduated from an MIT engineering course and a Harvard Law course, both at higher than average speed; became a professor at MIT at the age of 28 and still manages to be a hot-shot federal agent. Oh, and he can quote geological surveys from memory. The only thing keeping him from being absolutely perfect is his once confessing he isn't good at languages and a major What An Idiot moment (chasing a group of bad guys into a warehouse, finding no one there, and going into a room with a lightning generator without bothering to secure the door).
  • Harsher in Hindsight: "Climategate and glaciergate" are either the first signs that the plot of the book is true crumbling though a wall of lies, or two minor technical errors that were caught by the media rather than peer academics, depending on your preconceived notions. Rorschach Gates, if you will- what you see in them depends on the contents of your thoughts, rather than of the gate.
  • Unfortunate Implications: The Third World cannibals.