In the following excerpt, Stone argues that Crichton's State of Fear is much more than casual reading, and includes important messages about global warming and the environment.

State of Fear … is not merely a good airport bookshop thriller, but also—and indeed more importantly—a tract conveying some serious messages for our media-driven times. To render the themes of that tract even clearer, Crichton includes … an Author's Message so that the reader may know "where, exactly, the author stands on these issues". Space precludes its reproduction, but a few points from it may illustrate his broad conclusions:

• "We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment …"
• "Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause". [This, I may interpolate, is probably the only statement about which the global warming zealots and their critics agree; and even then, note that penultimate word "probable". The...