"; if(is_file("header.php")) include "header.php"; else include "../header.php"; ?>

Less preaching and more character development please Crichton wasn't at his best when he penned this story. I very much enjoyed the suspenseful scenes on the iceberg and in the park, but the times when he dedicated his time to preaching about how global warming isn't really happening got on my nerves. He used this book to get publicity for a pet cause and I would have preferred to see this information presented in a work of non-fiction where it wasn't fighting character and plot development for space. It's not that I think his point is right or wrong, it's that it bogged the story down to a level I almost couldn't stand. The action would be going top speed, and just when you're adrenaline is pumping you're hit with a 4 page speech/argument/sermon that kills your will to read. At one point after a particularly nasty chapter-long speech I actually put the book down because I couldn't take anymore that day. The characters were mostly fun to travel with, though the main character (Evans) could get a little whiney at times. The women seem at times like Crichton pulled some notes out of the generic "not gonna take crap from you" hat of characters. The action was suspenseful when it actually occured, but the mystery lacked a bit of...well...mystery. I never felt true fear for the characters whose lives were threatened by various environments and people. Usually Crichton is superb at suspending my disbelief and really getting me emotionally into the life-or-death situations he puts his characters in. Just not this time.