Hmmm, I wonder if it will make the Oprah book club?

All novels contain values and assumptions and are therefore propagandistic, and all novels are sold for a fee and therefore mercantile.

It's fine to dismiss Crichton's views on global warming. After all, he is not an expert, only a medical doctor, writer, and director.

I'm less sanguine at the implied exhortation that we automatically join in the jeering. Why, that gives the impression that petrochemical global warming is a belief system, an orthodoxy, rather than a scientific theory and therefore subject to rational skepticism.

As for product placements, they certainly are obtrusive, but can occasionally be defended on grounds of verisimilitude and/or sound characterization. What is James Bond without his Morlands cigarettes, Saville Row suits, Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Walther PPK? (The tendency of Ian Fleming to cite specific brands was derided by critics in the Fifties; earlier product placements in fiction probably do exist.) It would be like taking away his misogyny and antisemitism.

Finally, I'm not as alarmed as much as impressed by Rupp's concoction of fiction for specific audiences. This seems like canny pitching.

Luv those last three paragraphs, Shannon.

The decline of narrative into formulaic commercially invested apology has become so transparent.

The novel has definitely seen better days. I was an avid consumer of "the classics" all thru my teens & tweens, but I think the last "new" release that was able to command my rapt attention was Eco's The Name of the Rose. After a short-lived flirtation with escapism, it's been a steady diet of well-crafted non-fiction and assorted academic writing ever since.

This actually may go further than just Michael Crichton giving cheer to the what-global-warming? crowd. Last October, I blogged an effort by the pharmaceutical industry to actively create an alarmist novel about the threat posed by cheap Canadian drugs, as part of their communications strategy:

Urrgh, your story ideas sound Randian: sexy heiress reinvents herself as a sexy rationalist-objectivist socialite after she meets an architect, soldier or steel magnate who has commandeered the airwaves to deliver a stirring soliloquy to the unappreciative parasites, also known as the rest of us.

Anyhoo, all prose is pitching something. Whether it's persuading us to care about white whales, knights errant or some guy on a cross, it's good prose if it engages us, not if it succeeds in converting us.

Thanks Rob - this is an interesting trend, and not quite the "renaissance of the novel" we've been waiting for...

As the article demonstrated at the end, these things will be easy to parody, perhaps giving rise to a whole new & cynical genre. Unfortunately, any counter-measures in print form will have limited appeal relative to the pulp marketing which this hybrid lit-as-advertising mutation represents. For example, Douglas Coupland's GenX and GenY ciphers appealed to a common and emotion-based sense of generational dysphoria that still lingers, but his more oblique anti-consumerist subtext and ironic humour was simply noted in passing & didn't stay with us.

In my opinion, effective response will have to come in the visual, film and performance arts, rather than high-brow text. AdBusters meets Rick Mercer. Quick & brutal de-bunkings Letterman-style, appealing to everyman's vague sense of having been fleeced by elites who syphon public money while advising 2nd graders to spell potato with an e.

It's interesting that Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were also littered with brand names and references, but those somehow conveyed the acquired elite tastes of Bond and added to the tone of the books. Somewhere along the way that "authentic" touch became corrupted to either ID shorthand (especially in the 1980s writers) or simply crass commercialization.

It's a pot-boiler, this novel, a real page turner. Right down to the terrorists staging a tsunami, meant to raise fears of global warming.
Tsunami? Global warming? I don't think so!
It's fun, though. And when global warming hits light fiction, you can bet it's in the public conciousness. That's a good thing.
Sharon Butala is the best, in my opinion, if you're looking for real issues within the story.
But for beach reading - hey, a Crichton novel is fun.
Dan Brown is also using science as a basis for page turner novels - also, FICTION, but great fun.
(Isn't product placement what soap operas are all about? In fact modern TV seems like a big infomercial, of sorts, in stark contrast to Jackie Gleason and the honeymooners of long ago.

Not sure if you actually saw any TV from 'long ago' but product placements and mentions were a part of the early years of television too. Entire programs (esp. variety programs) were sponsored by products and featured prominent endorsements in the program, especially in the U.S.

(Just a quick "whoops, my bad" for that bit of rogue markup up above. I didn't remember the site doesn't accept HTML.)

Sort of suggests the old adage caveat emptor still packs a ton of wisdom, doesn't it?.

But then a novel is a novel and if you are looking for the truth there are very few libraries (that I know of) that shelve that stuff under 'N'.

Hey Allan

You don't think fiction holds truths? I think the best fiction lets people in on many truths, if not facts. Like, y'know, Shakespeare, or the Bible.

I have read Ian Slater, a local novelist, although I find him to Tom Clancist. But it was interesting to see the local area being used as a setting.

Damn it, I think I gave up on Chrichton after reading Congo, but you got to love this author's science. Due to the Chaos theory, man can raise dinosaurs, but can't effect the atmosphere. Anyways, didn't and probably won't ever read this book. But wait for the sequel where we find Ralph Kline funding Al Qaeda, inorder to bring oil prices high enough to milk the oild sands.. you know its coming.

But alas, there is the flip side. This may actually come true. We all know fiction feeds reality, and there are people fanatical enough to pick up on an interesting idea. Take Tom Clancy's Debt of Honour, whose plot line (well, either that or Star Wars), Osama ripped off for his 9/11 stunt. I mean, the maniacs are usually too dumb to think of these ideas, but toss a few well paid authors in there and they can design the next apocalypse.

Good article. I was very sad when product placement went crazy on The Sopranos, though the show is still magnificent. Still, who could believe that real Italians would drink Dunkin Donuts coffee?

It occurs to me that when Douglas Coupland referred to things by their brand names, people tended to think of it more as a Gen-X literary device than product placement (though, to be fair, no one left Microserfs *wanting* to eat Captain Crunch).

Also, though I'm sure it was meant facetiously, I think that Dickens's view of Christmas runs fairly contrary to the "annual shopping festival."

I agree that Crichton's novel is propaganda but can anyone point me to some criticism that refutes the science?

Oh...and as an Italian who lived back East in the States for a while, Dunkin' Donuts coffee, believe it or not, is the working class coffee that everyone drinks.

If you have ever read Crichton's "Environmentalism as Religion" speech, you'd understand his motive behind the novel.

From TCS Daily:

"Great storytelling has been a vehicle for education throughout the history of humanity, and, in our times of increasing scientific illiteracy, State of Fear may be a particularly appropriate way to expose common people to the scientific problems that plague the arguments supporting greenhouse gas regulations."

'nuff said.

ps product placement is not propaganda; it is marketing.

I find it odd how cynical we are in this society. In the face of overwhelming scientific consensus, including from leading science academies and journals, as well as mountains of empirical evidence and observation - from glaciers melting at record speeds, to worldwide increases in extreme unpredictable weather and associated disasters - we still find it amusing to cynically embrace the notion of legitimate debate on the issue with blatant corporate propagandists...

The first time the alarm was raised on climate change I think was in the 80's. Since then no meaningful action has been taken, and the token Kyoto protocol, deemed to be the MINIMUM effort needed to reduce the impact of climate change, has been completely ignored by the US and only used as political propaganda by countries such as Canada.

So as a species we have failed to do anything to prevent what could be the biggest threat to life since the times of nuclear winter, and all in the name of short sightedness, arrogance, greed and narcissism - the driving forces in our societies. Unfortunately it won't be oil execs, corporate whores like Crichton, or cynical and witty first world journalists who suffer the most, but in the end they will be judged the harshest by history.

Shame on us all...

O'Reilly:

Like I said - junk science - and you believe it. Not shame on us - shame on you.

O'Reilly:

I take back my last sentence - I appoligize.

I do want to say this though - Michael Crichton has a brilliant mind. You (maybe) and I have not.

Apologize, I meant - oops

What are we? Problems to the solution or solutions to the problem? I'm a big fan of geothermal around the pac rim. Why not invest in human rights? Externalities aside, the true cost of semiconducers in Taiwan fails to include the poor children of Africa. And that's a big country too. Ed Deake, can you do a portrait of me? I think my left hemisphere is best, so I will milk your cows facing rearwards so you can paint me.
Now I have never read any of Crichton's books, but I feel I should make a lengthy and somewhat innaccurate comment. It's what I do. I mean, we all know that many environmental groups stage massive demonstrations of tidal waves and ice sheets breaking apart - it's what they do.
Surely a great mind like Michael Crichton would not mislead vacuous, hardly educated barely-read people like the general american public? To what end? I have discussed the whole global warming question at length with my close personal friend who resides in a cranium, and he tells me it's all a sham, a hoax to pry money from our wallets using guilt. Hey, it's what we do!
Just noting that I was also referring to the next provincial election in this province several years from now, not the federal one coming much sooner, in my last post.
These answers have to be there and campaigned with at all opposing levels starting anytime, its just that simple. And if the answers were already there, then its like I say, a PR game. Opposition has to get the facts out. Websites, media, radio and TV, any way they can to anyone who will listen and take it to the public.
Reorganize. Solidify goals. Prepare for a changing of the guards in the years to come with sound ideology and the PR to sell it to the masses. Boot the bums out on their failed records. Call them on their lies.
And Bush is out to lunch with his pro texan oil corp agenda fed by the Saudi's. Its hard to watch the blatant self interests at the expense of the entire nation, well, the world. Bush won't go down in the history books as a hero, but a warmonger who accelerated global warming and steamrolled the U.S. currency collapse. Hey - it's what I do, er..spew..
BTW - sorry my post is so short everyone, but I've got things to do..I have to bathe my friend the Brain in more LSD solution, feed the salmon some Omega 3 pellets, and post warnings on all the toxic foods at the local supermarket.

Surely a great mind like Michael Crichton would not mislead vacuous, hardly educated barely-read people like the general american public?

Your wrong on that one. His books aren't usually a light read. They are definately no harlem romance. You nearly need a degree just to understand what he's talking about, as he goes into these long winded discourse. Hi's books aren't as much "science fiction" as "fictional science".

And therein lies the danger...it's a shame that Crichton doesn't use his credibility-warranted or not--to spin the counterpoint into speculative fiction.

Concerning the whole pens-for-hire scenario that Rob Cottingham cites: one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. It's nothing new, I suppose, but it's just so darn blatant. If BigPharma doesn't get its novelist, look for USAmerican networks to run the Canadian Counterfeits! scare program on one of their "investigative journalism" shows, or watch it turn up as a movie-of-the-week: Go Ask Alice 2.

State of Fear is a good read, and well researched by the author.

Could it be true?

"State of Fear is a good read, and well researched by the author."

So were the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. And yet, I don't think anyone is inclined to fear evil super-geniuses a la Dr. No, Blofeld, and Max Zorin.

As for needing a degree to understand Crichton... NOT. Have you read "Timeline" I could barely finish that hodge podge of opinion, supposition, and wishful-thinking without undergoing a lobotomy to make it seem believable.