One wonders, in reading this book, if Michael Crichton is a novelist with one foot in a science lab or a scientist who mines his training for subject matter. (In a recent lecture, he insisted that he is a "novelist" -- as distinguished from a producer, director or professor). Anyone familiar with his work would hardly be concerned over the question of his qualifications. One doesn't argue about the skills of the man who wrote "The Andromeda Strain," "Jurassic Park," "Timeline," and "Prey." He may well be the writer for whom the genre, "techno-thriller," was created.

But, in this book, questioning the balance between academic writing and the narrative flow of a dramatic novel may seem appropriate -- given not only footnotes, an appendix, a bibliography and 567 story pages, but whole dissertations on various scientific subjects. Yes, these lectures bear upon the issues of the storyline, but stopping the action for a treatise on the Sequoia forests (p. 402), one on Yellowstone Park (p.484) and others, might signal that the novel is designed to promote an agenda or, worse, actually teach something.

Crichton is definitely trying to send a message about little understood greenhouse gases, a build up of carbon dioxide, sulphates and other threatening global phenomena and the fearmongering that feed political exploitation and wrong-headed activism. Perhaps it's the prevalence of these influences in society today that leads Crichton to load his novel down so heavily with scientific argument -- perhaps more than he has done in his prior work. He decidely wants to make the case that there's a great deal of self-serving mythologizing going on about global warming, its causes, and misguided governmental controls (and tax dollars) wrongly being utilized and/or planned.

To dramatize the issue, Crichton again creates, not a central hero but a team of experts, a now familiar element of his style. It's not one lead hero that will work hard to counter the threat of an outlaw terrorist group trying to cause monumental havoc with the environment by causing a succession of highly destructive natural events timed to sabotage an environmental conference -- it'll be a team from the scientific community.

The fight against extremist evil and the distorted understanding of global warming progresses from logical argument to legal maneuvering and, finally, climactic action. It's experienced from the perspective of different figures contributing and leading in turn.

The list of principals include wily George Morton, a millionaire philanthopist and project financier (always necessary); Peter Evans, his youngest lawyer at 28, front man and unprepared adventurer; Sarah Jones, Morton's blond "movie star" assistant whose pheromonal seduction prove almost too much for Peter to bear, much less pursue; John Kenner, a researcher from MIT and a man of action as well as one of unarguable leadership; his Tonto-like sidekick Sanjong Thapa, a trusty Nepalese who is utterly supportive; and Jennifer Haynes, another head turner/high achiever with a tough veneer and undisputable capability. Out of a flood of characters, these form the nucleus of the essential team on the side of good and knowledge who will bring to mind that other coalition of exploring scientific types wandering the enclosed world of "Jurassic Park."

Professor Crichton may not have created so monumental a commercial winner here, though his legions of fans have already made this book a best seller. But by giving a freer hand to his academic side than usual, thriller readers may feel it bogs the enterprise down. Or... you may find it intellectually nourishing for the student of science in you. When the vital parts of the story get distilled into the exigencies of a screenplay (more inevitable than a catastrophic climate change), its suspenseful content will very likely provide the alchemy for another hit movie. After all, the threat of global warming is a little closer to home than the rebirth of prehistoric animals.