I've been listening to Michael Crichton's State of Fear on CD. I'm not even halfway through yet and it's a gem. He does a marvelous job of subtly (and not-so-subtly) skewering pretentious celebrity pseudo-environmentalists. A few excerpts:
I did catch one minor mistake (assuming I heard correctly, I may have to grab a dead tree copy to check the names). One part of the book takes place at a (apparently fictional) place in Marin County called Point Moody. There is a reference to drifting up the coast to Pismo Beach. I think Crichton originally had a drive up the coast from LA, later changed it to SF and Marin, and didn't catch all the references that needed to be changed. Ah well, catching such errors is one of life's little joys. Maybe he even did it deliberately. Posted by Ken S at August 8, 2005 12:39 PM | TrackBack (0) |[On a Gulfstream jet to a banquet honoring George Morton, a billionaire donor to environmental causes, who also happens to own the jet]
Off to one side, Ted Bradley, the actor who played the President, was talking about how he preferred his electric car, which he pointed out he had owned for many years now, to the new hybrids that were so popular. "There's no comparison," he was saying. "The hybrids are nice but they're not the real thing."
[...]
"If there's anything worse than a limousine liberal," Morton said, "it's a Gulfstream environmentalist."
"But George," Evans said, "you're a Gulfstream environmentalist."
"I know it," Morton said. "And I wish it bothered me more."
[Later, on the flight back to LA on the same jet]
Some [of the celebrities] talked about how much they loved their hybrid cars, which they had bought for their staff to drive.
[...]
The plane landed in Van Nuys. A dozen black SUV limousines, the latest fashion, were lined up on the runway waiting for the passengers. All the celebrities hugged, kissed air, and departed. Evans was the last to leave. He didn't rate a car and driver. He climbed into his little Prius hybrid, which he'd parked there the day before, and drove through the gates and onto the freeway.