It seems to me Crichton may be your basic contrarian. When folks were celebrating the promise of biotech or nanotech, he hyped the potential threats in, respectively, Jurassic Park and Prey. When America was welcoming foreign direct investment from overseas, he warned of the unscrupulous Japanese businessman. When workplaces began to obsess over sexual harassment, he warned that oversensitivity could create real problems in Disclosure. And now that government action on global warming seems increasingly likely, he’s suggesting that apocalyptic environmentalists are frauds. In this sense, his new book is not as out of character as some might think.