On the basis of having read two books by Michael Crichton, I will tell you that if you like his books, you’ll like PETROPLAGUE by Amy Rogers, M.D., Ph.D. Except, in some ways, PETROPLAGUE is better.The book begins with an environmentalist who wishes he could do something really big. From there, we move to the main character, Christine, a biologist and Ph.D. candidate, working the La Brea Tar Pits. There’s an accident. Then there are further accidents in and around Los Angeles. All are the result of oil gone bad.
An eco-terrorist blew up an underground storage tank at an abandoned gas station, and now genetically modified bacteria is in the Los Angeles fuel supply. It’s eating up the fuel, causing accidents and halting the area transportation systems. And the environmentalist who wanted to do something really big now knows the really big thing he can do: spread the bacteria to other parts of the world so that no one can use oil, the root of all evil.
This idea of unintended consequences of environmentalists sounds so much like a Michael Crichton idea, I’d have sworn that Rogers cowrote this book with him if he were alive. But, even though I almost never think a movie based on a book is better than the book, I did feel that way with Crichton books. I don’t think that about PETROPLAGUE. It’s not that this book wouldn’t make a great movie. I’m sure it would, and I’d love to see it. But PETROPLAGUE is based on science, and probably because of Rogers’ credentials in microbiology and immunology, all of her book sounds possible. It’s not science fiction. When the accidents happen and cars and airplanes stop working, these really don’t sound like a stretch. This is compared with a Crichton book I read, STATE OF FEAR. Although this book, too, has to do with ill-informed environmentalists, its action scenes seemed to me to be quite a stretch. How could some of his characters go so many places and endure so much in one day? Christine tries to stop the petroplague in believable scenes. They are all based on real science.