When starting Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, the reader is introduced to many people and many places in a short period of time. In the first chapter, there is a physicist who falls in love with a beautiful woman and shows her his work that he has made simulating waves and currents. Once she seduces him, strong men inject the physicist will a drug that slowly paralyzes him. The woman then dumps his limp body in a river, with him never to be seen again. Another chapter is shown to have people smuggling wire for missiles, with one of the smugglers being injected with the same sedative, which causes him to go limp and be killed. Additionally, there is another instance where two men buy a submarine and act very shady when purchasing it, creating suspicion among the sellers. There are many more instances like this at the beginning of the novel. While not making total sense at the moment, it seems everything is building up and coming together like a puzzle. With the acts of murder, theft, and the use of explosives, whatever comes next in the story must cause mass destruction to the world and humanity.