Eruption

“Mac took a deep breath and exhaled. The microphone picked up the sound.

‘Today,’ MacGregor said, ‘I am announcing an imminent eruption of Mauna Loa.’”

One of the challenges the protagonists in the novel face is the difficulty of how and what to inform the public about the impending crisis. In this quote, Mac is nervous about speaking at the press conference. While elsewhere Mac’s character is strong and capable, this quote gives an insight into his weaker areas.

“John MacGregor was lying his ass off.

He knew exactly when the eruption was coming, and it wasn’t two weeks or even one.

Five days.

And counting.”

This quote describes the first of many times Mac and the other characters lie to the public to prevent panic. It also sets out the timeline, which generates the plot’s tension: they have five days to prepare for the eruption.

“The helicopter exploded.

There was a roar, and the force of the explosion nearly knocked them all to the ground. A yellow-orange fireball burst up beyond the crater rim. A moment later, hot, sharp metal fragments clattered onto the slope all around them as they hurried to the red HVO helicopter.”

Eruption has many action sequences where the characters narrowly escape death. Often, these narrow escapes emphasize the power of the volcano. In this case, fuel has leaked into the lava in the caldera, causing the helicopter to explode while Mac and his team are rescuing the downed pilot and videographer.

“And you’re talking about venting the sucker? You guys have been spending too much time in front of your screens. That mountain isn’t some false-color satellite image that you manipulate with a couple of keystrokes. It’s a goddamn gigantic force of nature.”

One of the key themes in Eruption is Man Versus Nature. In this quote, Mac emphasizes to his scientists how unlikely it is that they will be able to control the “gigantic force of nature” that is the volcano.

“We conclude that the only practical method to protect populations from flowing lava is to evacuate them before its advance.”

Author Michael Crichton often includes fake documents in his novels to give them greater verisimilitude. This quote comes from one such fake document, a DAARPA government assessment of the viability of venting a volcano using munitions to direct the flow of lava. It emphasizes that it is likely impossible to achieve such a feat.

“Mac felt as dizzy as he had inside the crater. ‘So you have six hundred forty-three canisters of radioactive waste and you don’t know where it came from?’

‘That’s correct.’”

In this quote, Mac learns about the nuclear waste stored in a lava tube under Mauna Kea. Upon taking in this revelation, he is shocked to learn that the authorities do not know how it ended up there. This contributes to the minor theme throughout the novel of the failures of institutions, in this case, the US Army.

“No one in that building knew what the hell was happening. They didn’t even know whether it was safe to go home to their families at night, since plants all around them were dying for no apparent reason.”

The dangerous (fictional) Agent Black was created by bioweapons researchers at Fort Detrick in Maryland where real bioweapons like Agent Orange were created. This quote emphasizes that the substance quickly escaped the control of the scientists who created it, like a kind of biochemical Frankenstein’s monster.

“The distribution of the fly Musca is worldwide. The infectivity of the tobacco mosaic virus is very broad-based. We do not know its full range. It does not kill every plant, but we believe that this process of fragment incorporation will occur in other plant viruses. As a result, all, or nearly all, plants in the biosphere will die.”

In this quote, an Army scientist reveals to Mac the stakes of what could happen if Agent Black is released into the biosphere. This adds greater tension to the plot because it means the authorities have to protect the area from the imminent lava flow.

“‘Mac,’ Rick said, ‘you know what you’re saying, right? You’re talking about making this volcano explode.’

‘You know something, though? It just might work,’ Kenny said.

‘And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ Rick said. ‘We’re talking about trying to make a nuée ardente. An avalanche of fire. The most dangerous volcanic phenomenon there is.’

‘Pretty much,’ Mac said.”

This quote describes the potential pitfalls of human intervention in attempting to direct the lava flow and protect the Ice Tube where the canisters of Agent Black are stored. Not only might they fail, but they could also cause a dangerous pyroclastic flow, nuée ardente, that could kill people and potentially wipe out the town of Hilo.

“This is the age of social media. All anybody cares about these days is how things look.”

One of the themes of the text is The Challenge of Collective Action in a Crisis. One way the authorities manage this is by lying to the public through the media to present an image of the situation that will not cause panic. In this quote, Jenny Kimura emphasizes that the Army’s cover story for why they have brought in troops to prepare for the volcano will work as long as it looks convincing to the public.

“Lono was just a kid, but he knew when people were lying to his face. The story about roads was a crock. […]

Maybe the island wasn’t so safe after all.”

Lono, the Hawaiian boy who works as an intern for Mac at the HVO, quickly realizes that the cover story that the military is there to fix the roads around Mauna Loa is untrue. This realization undermines his trust in what the media is reporting about the impending eruption. This quote shows how he begins to fear for his life following this revelation.

“‘The less feeling of crisis there is, the better,’ Briggs said. ‘Appearances matter, Dr. MacGregor. Trust me on that.’”

In this quote, Sergeant Briggs instructs Mac to continue with his regular routine to avoid the appearance of crisis so that the public remains calm. Briggs echoes Jenny’s comment about the importance of portraying calm control despite the reality of the situation: that they are facing an unprecedented crisis.

“The closer they got to the rim, the more Mac wanted to stop and look around at this area so near the summit of the volcanic mountain that took up nearly half this island. He was overwhelmed as he always was by the thought of that, and by the reality of nature’s beauty, and its potential fury.

But the big clock kept counting down.”

This quote emphasizes the beauty and danger of the volcano Mauna Loa. This contributes to the theme of Man Versus Nature by emphasizing the power of nature. This quote also emphasizes the mounting tension of the impending volcanic eruption, describing it as a “big clock” that is ticking down like a bomb about to go off.

“‘We’re going to try to do with this mountain of yours what we do when we blow the hell out of a building.’

‘And what do you do?’ Jenny asked.

‘Tell it where we want it to go,’ Rebecca said.”

In this quote, Rebecca Cruz, the demolition expert, compares venting the volcano to her work demolishing buildings. It shows her to be somewhat overconfident in her struggle against nature, as a volcano is much larger and more powerful than the office building she was shown demolishing earlier in the novel.

“‘Bottom line,’ Oliver Cutler said. ‘This might not be the Big One we’re talking about here. It might be the Biggest One.’

Once more, he paused for dramatic effect. Then:

‘Maybe the biggest the world has ever seen.’”

In contrast with Mac and the other authorities who are trying to manage the media to avoid public panic, the media-hungry Cutlers attempt to use the media to generate panic and thereby improve their publicity. This quote shows how Oliver Cutler consciously manipulates the media by warning that the impending eruption will be larger than the public knows and even “paus[ing] for dramatic effect” when delivering the news.

“‘If something does go wrong, there won’t be anybody left to blame.’

‘Or anybody left, period,’ Jenny said.”

This snippet of dialogue between Mac and Jenny emphasizes the dire stakes the team is facing and the potential consequences if they fail—the end of the natural world. Mac shares with Jenny his fears of failure, but she does not let him wallow too much in his self-doubt, preferring instead to focus on the mission ahead of them.

“He thought about the canisters when he and the team were trying to devise one final set of schemes to keep the contents from escaping into the atmosphere if the lava reached them, but they were as helpless to stop that as the rest of the planet would eventually be.”

This quote reveals the interior thoughts of General Rivers. Outwardly, Rivers is a strong and decisive leader who projects an air of authority and control. This quote, however, shows that like Mac and others, he is worried about the success of his mission. This anxiety makes Rivers a more realistic, human character.

“‘What you’re going to do is get people killed,’ Mac said. ‘For the last time, this isn’t a competition. Are you not getting that, you arrogant prick? If we screw this up, maybe if we screw up any part of this, you’re going to die along with everybody else. Unless you think you can somehow buy your way out of that too.’ Mac was breathing hard. ‘The competition is against the goddamn volcano!’ Mac yelled, unable to keep himself from shouting.”

In this quote, Mac is arguing with billionaire J. P. Brett who is trying to take control of the response to the crisis. Brett acts like Mac and the others are his competition, while Mac understands that the real conflict is between Man Versus Nature or humanity versus the volcano.

“This is what we’re trying to save, he thought. What we have to save.

Beauty like this was as much a force of the natural world as the volcano; it took the breath out of him.

He looked in the direction of the volcano and thought: You cannot have this.”

In this quote, Mac reflects on the stakes while at the beach surfing. This is an example of the motif of Surfing. In the novel, surfing is emblematic of the beauty of the natural world in contrast with the danger of the natural world the volcano represents.

“What if we all survive the eruption, what if we control the lava in the end at the same time a different kind of black death starts to seep across the island like a plague, all because of a sergeant under my command? Rivers thought.

On how many fronts was he expected to fight this war?”

General Rivers reflects on The Challenge of Collective Action in a Crisis. He regrets that his soldiers didn’t follow his orders and thereby contributed to the spread of Agent Black by not properly decontaminating following a clean-up. He thinks about his response to the crisis as a “war,” which solidifies the comparison of General Rivers to General Patton that Mac made earlier in the text.

“All around him, his friends were shouting, some of them crying, the ones still in the boats asking Luke what they should do even as the water in which they’d grown up, the water they loved, started to burn all of them alive.”

This quote shows the devastating results of the conflict of Man Versus Nature. The boys in the canoes, who were used to being harmonious with nature, in “the water they loved,” experience nature turning against them and killing them in a horrible way they cannot fight against.

“The last thing he saw was the river of lava flowing right at him.

Coming way too fast.

Rolling fire, sparks and ash, screaming thunder.”

This quote includes vivid imagery to portray the fast-moving danger the lava flow poses. It gives a sense of Sergeant Iona’s helplessness in his final moments; he is unable to fight back against the power of nature before it kills him.

“‘There’s one way to create that avalanche of fire,’ Chad Raley said.

‘How the hell do we do that without bombs?’

Raley looked at Mac and said, not yelling now, his words measured and eerily calm, ‘By crashing this plane.’

‘Do it,’ Mac said.”

In this dialogue between Mac and the fighter pilot, Chad Raley, they realize that if the bombs will not deploy, they will have to crash the plane to cause an explosion to redirect the lava flow. This will require a sacrifice of themselves—and potentially the town of Hilo—to save the world. This is a moment that demonstrates Displays of Courage and Recklessness.