I read the book for the information, but I thought that as literature it was well below the average for Chrichton, who is not that great a writer at best.
Some of his plot devices, like a tsunami to wipe out the CA coast being started by an induced underwater landslide somewhere in Micronesia, make no sense at all. Such a tsunami would cause enormous damage in adjacent areas, but would be largely dissipated by the time it had crossed the entire Pacific, which is, as Michael points out elsewhere, large.
Of course in his plot, exactly that happened. The tsunami was caused and petered out long before it reached Malibu.
He didn't mention the extensive damage it would have caused closer to home, though, except on the island itself. The conclusion we intuitively reached was that there was little but water between the island and the US.
I thought the way it was written, from the point of view of a committed environmentalist who realized all his ideas were wrong, was superbly effective. And I thought the character of Morton was cool.
D