Tag: shipwreck

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#BookReview: The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico

Aint No Way In Hell A Book-Accurate Movie Of This Tale Is Ever Made. There’s just too much that would cause people of most any era – even 1969 when this book was written – to walk out of the theater on. A few certain words beginning in “N”. A couple of uses of what was at least at one time British slang for a cigarette but which has largely meant something else entirely in the US. Repeated uses as a pejorative of a certain “Q” word that many now actively adopt as an identity. A rape where the victim then holds her rapist fondly *and wishes she is pregnant by him as the book closes*. (Literally, the last words of the book are this particular passage.) Possible statutory rape between a man in his 30s and a “girl”, as she is repeatedly described, who is clearly in the upper half of the teen years but whose age is never clearly established. Several racial stereotypes of varying ethnicities of varying shades of melanin, most all of which are now (in 2024) decried as racist. Even the smoking and drinking is frowned upon and/ or outright ostracized (in at least some circles) in 2024.

And yet… even the action is different than any of the movies, to a degree. For example, Gene Hackman’s character from the original 1972 movie? Yes, he falls into the water near the end, as he does in the movie (seriously, if you haven’t seen a 52 yr old movie by this point, that’s on you 😉 ) but unlike the movie, there are no flames involved in the book. Revealing other differences does involve true spoilers, so I won’t go there.

But if you’re a fan of the movies and can withstand all that I noted above (and more, really), absolutely read the book. The differences between book and movie add a *lot* more nuance to everything and everybody, even as they often take away from the action – and yet add in even more explicit horror/ gore than I’ve ever seen in any incarnation of the movies. (Even the rape scene starts as a seeming horror/ gore scene that is later, after the rape, explained away.)

So yeah, this book has a LOT of problems by 2024 standards and really even by 1969 standards. Read it anyway, if you can withstand those issues. If not, you’re not going to enjoy this, so truly, don’t bother.

Recommended. Particularly for fans of the movies.

This review of The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico was originally written on December 31, 2024.

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#BlogTour: The Flood by G.N. Smith and The Island by G.N. Smith

For this blog tour, we’re looking at an atmospheric detective novel with BookAnon level connections to some of the most popular detective stories of the last century. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Flood by G.N. Smith. In a first for this blog, we’re also looking at a second book in the same tour – the sequel to The Flood, The Island.

Here’s what I had to say on the review sites about The Flood (Goodreads, TheStoryGraph, BookHype):

Atmospheric Novel Can Get Repetitive At Times. This is one of those detective novels – not really a police procedural, since it is almost a “locked room” scenario (with the “room” in question being a sequestered area of a small town) with only a single detective available – where the setting seems as much as character as any of the actual human characters. Smith manages to put the reader right in the titular flood and the fight for survival from both the elements and the murderer that only our detective knows lurks in their midst. And yet, in repeating the detective’s personal motivation *so* often… Smith does in fact get repetitive enough to at least warrant mentioning in the review. Indeed, it becomes as tedious at times as seeming *every* Batman movie with a new actor portraying the character having to do some version of Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murders, or every new Spiderman movie having to do some version of Uncle Ben’s murder. With those franchises… guys, we get it. We already know these characters. With this particular book… the first mention was solid character development. Maybe a reference back here or there could have been good. But to be hit with a near word for word repetition of the motivation *so many times*… the editing could have been better here, at minimum. Beyond this though, the story itself was quite strong indeed, even within the “locked room” type space, and the overall plotting was quite solid, with the tension ratcheting up at a fairly steady pace and the reveals coming at enough of a clip to keep the pages turning. Overall a strong series starter and I’m interested to see where we’re going here. Very much recommended.

And here’s what I had to say on the review sites about The Island (Goodreads, TheStoryGraph, BookHype):

And So It Becomes Clear This Is An Open World “Locked Room” Series. This book largely follows the format of the first one in the series, and happens just a few days later in the world timeline. In other words, while still dealing with the repercussions – good and bad – from the first book, our detective is now thrust into *another* mystery where she is in an essentially “locked room” open world environment – she has quite a bit of area to work in (as do our perpetrators), but it is an area isolated off from the “main” world. This comes to bear in good and bad ways, though at least in this entry another variant on the theme is introduced… and again, the moves and countermoves this particular variant introduce open up their own possibilities. The main problems from the first book – the repetitive repetition of the detective’s motives – are largely still in play here, though this time at least a few of the repetitions give us a bit more of the backstory for the motivations, and thus a reprieve from the near copy/paste verbatim repetitions that seemed so prevalent in Book 1. But… the things that made the first book so good, specifically how the scenery itself very nearly becomes its own actual character as it is described so vividly and is so intrinsic to the story here, are *also* still in play here. Indeed, with the clear theme now established for this series, perhaps that is one of the more intriguing aspects going forward…. how can Smith manage to keep putting this same person in these same situations and keep them different enough? Based on this book, I for one am looking forward to seeing how he pulls it off again. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
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