Following an unexpected major earthquake on the east coast of the United States, New York City is a wreck, with millions dead or dying and the entire city crippled. Reprint.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although New York City's WNBC-TV anchor Scarborough has followed the standard procedures in creating a disaster novel--the plot concerns a massive earthquake that strikes the Big Apple in 1994--his thriller never unsettles the reader's equilibrium. Scarborough has done thorough research, and he's assembled the requisite array of characters affected by the disaster. The nominal hero is earthquake expert Sam Thorpe; much of the story centers around the separate efforts of Thorpe and his semi-estranged actress wife to find and rescue their young son. Perhaps the most interesting character, however, is Thorpe's mother, an avid rock climber who puts her expertise to good use in the rubble of the leveled city. Other subplots deal with a quartet of AIDS patients who leave their beds to join the rescue effort, and a group (which includes the mayor's daughter) trapped in the subway. Mafia boss Domenico Rizzo's efforts to profit from the catastrophe and political battles between the president and the New York governor are meant to add depth, but are relayed in matter-of-fact and predictable fashion. Ultimately, Scarborough's general inability to build tension keeps Aftershock becalmed.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The threat of an earthquake destroying New York City is a real possibility, according to the experts. Although it takes nearly 100 pages for the disaster to finally strike, once it does this novel by NBC-TV anchor Scarborough picks up pace and never lets down. The aftermath of the quake of 1994 is a nightmare, much worse than San Francisco, with people trapped in buildings and subways, on bridges, and in tunnels. Electricity is out and looters take to the streets. Domenico Rizzo, head of New York's largest crime family, quickly moves to exploit a city in chaos. Sam Thorne, earthquake expert, is a vital cog for the rescue operation. The mayor's daughter tries to lead a group of survivors out of the subway. A large cast of characters, including squabbling politicians, almost overwhelms the reader, but the author basically manages to juggle their stories creditably and keep the tension high in this rousing tale.
- Marilyn Jordan, Keiser Coll. Lib., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Marilyn Jordan, Keiser Coll. Lib., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I am SHOCKED I read the whole thing,
By
This review is from: Aftershock (Hardcover)
I adore a good disaster book, and I understand that with these kinds of books there is a level of chaos, quick character development and jumpy storytelling. With this particular book, even with those things in mind it was so boring and I actually wanted all these people (of which there were way too many to keep track of) to fall into a hole and die. I should have just rented the Posieden adventure and had my fix.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disaster of the week,
By
This review is from: Aftershock (Hardcover)
According to scientists, a major earthquake is going to hit the east coast sometime before the year 2010; the probability, according to the late Dr. Robert Ketter, is "nearly 100%." And one of the largest ground faults in the East runs parallel to 125th Street in Manhattan. So what would happen if a major earthquake hit New York City? Such is the subject of the meticulously-researched novel by broadcast journalist Chuck Scarborough, Aftershock. He posits an earthquake in NYC in 1994 (oops), and it's obvious from the writings about the earthquake and the structural damage it is likely to do to various buildings in New York that Scarborough spent a lot of time talking about this with Ketter. And had the earthquake and its aftereffects remained the stars of this novel, it really might have been, as Robert B. Parker blazons on the front, "surely the most compelling novel of natural disaster..." However, I get the feeling that, in the actual review, what followed that ellipsis was "...this week." Scarborough is absolutely, completely, thoroughly, utterly incapable of any kind of characterization whatsoever. His cardboard cutouts meander around the playing field attempting to show emotion and failing miserably, even in the wake of a huge natural disaster. As well, there are more then enough plotlines and subplots here to carry a book easily three times this one's four-hundred-page length, but many of them are ended far too abruptly, are forgotten for hundreds of pages and then picked up again for a paragraph, and other similarly annoying things. Even the section separators don't work in any consistent way (for about a hundred pages, the double lines separate different stories in different parts of the city, but then they stop doing so and are thrown in at random, it seems). Worst of all is the writing style itself. A representative sample: "Brendan and Sam could see from the helicopter the Alwyn Court on fire." Uh huh. A sentence any more twisted would have debilitating arthritis. Still, it managed to keep me reading, and I guess that's something. Poseidon Adventure, phone home.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Crap.,
By
This review is from: Aftershock (Hardcover)
Chuck Scarborough is apparently some kind of a journalist, I remember the jacket bio of this book saying. He evidently wasn't a print journalist, because I've seen seventh-grade homework assignments that were substantially better written than this dreck. One of the other reviewers points out an example of it; I have to add that that was *not* an isolated example.
I wish I could say that the bad writing was the thing that marred an otherwise good story, with otherwise interesting characters, good plotlines, or whatever. Wish I could say that, because I spent several hours of my life reading this book, and those are hours I got *nothing* out of except a feeling of disgust when I realized that for some reason, somehow, some publisher thought enough of this drivel to commit it to hard cover. Not just paperback - *hard cover*. Like a lot of disaster books, it uses multiple character viewpoint threads, people who start off with no relationship or connection to each other. OK, except that even these main characters are cardboard, and their actions/experiences are a succession of badly-engineered and terribly-paced cliches. The plot. Well, there really isn't one, but one thing that did come across at the end was that Scarborough seemed to think he was creating dramatic tension with the question of Would New York City be rebuilt after the quake? The decision and the plan seem to be put in the hands of one guy, whose (*really* bad- I'm a local journalist and I've spent years covering urban planning) ideas get several pages of detailed description. I respect fiction written by journalists because they do tend to see a bit, meet a lot of people, learn a little about everything. Seems there's a big difference between fiction written by print and TV journalists; Scarborough probably knows how to read his lines like a good little talking head, but he doesn't seem to have even a working knowledge of *anything* else, or even of basic human dynamics. He doesn't understand pacing, plotting, tension or the other basics of writing fiction, but that's to be expected... because neither does he seem to know much about how to *write*, period. The only reason I can possibly see anybody reading this is if they're aspiring writers who've only just begun to try their hand at fiction. They can pick up Aftershock and know that yes, there's already someone out there who they're superior to.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
|
|
So You'd Like to...
|
|
