Customer Reviews

The Day After Tomorrow

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I got this because I was curious about the movie. It seems that the author who wrote this also wrote another book, Superstorms, that it says on the cover inspired the movie.

I sat down with the Day After Tomorrow and it just plain swept me away. These books written based on movies are usually rank garbage, but this was created by a master, that is very clear. The writing just soars, it is moving, it is scary, it presents the characters as complex people, the descriptions are wonderful.

Frankly, this book belongs between hardcovers. It should never have been issued like this as a knockoff book, even though it is based on the script. This is a completely enthralling and fabulous piece of thriller writing. And as far as the movie is concerned, after reading this, I would not miss it for anything.

Having watched the movie, it'd be pretty unjust to the author if i were to blatantly give this book 1 or 2 stars.

Basically,THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is a novel based on the climatic disaster caused by global warming.Professor Jack Hall foresees that as global warming and greenbouse gases are released,climatic changes round the world.Ice regions at the Antarctica starts melting...and this means ultimate havoc.

As Hall tries to convince the people of the immpending danger,his son Sam proceeds to Manhatten for a competition.But what they least expected that hurricanes,twisters,hailstorms and all kinds of natural disasters were already on their way:People froze to death by the sudden most cold,twisters and tornadoes come blasting off buildings...and even countries like Japan and New Dehli in India were not let off.

It was at this moment that Manhatten, was too,caught inthe tussle of a great flood that actually sank the entire city in plain white snow.

This novel is exacty a replica of the movie.Except that mushy lines found here were seemingly erased from the movie.The book is average,it's almost a narration text of the movie.But it does portrayed the emotions of the characters which you will not find in the movie.Like what Laura (Sam's classmate)'s thoughts were when Sam revealed his feelings for her.Basically,that's it.

And a word of warning though: If you've watched the movie,you'd probably not want to grab this book.

No one, save a very few, takes paleoclimatologist (the study of past climate trends) Jack Hall's worries about the melting polar ice disrupting the North Atlantic current and causing a massive superstorm very seriously. Then the current disappears and the weater goes mad. Now they listen, but it's too late to avoid a new ice age and the people in the North are doomed to a certain death by freezing. That certainty does not stop Jack Hall from setting out to rescue is son, who is trapped in the frozen wasteland that was once New York City.

Whitley Strieber, who co-wrote (with radio personality Art Bell) The Coming Global Superstorm (the book that writer/director Roland Emmerich admits 'inspired' his epic disaster movie), does an excellent job of fleshing out the obviously action heavy script. The result is a quick rollercoaster ride of a book. Fans of Strieber, Bell, or Irwin Allen reincarnate Roland Emmerich's movie will want this in their collection. Recommended.

I read 'The Day After Tomorrow' today, the day after I saw the movie, 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Having seen the movie first yesterday, the book's enjoyment was lessened. It would have been better to have read 'The Day After Tomorrow' the day before seeing 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Stating it with more clarity, I should have seen 'The Day After Tomorrow' tomorrow, the day after reading the 'The Day After Tomorrow' today.

Skip the "book", see the movie.

I say this with confidence without having actually seen the movie. The writing is horrible, and I am convinced that Mr. Strieber is either lazy, an absolute idiot, or most likely both. To be fair, this book does have some fine moments, however they are eclipsed by the akward and relentless usage of the expletive "damn." I found myself continually gritting my teeth and rolling my eyes while I read such memorable gems as the following:

Pg. 9: "Damn" count: 4

"...and Aaron was damned concerned."
"...loud enough to actually drown out the damn storm."
"How bad can it be if the damn tv still works?"
"And then something else, which was--damn, ripping?"
--my favorite one on the whole page

Pg. 10:

"Now he was feeling damn sick about it, oh yes."
"Then he saw a piece of the window, then a whole damn couch."

Pg. 11:

"...Zack was tying his damn board to the roof track."
"...the house above them groaned and actually damn well lifted and blew right into the darkness and spray."

Pg. 12:
"Sam got a damn glass of water from the kitchen..."
--my personal favorite

You get the point. Over and over and over again he uses "damn" in the most unnecessary and sometimes head-sratching ways. At one point, he uses the phrase "damn well" three times in a single paragraph! Horrible. Absolutely unacceptable and infintely distracting to what could've been a decent adaptation.

And oh, by the way, relax. Such climate changes as depicted in the story happen over a slightly longer period than a week or two.

Actually, like, a damn well disappointing effort, Mr. Strieber.

Don't buy this "book." I like, actually, damn well want my money back.

The writing isn't Whitley Strieber's best. The book is often confusing and there are scenes that don't make a lot of sense. Sorry. I was surprised since I've liked Streiber's books. It looks like he was really pressed for time and had to churn it out pretty fast. (And I'm sure that's not an uncommon thing when it comes to anything associated with Hollywood.) The thing is, the movie's s/f are spectacular but it's a really thin (and sort of dangerous) premise. I would have loved this as a pure adventure film, but couching it as something that could actually happen (making it political, in other words) really turned me off. And that's what the filmmakers did in the marketing. As Penn and Teller say on their award-winning Bull***T show, if what you're really fighting is corporate America, then fight corporate America. Don't pretend you're pushing an environmental agenda when what you're really doing is giving the public bad science to convince them of a political point of view. Did y'all know the founder of Greenpeace quit Greenpeace because it turned into an anti-capitalist political organization instead of an environmental one!??? Like I said, Penn and Teller exposed them. And it's very scary. When you try to peddle bad science on a gullible public to push a political agenda, you end up setting up people to make really bad decisions--because it's based on bad science. And setting people up for bad decision-making where the world's future is concerned is dangerous and (sorry) pretty vile.

The novel The Day After Tomorrow by Whitley Strieber is an adventure. It starts off with a scientist, Jack Hall, in Antarctica studying some ice samples. Soon Jack's trip turned into a dangerous situation. The ice plates of Antarctica suddenly cracked and shifted. This was just the start of some major problems. Back home Jack's son, Sam, was getting ready to go to New York for a decathlon. Jack brought Sam to the airport; there was a lot of air turbulence which made for a very bumpy ride. The weather was taking a turn for the worst. In Japan there was huge hail falling down killing a lot of people. In L.A. there were large, highly dangerous tornadoes, destroying everything in their paths. Meanwhile in New York it started to downpour. Then a huge wall of water flooded into the city, completely flooding New York. Luckily Sam and his friends took shelter in a nearby library. Sam contacted his father and was told to stay put. Sam then warned the people to not go out or they would die, but only few stayed back. Everyone that went outside froze to death. The Earth was now into a new Ice Age caused by Global Warming. The rest of the country was told to head as far south as possible. Then Jack went to find Sam. All of the people that stayed in the library were alive. They were soon found once the storm was over, and brought to Mexico. More and more people were found alive. It was a miracle.
I thought the novel The Day After Tomorrow was great. It kept me very interested. It really made me think, could an Ice Age caused by Global Warming happen to us, and are we doing all we can to protect the world we live in? The Day After Tomorrow was truly exciting and entertaining. I would recommend this novel to all ages that enjoy adventures, excitement, and suspense.

Roland Emmerich's source for the screenplay is not in dispute. This book is a 'novelization' of the screenplay (a disturbing literary trend in itself). The book was sloppily written and in need of some serious editing. Two of the most glaring examples:

"His mind snapped back to the present moment, the conference that was going to be about not quite what was happening and was going to drive him nuts".

"Obviously, the current it had been set up to monitor had done what it had been feared it would do."

I'm still trying to wrap my head around those two sentences.

There are moments of grace, however few.

"From the heat register across the room, there came a long, declining sigh, followed by a series of bangs. Gerald thought that they would lose consciousness from the cold in about an hour. And how strange that seemed, to be in the last hour of life."

The scenes where Sam expresses his feelings for Laura are written in the turgid prose of an overheated 14-year-old, leading one to believe Streiber moonlights for Harlequin.

This is a quickie knockoff of a movie script published to cash in on the release of the movie. It ain't the New York Times. For you literary purists out there, seek out something a bit more challenging. For those of you who like this sort of escapist fiction, more power to you.

If we want to take Global Warming seriously then reading a book like this is tantamount to reading a book on plumbing and its many uses in the drainage system of life.

Come on guys, this is a FICTION book, i.e. it's not laying claim to be the truth as we know it, if you want to read a book like that, then LOOK somewhere else!

I read this book, and I read it for what it was, a book of fiction, with fictitious characters going through a fictitious scenario.

It wasn't the most brilliant read I have ever come across but let me tell you it certainly is not the worst!

The book did give more insight to some of the lesser characters in the movie, and I actually appreciated that, and it pretty much followed the movie in every other way too which was fine by me.

As for the reality of Global Warming, it scares the pants off of me, and should do the same for everyone else, however in the case of the book, "The Day After Tomorrow," we should look at it with the eyes of wisdom and know that this is not how it will be if the big freeze happens, there will fewer survivors that is for sure, at least for those of us on the surface, those who have access to nice bunkers deep in the warm earth, well, they will be okay, but the world they know and remembered will go the way of the Dinosaurs and they will have to start all over again.

I only hope that whatever is left of humanity if they get that tiny second chance, they don't make the same mistakes as we are making right now.

I don't know about you guys but all I ask for is to be with my family when the "big freeze" comes around, (if it comes around in my lifetime, you never know!) at least we will all go together and you can't ask more than that can you?

I must hand it to Whitley Strieber. I thought nothing could top the sheer intensity and excitement of The Day After Tomorrow in the theater. And nothing can! His book, however, equals it in suspense and drama. Well done!