Customer Reviews

Getting Lost: Survival, Baggage, and Starting over in J. J. Abrams' Lost (Smart Pop series)

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"Getting Lost" consists of 14 short essays about the hit ABC show, "Lost." With few exceptions, the majority of the essays are mediocre. "Lost" is a show with deep meanings and I would have preferred essays with stronger philosophical references.

The book also contains a fantastic introduction by Orson Scott Card, and a poorly written, most useless "Lost Encyclopedia".

If you live near a bookstore coffee shop, read the essays bit by bit when you visit, but save your money otherwise.

Of the 16 essays presented in this collection, only three were worth my time:

(1) Orson Scott Card's Introduction is a very informative and thoughtful analysis showing how TV has evolved over the last half-century and how LOST may be the next "evolutionary" step.

(2) Amy Brenner's "Double Locked" illustrates how the fictional character John Locke closely echoes the teachings of the real-life 16th century philosopher with the same name.

(3) Glenn Yeffeth's "The Art of Leadership" is the highlight of the collection, which discusses how Jack, Locke, and Sawyer are all really bad leaders. And it puts forth a pretty good argument that Hurley may be the best leader on the island.

Some of other 13 essays fall into the category of Comedy. "The Same Damn Island" points out the show's similarities with Gilligan's Island. "LOST Connections" attempts to concoct a conspiracy theory based on which actors have appeared on film together throughout their careers.

"The LOST Book Club" and "Have You Been Framed?" examine literary allusions and shared themes with classic works. "LOST in Love" tries to analyze every love pairing on the show. Surprisingly, only the essay "Game Theory" actually attempted to explain the mysteries; but I really hope the show doesn't turn out to be just one giant video game.

"Oops" and the Encyclopedia are both out of date, due to events that been aired since the publication of the book.

Overall, I guess I wanted more of these authors to present their theories to explain the mysteries. Instead, I felt most of these pieces were just fluff and "talking head" analysis.

It seems like more and more of these Lost analysis books are coming out every month -- as this one was compiled by Orson Scott Card, though, I figured it would be worth picking up. It's not bad, but it's really not any better than any of the other collections of Lost-inspired essays out there.

Card has pieced together a book of essays detailing various aspects of the Lost phenomenon by various writers -- essays of varying quality. A piece by Adam-Troy Castro arguing that the Losties are sharing the same island as Gilligan and the Skipper is great; a piece by Amy Bender dissecting the character of John Locke (written, ostensibly, in the character of the historical John Locke) is ponderous and dull. The rest of the pieces are somewhere in-between.

The book wraps with a long Lost "encyclopedia" by Wayne Allen Sallee, which is of mixed usefulness. Entries for each of the main characters and the actors who portray them, books and cultural references in the show and clues to the mysteries are all quite useful. For several entries, though, it feels like Sallee was just padding the section -- do we really need him to define "acolyte" for us without giving any explanation as to its purpose in the show, for instance? In fact, when we reach the entry for "Jaunty Cravat," Sallee outright admits someone pointed out there weren't enough "J"s. No wonder it felt bloated.

An okay book, as good as any other Lost book out there, but not great.

I love this show, its the best on TV. I've also found this book to be very good also. Now I'm going back and watching all the seasons over to find secrets and clues that I may have missed.

One of the things LOST introduced me to was the Twilight Zone which J.J. Abrams was inspired. Besides this book, I recommend one other also on Amazon.com. THE TWILIGHT ZONE: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams. Together, both books open the skies for cult television.

Not a bad book. It was just interesting enough to keep me reading until the very end. I would recommend this book to other people who really like the show.