Customer Reviews

Glamour, Greed & Glory - Dynasty

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Pity us poor Dynasty fans. While the DVD releases for its old rival Dallas come out thick and fast, the Dynasty DVD release schedule seems to have stalled with just one miserable release. If season 2 is ever released, it seems unlikely that the recent reunion show will be included as an extra. And if Dynasty fans were hoping that maybe a little nostalgia book such as Glamour, Greed and Glory would fill some of the void, then they will be sorely disappointed.

This is an awfully cheap book. I am surprised that Joan Collins wrote an introduction. The book is badly edited and filled with typing errors. It is also printed on very cheap paper.

As for the content - it is nothing less than woeful. I was hoping for a great compedium such as Barbara Curran's excellent 25 Years of Dallas, but much of this book is taken up with rather embarrassing "fan fiction", there are no cast or crew interviews or interesting trivia, and as I believe one other reviewer has already observed, the episode summaries have been downloaded directly from fan sites.

The only thing of vague interest is the good collection of promo ad cuttings.

Don't waste your money on this dreadful book. Try to get a second hand copy of 1984's Dynasty: The Authorized Biography of the Carringtons and Joan Collins' autobiography Second Act instead, and also keep an eye out for the E! True Hollywood Story which I'm sure reruns on pay tv/cable fairly frequently.

I also find it very interesting that many of the people who have written rave reviews of this book and contributed to its totally unworthy overall star rating have only written one Amazon review - could they be friends of the authors one cannot help but wonder? Doubtlessly the same loyal agents will swifty rate my review "unhelpful", but all of the ratings riggings in the world cannot change the fact that this book is a rip-off. Please don't waste your hard-earned money on it.

I had read the reviews and being a Dynasty fan recently purchased the book. I was very disappointed. A lot the content is available online and the quality of the writing leaves a lot to be desired.

Some specifics. One of the chapters consists of biographies of the main characters. However, they are terribly written. Tenses change back and forth from past to present at random. Typographical errors abound.

There also are holes in the characters' biographies. For instance, the biography of Blake begins by talking about his marriage to Alexis and the tremendous impact that Adam's kidnapping had on them. Yet in the subsequent summary of Blake's life, there is no mention of Adam's return as an adult. There is suddenly a mention of Adam in passing (in relation to the failed Denver Carrington/ColbyCo merger). By contrast, there is a mention of Amanda's arrival. If someone didn't already know the details of the show, they would miss important facts about the characters.

The book contains a summary of each episode, but they appear to be nearly identical to the ones available online at the Soapnet website. Those are brief and relatively incomplete. It boggles my mind that the authors of what is supposed to be an authoritative story of the show have not done their own summaries of each episode in detail. That would have been a nice resource.

Two chapters are devoted to fanfiction stories, one by Judith Moose. That contributes to the sense that the book is more a compilation prepared by a devoted fan and not really intended as a professional work. It would have been nice to include interviews with the actors throughout the book to really provide an insiders' guide to the show. (To see how a great compilation is put together, look at the Star Trek Compendiums, which have episode-by-episode summaries and also provide behind-the-scenes information about each episode.)

That is not to say there are not any good features of the book. I enjoyed the collection of television advertisements, and the chapter of magazine covers brought back memories of how my friends and I would hit the local newsstand every Tuesday to see if there were any Dynasty-related issues. It also was interesting to read the fan-written comments about the show. Unfortunately, the fact that some of them are better written than the opening chapters only highlights the poor quality of the authors' writing.

To say this book is a disappointment is a massive understatement. Admittedly, at around 700 pages, you immediately think this is a suitably weighty volume and value for money. Only as you look inside the book, you realise what a shallow enterprise this work truly is.

The book has a complete episode guide illustrated with what look like screen captures and indeed there are plenty of photos. However, the book has been poorly printed on really cheap paper, which simply doesn't do justice to the pictures. For a series memorable chiefly for its expensive set decoration, extravagant costuming and overall campy opulence, this book is utterly unexciting in a visual sense.

The large print text and banal, witless prose leave you in no doubt that this is not so much a book, more a cobbled together, really badly written fanzine. The book contains remembrances from Dynasty fans that appear to have taken verbatim from internet sites and message boards which only serves to exacerbate the book's amateurish, thrown together feel. The fan fiction included is simply embarrassing.

For a series as significant as Dynasty was in defining the 1980s "greed is good" zeitgeist, there's absolutely no genuine attempt at any kind of analysis of the Dynasty phenomenon, of placing the series in a cultural context or even a vaguely engaging account of the behind the scenes events surrounding the making of the series. The text we have here is just far too superficial.

Overall, this is not a patch on Barbara Curran's superb book on Dallas. If you're looking for the definitive account of the making of Dynasty and the series' place in popular culture and television history, then I'm afraid you're going to have to look elsewhere.

I bought this book expecting to read an authoritative history of 'Dynasty' similar to Barbara Curran's excellent review of 'Dallas'. Focusing more on the production aspects of the series - the background politics and intrigues surrounding how the show was made each week. Instead what we have here is largely a recapitulation of the show's storylines and characters. Such information is readily available from other sources, and indeed a large portion of it in Judith's book is recycled material. New information is sorely lacking and this book substitutes length (over 700 pages) for depth. As it stands Judith's book has the tone of an overly long fanzine, when what I hoped for was an intelligent book reviewing one of my favourite television shows.

I first hesitated a little bit to order this book because of the negativity of reviewers before me. But went ahead and ordered it along with other Dynasty books. My first impression: I didn't expect it to be such a thick book, lots of reading for sure. I started reading the introductions and looked at the pictures, many of which I had never seen before. After that I could not put the book away for several hours, it was so much fun to read about about all the tidbits, behind the scene information and episode summaries. While the book indeed relies on currently available website content (but this doesn't go unacknowledged), it is different to access all this in a book format.
The only complaint is that a few of the pictures are of rather low resolution and thus one cannot read the texts (magazine covers, comics) printed on them plus the pages of the book aren't numbered nor is there a table of contents but these are just minor observations. All in all it is very a comprehensive book, I will definitely cherish it and read it again and again and if you are a fan of Dynasty, you'll definitely like it! And it looks like Season 2 is finally coming out this year on DVD June 19, 2007!

If you're looking for a book that's going to tell all of the secrets of who did what to whom then you need to pass this book by because it's not like that. What it is is a walk down memory lane for fans of the greatest nighttime soap opera in history. Everyone knows the background on the show and most people know what the episodes were about but the book has a soft feel to it that doesn't even go into any of the rumors and gossip. It's just a book that anyone from nine to ninety could read and enjoy. I'm glad I bought it.

Oh my God, what can I say other than this book totally rocks! Chapter 1 tells everything about Aaron Spelling and the Shapiros then gives the list of crew members. Chapter 2 is the biggest character guide I've ever seen. It even has the characters' middle names that I didn't know they had! Chapter 3 pleasantly talks about the series from beginning to end. Chapter 4 is hilarious! Judith and Paul came up with some pretty good observations about the show's screw-ups. Chapter 5 has a great interview with Nolan Miller and all of the stuff put out for the show. Chapter 6 has all of the TV Guide pictures, magazine covers, cartoons and even photos from Dynasty's anniversary parties. Good thing the candles weren't burning while Michael Nader and Joan Collins were leaning over the cake! (You'll see!) Chapter 7 gives the listings and some pictures for all the awards Dynasty and The Colbys won. Chapter 8 is a group of fans talking about the show. Chapter 9 is a quiz with a few really hard questions. Chapter 10 is the episode guide for Dynasty that has a really cool story called The Courtship of Blake and Krystle in front and a killer story called Could I Have This Dance at the end. Chapter 11 is the episode guide for The Colbys and has character profiles in it for those people. I love the title of that chapter! Chapter 13 covers that hideous movie The Makings of a Guilty Pleasure. Chapter 14 is the release of Dynasty on DVD. Chapter 15 is kinda cool because it has listings for what some of the stars are up to and gives a list of books and videos and music. Chapter 16 lists the best sites to find Dynasty stuff. Think you're finished? Think again! There's two more sections. The first one has a great bio on Bill Conti and then has the theme sheet music in two different versions. The other section is the details of the real house that was used as the Carrington's mansion. Then there's an acknowledgement section and credits at the end. Sorry this review was so long but I had to let you know what's waiting inside.

Picked this book up last week and thought it was a good deal for the money. It's got pretty much what the rest of television books have except many more photographs than most. The content of the book is good. There's an unusual chapter in which the authors give the fans a chance to talk about the show. Some of the comments were very interesting to read. If Dynasty fans are as die-hard about getting collectibles about their favorite series as fans of other shows are then they will enjoy this book.

I received this book a few days ago and couldn't believe my eyes. I was expecting 600 pages like it says on the description but what I got was 704 pages jammed with everything you can think of that's related to Dynasty and The Colbys. I never knew very much about Esther and Richard Shapiro's background but they've covered that nicely. The episode guides are huge! Chapter 12 has candid photos of the cast that I've never seen before. I don't know who Goran Markovic, Helge Ebsen or Robin Wildschut is but Judith Moose must think the world of them because they've each gotten a really nice thank you in the acknowledgements. All in all, Glamour, Greed & Glory is a great read. Thank you Judith and Paul for writing "The gospel according to Blake Carrington!" LOL!!!

This book is a classic for fans of Dynasty. Judith Moose and Paul Keylock put together a book that's over 700 pages long with (I counted) 723 pictures. There's great information, a huge biography on the show's creators, two really good pieces of fan fiction, the most comprehensive episode guide for The Colbys out there and so much more. If you love this show, you've got to have this book!