Customer Reviews

Island

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

 

 

After watching Pirates of the Carribean i pulled this one off my shelf where it had been collecting dust for a decade...(I bought it after reading Jaws) The Idea of this book is pretty interesting: a man arrives at an island where the people have not "evolved" and are basically still living the life of pirates and do not conform to modern values...There is a hidden treasure of course... but not one we might expect... The problem with this otherwise fine boook is that too much time is speant on the relationship between the protagonist and his son and the troubles in their relationship and not enough time dealing witht he pirates and the seamonsters...

Imagine "Jaws" with Chief Brody's son on board bickering instead of "sharking" and you will get my point...
All in all not a bad read, but "Jaws" and "The Beast" are much more satisfying...

I must admit 'The Island' was a guilty pleasure to read. But I enjoyed it SO much! Peter Benchley has written a suspenseful story about modern-day pirates. Well, maybe not so modern-day, as the pirates behave in a decidedly archaic manner. The ending could have gone either of two ways, and I wasn't sure which way that would be. This kept the suspense going until the very last pages. I recommend this book for good escapist reading.

Peter Benchley's The Island certainly has an interesting idea, the pirates of old are still around and are largely responsible for most of the missing boats in the Bermuda Triangle. Benchley attempts to weave real history with contemporary fantasy, but the results are mixed. The beginning and ending are action packed and suspenseful, but the middle part drags horribly and the pirates way of life does not seem capable of real life survival outside the pages of a pulp novel. Watered down adventure from the author of Jaws.

My apartment building has a small library and one night I was searching through the shelves and came across Benchley's The Island. I remember my mom having a copy of Jaws when I was a kid, and maybe to satisfy a craving of maternal nostalgia, I borrowed The Island and got started on it. Whatever it was, whether it was the personality of the characters and the seventies vernacular they spoke, or the way Benchley's prose flowed in that fluid, rapid way that magazine articles tend to -- whether it was these qualities or something else, I was swept into the novel and read it diligently cover to cover. I was most enrapt with the first half of The Island; however, I became dissapointed when I realized that the second half of the action is limited to -- true its title -- an island. This is where the book slowed down and my mind began to wander to what I would read next. More dissapointing then this, although, was the abrupt ending that leaves the reader with more questions than answers. For instance, what happens to our hero and his son after their ordeal? for instance. Overall I will say, to those wondering if they will read The Island, that the prospect of modern day buccaneers that shoot muskets and drink rum by the gallon is amusing if not droll. But then again, The Island was written 25 years ago before the threat of terrorism captured the nation and world, in those bright blue halcyon days.

Maynard is a frustrated journalist who gave up on writing anything important and settled into his life as a magazine writer, churning out assignments but enjoying some freelance work. One day, he stumbles across an amazing statistic: boats are disappearing in the Caicos Islands area of the Caribbean at a steady rate in numbers too high not to beg for an explanation. His editor, though not as excited about it as Maynard, gives him enough encouragement for Maynard to impulsively take a trip, dragging his 12-year-old son Justin along for the ride.

The Caicos are rather remote, and Maynard only manages to get there by hiring a drunken pilot who crashes his plane on landing. Left with time on his hands, Maynard coerces a friendly, retired professor into renting him a boat so he and his son can go fishing, then ignores the professor's warnings about areas to stay away from, and soon finds out firsthand just exactly why all those boats have gone missing.

He finds himself in a hidden island society governed by a harsh set of rules. The islanders welcome his young son into their midst, but Maynard is on borrowed time. He knows he has to escape and remove his impressionable son from the clutches of the islanders before they turn him into someone he doesn't recognize, but his attempts all fail, and it seems hopeless. Even worse, it isn't long before Justin seems to forget him and allies himself with the brutal islanders.

Though this book put forth an interesting concept, when it was all said and done, there were too many inconsistencies in the plot for me to truly enjoy it. The idea of a society hidden away from the rest of the world for over 300 years was an interesting one, as well as the history concocted for it, but the characters did not ring true. Justin went from a cowering wimp who did nothing to defend himself or his father from an attack at the outset, to a murderer well on his way to leadership in a matter of days. Maynard was also too passive and his doomed escape attempts got annoying. A number of other angles in the plot were also contrived in a way that simply was not believable. I generally find Peter Benchley to be a very engaging writer, but not this time out. Perhaps his publisher rushed this one along, because it is not as well-woven as anything else he has written.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book for two reasons. First, I was thrilled to discover that it not only matched the quality level I remembered from its cousins Jaws and The Deep, but actually surpassed them. Second, I hadn't read a good action thriller in a while, and I was happy to discover I haven't lost my liking for them.

Peter Benchley is a sick, sick individual :) That's a compliment, Benchley. There were several times I flinched when a particularly gruesome act was performed, but rather than put the book down in disgust, I couldn't wait to find out what came next! I was kind of disappointed that it ended when it did, but I suppose dragging it out would have taken away from the climax.

Benchley's powers of graphic, direct narrative are in full force for this effort. I'd look up the film, but I'm sure it couldn't come close to the impact the book had on me (plus, there are some scenes in the book that my mind provided ample pictures of, thanks, and I have no desire to see them on screen!). Definitely worth reading!

Forget what people say in reference to the film, and hear me out on this horrifying novel. First off, this book is in no way, a bad read. It is actually quite excrutiating, and often hard to digest. I suppose that's why it has been written as a more or less lower installment as compared to JAWS and THE DEEP. It captures a nightmarish view on the high seas of the unexpected. More than that, it's a survival story, and thusly, an action packed adventure with violence, drugs, sex, and mindwarping! Blair Maynard is instantly intrigued by a story about dissapearing ships near the Bermuda Triangle. After a hard plea with his boss, he is permitted to investigate it. He brings his son along for some bonding time he is sure will up heave his life, and it does, at first. The duo, after a few days off the coast of Florida, are abducted by modern day Pirates, and taken to an Island where trouble awaits. The leader of the colony mentally robs Blair of his son, by brainwashing the child into a pirate. Blair, on the other hand, is tortured, and chained down most of the time like an animal. His only purpose is to supply a single woman with a healthy child, before he will then die. The life of the sect is even more jaw-droppingly horrifying. There are men, women, whores, and catamites, that all lounge around the area sleeping with each other. They eat and drink the most appauling of things, and high-jack innocent people, only to kill them. What's not to like? It's a nightmare of a story, and upon reading it for the first time, I found myself yearning to escape with Blair Maynard, and to retrieve his son. Such a fast-paced read, with so much creeping suspence and discriptive terror. It's a book you'll never forget. That's for sure!

Pulled this from my shelf when I had a seven hour flight and by the time I touched down, I reached my destination and finished a greatly enjoyable book. It's fast paced pulpy fun that's loaded with action. Yes, there are major holes and unrealistic circumstances. But think Clive Cussler, not Tom Clancy and you'll be fine. Benchley gets your heart going in the right places and at the same time giving you some great trivia about the Bermuda triangle and pirates. The characters are likable and interesting and the decriptive writing is wonderful. Keep in mind this book was written in the seventies and it does come across as dated in some spots. A staple in a used bookstore, it's easy to find. Grab it. It goes back on my shelf for another go in year or two.

First things first - this isn't Tolstoy, it is beach reading. If you are under about 40 this book may not make much sense. Reporters using typewriters for writing and folders of clippings for research will sound like something from hundreds of years ago, but people actually did things like this at least up to the 1980s. Then there is the setting in the Turks and Caicos. Believe it or not, there was a time before GPS, Google Earth, and Sat Phones when you really could be out in the middle of no place with inaccurate maps and no easy way to communicate with the outside world. I have been to that part of the world a few times in the 80s and early 90s and Peter Benchley was quite accurate in his description of a tropical backwater with semi-working phones and the occasional arrival of a possibly drunk pilot in an old beater DC-3. One place I landed had seen no visitors for MONTHS and we started an island-wide letter writing frenzy because we offered to take the mail back to Miami in our plane (and no I wasn't drunk). It also may seem that pirates have always been around, but in the late 1970s piracy was just getting going again after a centuries long absence from the Caribbean*. Unlike the pirates in this book, the real pirates were quite modern and were mainly associated with the drug trade. You can't think too hard when reading this - what group of people would spend their lives in misery on a hellhole of an island when they didn't have to. 17th century, 20th century, or today pirates want a lot of money right now and a place to spend it!

*Now they are mainly gone again from much of the islands. The drug runners have moved elsewhere and so piracy to obtain drug boats has died down. They mostly operate now down in Central America and are more into robbing than stealing the whole boat. People still do get killed by them though :(

A sailing yarn, replete with modern-day pirates looting ships and killing their crews. A sure winner by the author of JAWS and THE DEEP? Nope. This one had a flimsy plot, little character development, and an ending that seemed hurried. It's an okay read for a dull day, but this might be his weakest work.