Customer Reviews

Parallax View

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Those readers who approach the book would be surprised how much liberties the screenwriters took with Loren Singer's original novel.

Singer writes a thriller about a former idealist journalist who saw a presidential assasination. A paranoid collegue warns him about the mysterious deaths of the other witnesses and it isn't long before the Parralax Corparation become involved.

Then the story gets weird. The hero is first involved in the murder of a low level employee of the company before he and his collegue are pitted against each other. Unlike the film, the main character does meet the head of the company who reveals the aim of the company to be a social engineering group designed to control democracy. Also, he has an affair with the widow of the man he killed and later saves her sons life.

The book's main assasination is modelled on the JFK killing while the film was on RFK. There are major differences in plot and structure and I would estimate that probably over 80% percent of the book was thrown out by the screenwriters.

Singer has written is a earnest and entertaining thriller that has none of the cyncial downbeat edge of the film. I should not really compare the two but as the book has been out of print for so long, I thought readers would like to know as much as possible about the original source.

I read a LOT. Probably 4-6 books a month. I really enjoy reading a source novel from a motion picture, and I've read enough that I don't expect the novel to follow the movie exactly, or in some cases even closely.

This was one of the most convoluted, poorly written books I have ever read. There really wasn't much of a plot, and the characters were not developed at all. I've read better stories submitted for a sixth grade English class.

Save your time and money on this one.