Customer Reviews

Snakes on a Plane

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The movie is guaranteed to become the cult classic of the year, and if this book is an indicator, it's going to have people squirming in their seats come August 16, 2006.

Herpetologists are going to be squirming with glee at the concept of an airplane besieged by some of the rarest, deadliest snakes in the world, lovingly described in this book by color, size, venom, fangs and rattle.

Animal lovers are going to be squirming in outrage. Yes, I'm afraid to say that many snakes were harmed at least virtually and/or in print during the filming and writing of this pulp-noir-horror-action outrageously campy thriller. To add insult to injury, the snakes are all hopped up and out of their tiny little cold-blooded minds on pheromones. (Owners of handbag sized yappy Chihuahuas won't be very happy either.)

Readers of classic works of fiction are going to squirm at the comic book intensity of this book, where the author keeps piling on the ridiculous dialogue, plot contrivances, cartoon characters of every possible stereotype and of course snakes - lots of snakes.

Apologies for bringing up Paris Hilton here, but she's everywhere already, including in this book. Paris would squirm if she were to read this book (big stretch here), but it also gives equal treatment to rap stars and their bodyguards, animal activists, martial arts practitioners, male flight attendants, kids from broken homes, pregnant women, nursing mothers, gangsters, rock musicians, extreme sports aficionados, computer industry executives, FBI agents, Mary Kate and Ashley, and more. (They didn't leave anyone out)

Fanboys and girls won't be able to sit still while reading this book.

People who hate snakes are just going to squirm - period.

Basically, the story is about a slacker surfer dude from Hawaii who witnesses a murder while out joyriding on his 2006 Yamaha TT-R125E Off Road dirt bike (gratuitous product placement plug here) The Feds need him to testify against the rich, spoiled, ruthless, bad guy gangster, and so they have to get him to the mainland in one piece.

They commandeer the entire first class section of a commercial airplane after cleverly using an FBI jet as a decoy, not realizing that their deluxe cover has already been blown. The bad guys can't let the kid testify, and as they just happen to have access to a large collection of brainwashed exotic venomous snakes and some orchids, they make do with what they have.

The major part of the book is devoted to the passenger list, but I've already given you a list of the stereotypes on board, so we won't go there again. The action builds as the snakes escape their flowery prison, slithering their way through the various little tunnels, ducts and shafts of the airplane. (If you've seen Flightplan, you'll know that there are lots of hiding places on a plane) The survivors battle the never-ending variety of creepy crawlies, throwing up barricades of hand luggage and using whatever weapons they can fabricate at short notice. At one climatic point, a gargantuan twenty-foot Burmese python crashes through a bulkhead light. (Yeah! THAT'S what I'm talking about - that could really happen!)

It goes without saying that by the time we get close to the end of the flight, all the pilots and flight deck crew are incapacitated or otherwise engaged, and SOMEBODY'S gotta land the plane. To quote from the book "Copy that, Hula one two one ..... Welcome to Los Angeles." (The last couple of chapters are too hokey and maudlin for comment, so you can forget them completely.)

If you're entertained by totally ridiculous stuff, you'll love this book, and may already be waiting in line for your movie tickets.


Amanda Richards, August 2, 2006

Heart stopping action with snakes, and a plane! This is book had a life changing effect on me. I learned to love mother natures little helpers, but not if they are on a plane. You have to get the mother freakings snakes off the plane.

This is probably the best book I've ever read. It has action, suspense, everything. I can't wait for the movie. Christa Faust really does a nice job. I couldn't put the book down until it was done.

Sean Jones is a Hawaiian surfer who, while riding a bike, ends up witnessing a murder by a sadistic Triad gangster, Eddie Kim. Sean thought he got away without anyone noticing him, but he was wrong. FBI Agent Neville Flynn gets Sean to agree to testify against Kim. Otherwise, Kim will just make Sean disappear later. The gangster never leaves loose ends.

Agent Flynn and Sean board the plane that will take them to LA for the court hearing. No one was to know what route or plane they were to take. But Kim did not get where he is today without having many deep moles. To silence Sean, Kim will gladly kill hundreds of innocent people. To do so, Kim has a large pallet filled with venomous snakes loaded onto the plane. As the vicious snakes are unleashed upon the unsuspecting people aboard the plane, it falls to Sean and Agent Flynn to battle the snakes and keep the panicked passengers from turning on each other.

**** If the movie is even half as great as the book, then expect some awards to be forthcoming. There are some tense situations that gave me chills. Author Christa Faust did an excellent job into making the movie into a novelization. This title is sure to be a best seller at the theater and the book stores! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I know the plot of the book sounds silly, but if Tolstoy was writing "Anna Karenina" today, he'd have her sitting on a airplane being threatened by snakes. And forget about "War and Peace." We'd all be talking about "War and Snakes...on a Plane."

A snake jumped right out of this book like a spring-loaded projectile of venom and bit be right on the nose! It's just THAT intense! I'm not going to give away any plot-holes or any spoilers, but the Samuel L. Jackson character -- he want's those nakes off his plane -- SERIOUSLY!

Now let's face it, media/tie-in/novelization novels are poorly regarded in the publishing world. Frankly they are considered hack work, done for money in-between other works. 99.99% of them just recreate the scenes/dialog of the movie. Adding nothing. Generic writing in other words.

But that doesn't mean they all have to be bad. And in some cases, they can be great! I used to read a lot of these in the days before DVDs, heck, in the days before the home video market. Novelizations of movies were the only way to relive a movie once it left theaters and was 2-3 years from television. The first one I read that was a cut above was the adaptation of The Abyss by Orson Scott Card. Not surprising considering who wrote it.

But Snakes On A Plane is, without a doubt, the best movie novelization to date. Period. And it won a SCRIBE AWARD!

Christa Faust is a rising star in the publishing world and I urge you to snag a copy of this book (and her other work) before she hits the big time and her books simply disappear off shelves, ebay, the internet, etc. She's that good.

Why buy a movie novelization? Why buy this novelization? Good questions. The answer: Faust's style, great pacing and she single-handedly breathes life into characters, which in the movie, are just fodder for the snakes. She gives them ALL in-depth character traits and back stories. She fleshes them out in a way I have never seen it done in past books of this kind. And all of this background material, which she creates from whole cloth, is interesting, diverse, captivating. If you are a fan of the movie, you'll never look at the passengers the same way again when you view the DVD. You will know who these people are and you'll care about them. As colorful as they are on screen, they are soon snake bait. But in this great book, they become real.

Plus her style is just great! Fast paced, funny, kinetic... Faust can do it all.

For Black Flame she has written Nightmare On Elm Street, Jason, Final Destination and Twilight Zone novels as well as this extraordinary Snakes adaptation. I'm looking forward to reading them all. As well as anything else she's written that I can get my hands on.

All movie novelizations should be this good. Don't miss it.

The first time I saw the commercial for this movie, I was only moderately interested. While taking a stroll in the bookstore I happend upon the novelization and so I figured I'd rather take my chances with a book than a movie. Im so glad I did. Yes the story is cheesy but that is hardly the author's fault. Christa Faust worked wonders with the material she was given. I found the book's character descriptions very vivd and funny. Faust added a lot of humor into the dialogue which made the book even more enjoyable. After reading the book I didn't bother seeing the movie, knowing that I would only be disappointed and $10 poorer!

After the horrible mess Christa Faust made of her Nightmare On Elm Street book, DREAMSPAWN, the last thing I intended to read was another media tie-in by her. But I'd been looking forward to this movie for a while, and when I found myself in the bookstore with a few hours to kill, I decided there couldn't be any harm in reading this.

Talk about surprising. This time, she did good. Possibly because she was bound by the constraints of a script, but she did a good job bringing the film characters to life and giving them extra three-dimensionality, from Paul the British business man to Ken the bisexual male flight attendant. Extra props for her look into Dr. Steven Price, the herpetologist who helps save the day on the ground; one of the most interesting characters in the film, he becomes even more so here.

And, for anyone who's already read it, go Mr. Wong.

I like this book, but the movie was better. I'm had to drop it!!!
I still like the book, because, I intersted in horror things, it is still very descriptive.
I had enjoyed the part of the plane, and she describes how Mercades looks and every thing!