Customer Reviews

Stingray : The Lethal Tactics of the Sole Survivor

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

To read this sort of stuff, you really have to be a "Survivor" junkie, and I qualify. I have been with it since the start and don't believe I have missed an episode (though some were eminently missable!).

"The Stingray" came out hoping to capitalize on first "Survivor" winner Richard Hatch's instant fame. The author's big beef is 1) CBS has Survivor cast members so locked up, it's a wonder they can even renew their drivers' license and 2) Richard Hatch "strung him along" and a $500,000 book deal sunk from sight because Richard either was unaware of the lock CBS had on him or thought he could get around it.

Mr. Lance never considers that maybe Richard Hatch was also bummed out about losing $500,000. The book is basically one long whine. Lance constantly reminds us he is a multiple award winning "investigative journalist" and Hatch is well---chopped liver. Richard is a fascinating subject, a man that has reinvented himself more times than you can count, very bright, self-destructive, and some of this information is presented.

Awards aside, this book is atrociously edited and hardly a page goes by without major typos and misspellings. The organization is non-existent. Mr. Lance is much given to "More on THIS later" type statements, only there never is any "more." The author constantly zings Hatch with "you knew how to win a million dollars; but you didn't know what to do after you got it."

Well, now it is two years later. Richard seems to be doing ok, and he has been resurrected as the Prime Survivor. All other Survivors are compared to Richard and found lacking. Latest Survivor winner Brian Haydik, who could probably give a whole new meaning to the phrase "coldly ambitious", is believed to have modeled his strategy on Hatch's game. At the time of Richard's win, he was the man you loved to hate, and Peter Lance sneered that would be his undoing. Not necessarily so. Viewers gradually realized you could be Charley-nice-guy and get booted off the island, or you could Outwit, Outplay, and Out Mean everyone else and come home with a million dollars.

Many of the interviews in this book are second-hand, even at the time the book was printed. I gave the book a second star for the occasional insights into Hatch's character. Otherwise, a waste of time.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

It is hard to judge the merits of a book in which typographical errors abound on each page. Worse, the author doesn't know the difference between "elude" and "allude", nor "effect" and "affect." His punctuation is bizarre. Sentence fragments abound.

Clearly, this book was rushed to press to capitalize on Survivor's current popularity.

If you are looking for new information on Survivor, or facts and the life history of Richard Hatch, look elsewhere. Throughout the book, the author repeatedly says "more on that later" or "we'll get to that soon" -- yet never does.

I'm glad I borrowed this book from a friend and didn't pay my own cold hard cash for it.

Bleah. Well, I for one expected better. A lot better. A four-star average rating? I try to be generous in my reviews whenever possible, but the fact that this kind of "reporting" can win even online acclaim saddens me. It's no wonder that Shadow Lawn Press couldn't come up with a single back-cover endorsement from a publication whose words have appeared on actual paper.

First of all, the copyediting in this book is positively atrocious. Practically every paragraph has a misplaced word or a phrase that simply doesn't make any sense. ("In a cruel irony that only Richard himself might appreciate..." Well, obviously you appreciate it too, Peter, or you wouldn't have pointed it out.) Punctuation and capitalization are deployed more or less at random. Forced, sensationalist metaphors and appallingly lame cliches abound. Lance clearly envisions himself an investigative journalist extraordinaire, but he writes like a high-school newspaper staffer, and Shadow Lawn obviously didn't consider it worthwhile to do anything about it. No matter how much she tries to focus on the substance, any reader who respects the English language enough to object to its abuse is liable to find herself distracted, several times per page, by the truly awful style.

Not that the substance itself is much better. I'm not a big fan of either Richard Hatch or major TV networks like CBS, but Lance -- who clearly is still extremely bitter over the death of his plans to co-write a book with Hatch -- bends so far over backward to vilify both that I almost started to feel sorry for them. A good investigative journalist doesn't need to use colorful language in every other sentence to remind us how odious his targets, er, subjects are. If he has done his job well, the unsavory details he uncovers will speak for themselves with only occasional editorial embellishment. But Lance clearly is not such a journalist, despite the fact that -- as he ever-so-subtly reminds us in his introduction -- he's won a bunch of Emmys. He doesn't actually have the dirt, but he can trash-talk with the best of them. (Fans of Survivor I's "queen bitch" Susan Hawk will probably find much to like about this approach.) By the time I finished reading about Lance's "search for 'Rosebud' in this investigation" and cleaning the vomit off my carpet, I had a new appreciation for the lengths to which some people will go to make a lot of money. And I'm *not* talking about Richard Hatch.

This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in the Survivor TV show. It outshines the other two available books about the show, Mark Burnett's canned Survivor and Rich Hatch's threadbare and disappointing 101 Survival Secrets. Of the three, The Stingray is the only one to offer truly objective commentary on the show and to analyze how and why the contestants did what they did both on and off screen.

Lance, originally chosen to help write survivor Rich Hatch's book, brings to light some important facts that the two more sanitized books obviously would never touch. He explores, for instance, CBS' possible violations of FCC rules in influencing the outcome of what purported to be contestant votes. He seems to have a firm grasp on Hatch's personality (a better grasp than Hatch himself, in fact, if Hatch's book is any indication) and skillfully analyzes Hatch's strategy and choices both during and after the game.

More interestingly, Lance analyzes the larger game - that is, the race for fame and fortune off-screen. CBS is the clear winner here, but Lance also adroitly points out both victories and missteps by the contestants after the game ended. He is particularly good at analyzing where Hatch blundered and why a "losing" contestant like Colleen Haskell is likely to profit more in the long run than Hatch, the official million-dollar winner. His Ten Tactics for winning at Survivor are on-target, but his Ten Lessons for Translating Victory into Longterm Success are positively inspired. Example: "It isn't enough to win the game. The public must celebrate your victory."

Lance went wrong in a few important ways, though. First, this book could also use a good proofreading. And while Lance's research in the most interesting areas appears to be solid, he seems to have run out of steam when it came to tying up loose ends (such as whether CBS really did influence the votes). Where he has no good evidence to offer, he strays into conspiracy theory and in place of analysis simply asks one rhetorical question after another: "Why would Dirk have brought it up to Stacey if it didn't happen? Why would Stacey...?" More than one section plays out in this unsatisfying fashion.

The great drawings by Zeebarf (who did the cover illustration) add a lot to the book's appeal. While a good editor could have made this book into something more satisfying, it's still a quick and lively read. Anyone interested in the show would find this book hard to put down.

Richard Hatch's book 101 Survival Secrets was transparent and empty. Mark Burnett's Survivor: The Ultimate Game was a boring rehash. Stingray, although filled with some distracting typos (probably from having to write the book in 3-4 weeks), and a narrative style that is more fitting for a movie script (which I guess is what he does for a living now) is the best Survivor book on the market.

Lance's findings have since been covered so thoroughly by the news media, especially since Stacey Stillman's lawsuit, that it was a bit anticlimatic, but I don't think this is a story that would have ever been told were it not for Lance's decision to tell the truth about a manipulative man, a greedy network, and producers that pushed the boundaries of objectivity in the hottest gameshow on TV.

This is a very entertaining book. It features much more personal information about Richard Hatch than his book does. It offers a blunt look at both Hatch's life and the antics of CBS and Survivor producer Mark Burnett. This book is a must for both Survivor lovers and haters. For those who hate Hatch, there is enough information to keep you happy, but also some stuff about the sad parts of Hatch's life that should have even the biggest haters of the man feeling sympathetic toward him. The best part of the book tells of possibly tampering of the outcome of the show by Mark Burnett and also of the control of the contestents that CBS has. The cartoons at the beginning of each chapter are very good and add to the enjoyment of the book.

"The Stingray" may shoot, but it misses. This book, by a former ABC news journalist, is a feat of bad editing, unsupported accusations, and contradictions. The author claims the castaways were denied the ability to make money from their experience, when Stacey, Dirk, Kelly, and the author himself all comment in the text of the profitability for all (including castaways) of their experience; he hints repeatedly that the outcome of the game was largely fore-ordained by the producers, although he writes the book partly as a how-to guide of how Richard's choices (based on his life) controlled the game; he claims that because Sean was too dumb, it is unlikely he was Tagi's original choice of ambassador, but later claims Sean was misrepresented and far more intelligent than represented by CBS; he includes Stacey's allegation of Mark Burnett's "suggestion" that Sean should vote out Stacey rather than Rudy, but he fails to follow up the logic of Sean *still* voting against Rudy, supposedly protected by the producer, in the very next tribal council; Lance claims he was the "17th victim" of Rich, when his own depiction of Rich seems to be that of an unprofessional nouveau-celeb who simply didn't know how to manage his career; the author blames CBS for their ability to extract life rights from the contestants, but does not comment on the fact that even Dirk consulted with a lawyer before signing his contract. Adding to the annoyance factor of this book is the author's choice of including personal letters and emails from Stacey and Richard, both of which seem rather slimey choices, given that the author claims he no longer speaks to either. Overall, this seems to be a cheap, exploitative, fringe-effort attempt at squeezing money out of the "Survivor" series.

I could not put this book down! 5/5

"The Stingray" should be called "The Bible of Survivor Hopefuls". A great read! The book explains not only behind the scenes details of SURVIVOR, that CBS is trying by all possible means so hard to hide, but also what can happen, good and bad, to individuals (mostly Richard Hatch but also Dirk, Stacey and to a lesser extent Sean and Kelly) placed "within the game". He uses Richard's life experiences in getting a greater depth of understanding of how and why Hatch acted as he did. Due to CBS's highly restrictive gag orders on all the contestants most of Lance's information is otherwise NOT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE.

I think that Lance is doing a great service to the public by bringing up his strong points about the producer's program manipulations and CBS's severely restrictive contracts. If the networks take a serious look at making their programs fairer or at lessening the lifelong legal stranglehold on participants then 90% of the credit for this change must go to Lance for being the first to expose the problems. What was previously thought of as "Lance's conspiracy theory" in certain circles is now coming to light with the David vs. Goliath lawsuit of Stacey Stillman. Hopefully the details of the depths of network manipulation of the contestants will not be hidden from the public by an out of court settlement by a frightened CBS. Hopefully the case will go to trial and under oath make the truth public. Lance will no doubt be there to tell us about it as it develops.

My only criticisms are that with Lance having referenced the restrictiveness of the ability of the contestants (or anyone such as production crew, for that matter) to speak with him I would have liked more details and analyses of the various contracts the contestants are required to sign as well as how they compare with SAG and AFTRA contracts. We heard of offers that certain contestants were unable to accept but I am interested in more details of those that they accepted. I expect that this was due to the fact that his book was rushed to press and all information was not yet available to him. Also, Lance references Burnett's book on more than one occasion. Having read that book first it made certain aspects easier to understand that Lance could have covered in more detail. I truly hope that Lance continues his digging, his investigation and follows up this book with a second book which would outline and explain all the specific documents that CBS requires the contestants to sign and follow through by looking at all the contestants to see if/how their SURVIVOR I and II experience positively/negatively affected their lives one-two years down the road. All current lawsuit information should be updated and explained in layman's terms. The SURVIVOR phenomenon is a social experiment in action and should be followed up as things develop. Lance is in the perfect position to do this.

If anyone is considering applying for SURVIVOR this book is not a "should read" book but rather a "must read" book. Prior to reading "The Stingray" at age 40 I was an excited hopeful SURVIVOR contestant. After reading "The Stingray", even if selected I'm not sure that I would "sign my life away" even if it would bring me a million (or $530,000 after taxes) and fame.. I have learned that the "true enemies" are not the other contestants but rather the tyrannical control of the "eye" network, all this thanks to Lance. This information alone is worth 10x the price of the book. Keep up the good work. SURVIVOR FANS: 5/5 "Other readers": 3/5

The pinnacle of Survivor books! If you want to read a book that will not allow you to put it down, this is the one. The author, Mr. Peter Lance, has packed this one from cover to cover with everything that you would want to know about Survivor, the cast (especially Richard), and the corporate noose around all of their necks as they continue to stand on the CBS scaffold. Take my word on this, it is one of the most enjoyable books that you will ever come across.

This would have been a mildly interesting book, but two things spoiled it for me: 1) careless editing (typos, grammar, errors of fact - getting Sue's last name wrong in one spot was the most glaring), and 2) tabloid-esque teasers and hyperbole ("wait-till-you-hear-what-shocking-thing-I'm-about-to-tell-you!")

It's hard to believe that Lance could have won a journalism prize if this is how he usually writes. The same material, had it been written in a more straight-forward and less hysterical manner, would have made for a much thinner, but more readable account of the behind-the-scenes insider dirt that I expected.

As it is, the book appears to be an amateur production. I wasn't impressed.