Customer Reviews

Twister: The Science of Tornadoes and the Making of an adventure Movie

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

 

 

Davidson certainly doesn't deceive anyone with the title of his book. It is about tornado science and the movie, although coverage of the movie making process was a bit spotty. Many will enjoy the tornado stories within; in one a woman is suspended high over a church steeple, afraid that she will collide with a horse suspended likewise.

Overall, though, I was less than fully pleased with this book for two reasons. First of all, it never flows neatly from topic to topic but jumps around instead. Davidson will be telling us about our tornado history and then abruptly switch to talk about the life of a meteorologist or the physics of airflows. There is a lot to cover when writing about tornadoes, but the chapters could have been organized a bit better.

Secondly, the writing style made me feel like a small child in school again. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed at times as though Davidson were writing for an audience no older than thirteen. Readers can judge for themselves.

I was very impressed with this book. It gives in-depth detail about the world of tornado research, and how the movie "Twister" was created. It discusses what VORTEX was, along with personal interviews with the admirable Dr. Erik N. Rasmussen. The stories the victims share are quite amazing as well.

~Laura Duchesne (Storm Chaser)

MY HUSBAND GAVE ME THIS BOOK FOR MY BIRTHDAY, AND IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST GIFTS I EVER RECEIVED. THE SECTIONS ON PEOPLES PAST TORNADO EXPERIENCES WERE WRITTEN SO WELL, I FELT I WAS LIVING IT AS I READ

Davidson is a capable science writer, and his discussion of how tornadoes work and the development of the Fujita scale that measures their destructive power is interesting, but the book as a whole devotes more pages to Jan deBont's 1996 film and how computer geeks created the tornadoes that menaced Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.

The main idea of the book is to narrate a scientist who studied and carried out about twister through out her life. She hoped that she could predict when the twister would come in order to reduce the loss and rescued people from twister. The story also contained some love element.
The leading man and woman both were scientists, and they had the same dreams. I felt that they were very great and brave because analyzing twister was not an easy job. It must spend a lot of time and it was very dangerous. They knew that there were many difficulties but they stilled sacrifice their lives to approach the danger.
After reading this book, I knew that how powerful the twister is. It can destroy all the things within a few minutes. Human is very weak and a lot of events cannot be control by us. We don¡¦t know what will happen, therefore we must cherish the things we have and to do more meaningful things to make our life colourful, just like the character.