Rating: 
Summary: Magnificent
Review: I simply cannot understand the reader from Texas that awarded this cracking book one star. I bought it to take on holiday. Gripped by the cover I thought "Oh I'll just take a quick look at it and then save it". I put it down finished at 5.00am the following morning. It is a fascinating piece of history superbly written.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read this year
Review: What a story! I was enthralled by *Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea*. It usually takes an action novel like Clive Cussler writes, or a Clancy yarn, or a good war novel like *The Triumph and the Glory* to sustain my interest. But a cracking good tale is a cracking good tale, and this one qualifies for sure. Kinder has put this book together with a masterful touch, a great combination of flashback with the modern effort to find the wreck. They should make a movie of this book it would be awesome!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book, adventure and technical pioneering
Review: I have read two books this year about great Americans who were dedicated to improving our knowledge and control of the world around us. One was Charles Lindbergh (Scott Berg's terrific biography, "Lindbergh.") The other an engineer named "Tommy" Thompson who probed the deep ocean, and recovered treasure after 130 years, with equipment his team designed and which no one had thought could be built to operate at depths of 9,000 feet. Lindbergh and Thompson had the same kind of dedication to advancing our conquest of the skies and the seas, the same concern for preserving our environment, enhancing our knowledge of living species. "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" is a fascinating and exciting book for anyone interested in knowing more about the men and women on the frontiers of technological achievement.
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional novel of entrepreneuralism & discovery.
Review: 5+ Stars- This novel effectively portrays the independence and creativity of the human mind.
Rating:
Summary: What a great adventure!!
Review: One of the best reads of 1998. It has it all, adventure, gold, mystery, dirty double crossing scoundrels, everything, and it's all true!! Bet you can't put it down after reading the first chapter. If Amazon has a more than 5-star rating, this book should get it. Haven't had this much fun reading in years.
Rating:
Summary: A gripping, engrossing story!
Review: Kinder's contrast between the sublime, poignant last hours of the SS Central America and Tommy Thompson's search for the "Ship of Gold" was enthralling from the first sentence. It was the best book on seafaring and adventure I've ever read, and thankfully not melodramatized like what has tragically happened to the story of the passengers of Titanic. A superlative book beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: I lost sleep because I could not put it down
Review: In the 1850's the California gold rush opened up the door to the west. In addition it brought a large amount of gold via ship to banks on the east coast. The 300 foot paddle wheel steamer Central America was enroute from Panama to New York in 1857. Onboard were over 400 passengers including and over 21 tons of gold when it encountered a hurricane 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina, eventually sinking in 8000 feet of water. The drama, heorism and tragety that ensused over the next week is a true legend of sea faring folk that has been memorialized in many ways including a 40' statue of the captain at the Navel Academy.132 years later a brilliant and eccentric young engineer, Tommy Thompson, is convinced that the ship can be found and salvaged. The research, search and recovery that follows reads like a high tech thriller. This book is really two stories, interwoven across 132 years, well written and reads like a fiction thriller, only it's not. The author spent 10 years researching and writing Ship of Gold and the result is a delightful read that gives insight into a marvelous time in American history. The book details a relatively unknown but compelling sea disaster and neatly wraps it up in a modern, techno treasure hunt with heavy emphasis on one mans quest to help tame the deep ocean.
Rating:
Summary: A absolute "must read" for any would be treasure hunter
Review: I found the historical references accurate and very well put together. I held my interest from cover to cover and was an easy book to read. The tragedy of the shipwreck and the excitement of the search-disappointments, failures and successes came alive through the pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Historically interesting treasure story
Review: This nonfiction treasure-hunting tale is at times extemely interesting and entralling, particularly the historical recreation of the diasaster that befell the Central America, but drags interminably through the parts dealing with the extraordinarily uninteresting character biographical development of the treasure hunter(s). More and more, as one reads, one could hardly care who the treasure hunters are. As the treasure unfolds and is recovered, one waits hopelessly for real details and historical perspective on the discoveries, and what one gets are how the team leader has micro-managed the project on this or that irrlevant undersea photo opportunity. Becase this book loses its way from the history and treasure after an awasome start along those lines, it became a trmendous disappintment. One hopes that someone will write a follow-up that completes the story in a more satisfying way.
Rating: 
Summary: Detailed, scientific, historical, yet suspenseful & readable
Review: Part 19c shipwreck story, part modern-day deep sea recovery adventure, Ship of Gold tells of the sinking of the sidewheel steamer Central America in 1857 with 21 tons of gold. This was well written and particularly gave a sense of the complexity of such a deep sea recovery venture, as well as how long it takes. The author is really into the mind of Tommy Thompson (the recoverer) in all its non-conformist, innovative, genius. So, a look into a possibly genius mind, plus glances as the California gold rush, the shipwreck itself (as narrated by survivors), the "treasure hunting" industry, and the deep sea recovery industry. Some crossovers with The Perfect Storm (the shipwreck parts) and Blind Man's Bluff (for deep sea technology - some of the characters from BMB appear in SOG). Detailed, scientific, historical, yet suspenseful and very readable!
|
