Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating!!!!
Review: This is an excellent work of researched fiction. Art Bell and Whitley Strieber carefully offer historical data, which seemingly is about to be repeated on Earth, possibly resulting in the destruction of society as we know it. The evidence of an "extinction event," which took place millions of years ago, instantly stopping most life forms on the planet in their tracks, is presented throughout the book with an ongoing analysis as to what exactly occurred. Whatever it was, drastic weather changes were somehow involved. Today, global warming and the recent climatic changes around the world make the authors' story and line of reasoning very compelling. Accounts of fictitious worldwide scenarios are interspersed throughout the book's researched data, vividly depicting an ominous scene of what might be to come. The combination of fact and fiction work very well to focus on one concept throughout the book: the possibility of a global superstorm.
Rating: 
Summary: Good In Places
Review: The book was good, but some of the parts are really slow to read through, and somtimes its just plane boring. But be that as it may this is a very interesting book about The storms now and the whole theory of the superstorm. If you are the least bit interested in this book read it.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing Scenarios of a Future Apocalypse
Review: I found this book quite distressing and not very pleasant reading. I guess B and S did not intend it to be, but I was overcome by a sense of hopelessness. Their proposed solution to "buy some more time" in the face of this impending disaster seemed lame and anti-climatic to me. I feel that I did learn a few things that I never knew about, mainly why Central America virtually changed Earth's climate from a nice tropical one throughout the hemispheres and how mammoths could have been eating flowers right near the Artic Circle to the cold climate we have in the Northern hemisphere today. The book is worth reading but I would like a second opinion about all the things they bring up regardng the existence of these superstorms from leaders in the meteorological sciences. Maybe that is too much to ask, but I cannot fully accept that these disasters do happen every 8,000 years ever since Central America was formed 3,000,000 years ago cutting off the tropical ocean currents to both hemispheres and forcing the currents to take a North-south direction as they do today. It is very intriguing though to one who has little background in climatology such as me.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the audio version...
Review: I got both the book and audio version from my neighbor, and I opted to listen to the tapes rather than read the book. I actually found a lot of THE COMING GLOBAL SUPERSTORM pretty interesting. On the same token, a lot of the book bordered on being very dogmatic and sensationalistic, made me sort of question the book's credibility. I think it's definitely an interesting read (or listen) for people who love the study of weather (though I think the Weather Channel is at times more exciting than this book), and I highly suggest if you do decide to buy his book, you should buy the auido version--it's a lot easier to digest.
Rating: 
Summary: bell sounds hollow
Review: New episodes of 'night gallery'--and not very good ones. (One star given as zero stars not offered!) Don't waste your time or money on this drivel.
Rating:
Summary: Buy It for The Last 3 Chapters -- Forget the Rest
Review: The first 20 chapters of the book are so poorly organized and executed that they become virtually pointless. These chapters and the colorful disaster scenarios that border them are obviously written by Strieber. The last three chapters and the final disaster scenario begin on page 191. The writing style here is as different as night is to day, and patently reflects Bell's populist approach to controversial topics. In these well-written chapters, he puts forth several kindly-worded and well-reasoned positions that drive straight to the heart of the Global Warming debate. If you choose to buy this book, start reading at page 191. If you still have time (and patience) after that start at the beginning. Feel free to skim along as Strieber likes to rehash the same concepts and facts time-and-again. Simply put, the first 190 pages of this book could have been compressed into a rather nice 5-page article, but the final three chapters are what makes Superstorm worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book--Thanks Art and Whitley! You guys ROCK!
Review: The first thing I would like to say is that reading the reviews ,the people who gave this book a bad review, I thought all had soemthing in common. Those who gave the book a bad review were people who did not understand the book and why it was written so they got frustrated and gave it a bad review. They also seem to know the exact effects of global warming. Let me explain why I think the book was written. This book takes a step out on that ledge. This kind of book is what Art Bell and Whitley Strieber chose to write about because they had the balls to do it and they dont fear ridicule--I commend them. This book opens your mind to things that could happen and tries to get people motivated to do something about the destruction of our planet. Not only is this a good book, but it also asks people to take action--which would be good for ourselves AND our planet and exactly the opposite of what another reader said "This is Art Bell's way of making another buck". That is an ignorant comment and clearly this book was WAY above that readers head. Everyone seems so uptight about the "scientific" content. This book is clearly not the "global warming bible." It was meant to throw ideas out at you and for you to come up with your own answers. If you expect this book to be a complete answer to global warming, its not. Yes, that means think for yourselves(god forbid). If cold hard facts are all that you are interested in, then I feel sorry for you. What do you do with a bucket of cold hard facts and no imagination? Well, not much they just sit there. Creativity and imagination is the glue that pieces these facts together. Ask yourselves this question. If you did have all the cold hard facts, what would you do? Smoking causes cancer, yet people still smoke. Do you smoke?
Rating:
Summary: Quick, cautionary and effective
Review: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Strieber/Bell's collaboration (though I suspect Strieber wrote at least 90%, if not all, of it). The author/s (?) make their point well, and Strieber's illustrative sequences are quite well done, making me wish he'd return to fiction writing. I appreciated this book's decidedly speculative bent.
Rating:
Summary: Global Warming and the Next Ice Age
Review: Referring to the book, I think it is a good read about past global catastrophes and ice ages and also warming periods. I think if the "Superstorm" happens, there has to be a tremendous amount of energy in the atmosphere in the form of water vapor and the disruption of the ocean currents, in which both are happening already. The next ice age is upon us soon or sooner than we think. The storm that Art and Whitley are talking about would be hellish indeed, winds approaching superhurricane force (180 to 240 m.p.h), huge amounts of snow in the north, bone-chilling cold, high storm surge waves, the atmosphere so stirred up that hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones and tornadoes are commonplace around the world, great floods if the snow melts in the summer, wicked blizzards in the mountainous regions of the North- west, Rockies, Idaho, Utah and other places and also if the snow stays during the summer, the cycle of the next ice age will start. The areas in the North Atlantic like Great Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France and other parts of this region will plunge into a deep freeze, with London's winter becoming like Siberia and Scandinavia will be covered in permanent snow year-round, Winter temperatures in Moscow, Russia will fall 20 degrees. The disruption of this current will have worldwide impact as well, with Santa Barbara's climate will become like Juneau, Alaska and Seattle's climate will turn into more like the climate of Anchorage, Alaska. So if readers are interested and meteorologists are int- erested in what is likely to go on with the weather, I recommend people to get this book, because our life depends so much on a warm climate. The impact of the coming global cooling will shorten growing seasons and winters will be brutal, global warming will eventually trigger an ocean current collapse and the next ice age.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting topic but...
Review: This is a really interesting topic and concept. However, the attempt to mix in a fictional story line just messes the book up. They would have been better off doing a complete scientific piece or a total fictional piece.
|
