On the Beach

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Maybe I'm just of Gen X and need a little more excitement, but I picked up this book expecting great things since everyone calls it 'The best book about the end of the world ever', but I found it extremely dull. Maybe I went into it with the wrong expectations, but this is just a boring story about boring people who happen to be facing the end of the world. This would be a perfect book for the Oprah book club, because all those stories deal with boring people as well. I personally would have liked to have heard more about the submarine trips and have them gone onto shore and delved into that a bit more. Instead, I got stories about an alcoholic woman, a garden, a playpen, a car race, etc. The only reason this got 3 stars is because I liked the suicide pills, I liked the way everyone kept going on with their lives, like they weren't going to die. That aspect of things was interesting, but nothing about this book was compelling to me, not the writing, nor any of the characters. I found it hard to relate to any of them. Since I seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum of everyone else, maybe I'm just missing something, so you should probably read it and see for yourself, but I'm sorry, there are many other better books out there about the end of the world (i.e. The Stand, Lucifer's Hammer, etc.)

Rating:
Summary: Amazing! Not your average end-of-the-world book!
Review: What I liked so much about this book was that it is not about saving the earth, by blowing up a comet or defeating aliens, but rather about the hopeless struggle to just hold on, and about the human reactions to this grim situation. Very stunning!

Rating:
Summary: this is a review of the Casette.
Review: Yes the book was written in the Cold War Era environment. However I believe it is timeless. Someone else must think so or they would not have made an updated version for our no too distant future. Yet some characters are predictable. Even those character that change easily through some sort of epiphany can be predictable. The basic story is that Albania sends a plan with a major country's markings and we retaliate. However this is not a pacifist (don't build bombs book). This is not a si-fi book. It could be a speculative fiction or just speculative.

The book On the Beach ISBN: 0345311485 as most books is more complete in the characterization and description of the story. One the people is a cross of characters. The captain, Dwight Towers, is well trained and loyal to the U.S. to the end. He takes the sub out to international waters, as Australia is an ally, but not the U.S. Moira Davidson realizes that Dwight is married and helps him buy a pogo stick for the kid. She also decides to make something of herself by going to secretarial school. Others plan for next year.

The Audio Cassette ISBN: 0745162819 is unabridged and has the full impact of the book. The only drawback is if you listen to it on the way to work, everyone will notice that you are depressed.

The movie On the Beach (1959) ASIN: 6304111398 Stays fairly loyal to the feel, with a few minor changes. Some of the changes were necessary due to the difference in media. However others were a little distracting. They used major stars that overshadowed the character that they were playing. Ava Gardner was just a tad old for the part of Moira Davidson. However the movie still let the characters be real and predictable.

Rating:
Summary: Good, Not Great, Post-Nuclear Literature
Review: Shute's "On The Beach," while an interesting character study on the aftereffects of nuclear war on a fairly remote population of people, makes for interesting reading, but is not especially outstanding in the realm of post-nuclear literature. The inevitability of the characer's demise leads them to dealing with their situation in many different ways, each of which is realistic and thought-provoking (what would YOU do?) but this book stands more as a study of human psychology in extreme conditions rather than one of the truly great "nuke/mass disaster" novels.

Shute's writing, however, is fantastic and his characters fully believable. The fact that the book is rather short on much except conversation and character development sections more or less shows where its interests lie. This book is definately more for the intellectual interested in the effects of impending doom on people rather than the thrill-seeker looking for a graphic description of nuclear war.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't feel realistic, but is nonetheless fascinating.
Review: Aside from the questions raised by other reviewers as to scientific credibility, the real question to me is: would people awaiting doom continue to act as thoroughly civilized as did the characters in this story? Seems doubtful to me; nevertheless, On the Beach was a fascinating story, moody and thought-provoking.

Rating:
Summary: A troubling apocalyptic nightmare
Review: This is not a post-nuclear adventure book-- nothing here for Mad Max or giant mutant rat fans. It is not even an up-to-date reading of what post-nuclear earth would look like; much more recent scientific speculation contradicts some of the picture here.

But it does give you what Shute does best-- ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. What would you do if you knew that you, and every other human around you, were about to relentlessly, unavoidably, painfully die? This is a powerful haunting hopeless book, but for my money the most realistically frightening picture of the end of human life ever set on the page.

Rating:
Summary: A classic worthy of its reputation
Review: Nothing much happens in the way of action in "On the Beach." The bombs have already dropped and the human survivors are mearly waiting for the end. As a reader, you know they are all going to die, which makes them even more compelling. This is apocalypse fistion at its finest. Shute doesn't cop out and give the story an artificial happy ending. I first read this book while in high school nearly two decades ago and the ending still haunts me.

Rating:
Summary: On the Beach and the edge of my seat
Review: Nevil Shute is brilliant in his answer to his own question - If you knew when and how you were definitely going to die, would you try to go out with a bang, or just wait for the end? Some of his characters go one way, others attempt to leave their mark on the world. This chillingly horrific and completely plausible story begs the question what would you do. Written in the late 50's, but taking place at any time since then (Moira's Ford LTD was still around in the 80's), Shute's vision of the outcome of a nuclear holocaust, and the war from whence it happened, are frightenly possible. I recommend that everyone read this book. I suggest that it be put into school curricula. This neo-classic is as important a story of modern times as Shakespeare is of yore. I still find chills running up my back when I peruse the pages of On the Beach.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely the Worst of the Genre
Review: I like this kind of book -- Alas, Babylon and Warday are among my favorite reading materials -- but I cannot abide Shute. His science is wrong, his people are wrong, everything's just wrong. He's so busy making a statement that he simply can't get *anything* right.

It's not the first time. In 1940, Shute wrote an apocalyptic book about the coming German bombing of London. As we all know, the Blitz was terrible; but in Shute's mind, the Blitz was literally going to be the end of the world. The only difference between that book and this is the addition of the prefix "atomic" to his favorite word "bombs".

Shute was a twit. Go read a good book. You won't find it here.

Rating:
Summary: Great Fiction with a Message
Review: I read this book many years ago and was reminded of it recently. While it was written during the cold war and some of the characters might seem dated it is as relevant today as it was when it was written. It is a compassionate credible story of the end of the world. It should be mandatory reading for every politician and every person so that the apocalyptic vision portrayed in this book never comes to pass.