The Flight Of The Phoenix

Rating:
Summary: Asperger's Syndrome character makes this book stand out
Review: "Flight of the Phoenix" held my attention, as an adventure novel should. What makes this book stand out is a character who is ignored for the first half of the book, because he's quiet and keeps to himself. In the middle of the book he becomes the most important character. In the penultimate chapter the plot twists around this character in what has to be most unexpected surprise I've ever seen in a novel. The character is a young engineer with Asperger's Syndrome, although the book was written thirty years before Asperger's Syndrome was discovered. Individuals with this form of autism are extremely intelligent but have poor social skills. They're ability to focus on a task can be their greatest strength or their downfall. In "Flight of the Phoenix" this is what saves the men, but then...well, I won't give away the plot! I listened to the audio download, which was very good except you really need to see what a Skytruck looks like, as the characters talk about different parts of the airplane wreckage. A quick Google search will find you photos of this type of aircraft.

Rating:
Summary: When You Put Your Mind To It...
Review: A cargo plane carrying workers accross the Libyan desert is brought down by one of the sand storms that the region is famous for.

For the survivors the struggle of life and death will soon make them all aware of the value of human life and the determination of one man who will not take defeat. He is determined to survive and make it home and soon comes up with an amazing idea, that, if he can convince his fellow survivors to help, will get them all home safely.- They can jury-rig a crude areoplane out of the well preserved remains of the cargo plane that has become their unbearable home.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Novel
Review: I read this book when I was in High School, I'm 44 now, and I still remember the last line in the book, "Out of the desert walked seven men and a monkey." I'm currently searching for this book and will pay a good price for it. If you have not read this, read it. Its also been made into a movie, starring James Stewart! 1965

Rating:
Summary: Classic Novel
Review: I read this book when I was in High School, I'm 44 now, and I still remember the last line in the book, "Out of the desert walked seven men and a monkey." I'm currently searching for this book and will pay a good price for it. If you have not read this, read it. Its also been made into a movie, starring James Stewart! 1965

Rating:
Summary: A bit different than the movie
Review: I saw the movie as a kid and was impressed by it, especially the rousing ending, which had people cheering. The book is a bit different. I found it darker, more disturbing. The tone throughout is that these guys are _not_ going to make it. You get the impression that had they not got the plane into the air, they would have been dead the next day. As it is, they're the walking dead the entire time they're building the plane. For some reason, I found the novel too long, even though it's only about 240 pages long. Still, it's a very good novel, and I would recommend both the book and the movie.

Rating:
Summary: fine forgotten novel
Review: The first movie tie-in that I can recall reading was a Star Wars novelization in Spring of '76, before any of us had even really heard about the
movie. At first I just assumed that the George Lucas had based his film on the book, but it gradually dawned that, to the contrary, the screenplay had been the source of a quickie book. (As I recall, the book is credited to Lucas, but I think Alan Dean Foster actually wrote it.) It seemed sort of like a rip-off to me even at an early age and I've been suspicious of books that are also movies ever since. So when I found this one, with scenes from the fine Jimmy Stewart film on the cover and a big movie announcement on the back, I looked it over carefully to make sure that the book had come first. Imagine my surprise when a little research turned up the fact that not only was Elleston Trevor a well regarded author, but he was also the writer known as Adam Hall, who wrote the Quiller series of spy novels, the first of which, The Quiller Memorandum, was voted the 1965 Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Indeed, Elleston Trevor turns out to be a synonym too, for an Englishman, born Trevor Dudley Smith.

In Flight of the Phoenix, Elleston Trevor (for that was what he had his name legally changed to) gives us a harrowing tale of survival against the elements and human frailties in the Saharan desert. Fourteen men and a monkey, returning from the Libyan oilfields, live through a plane crash, but are left without food, water, or a radio, and because a sandstorm had blown them off course, no one is looking for them. The pilot, Frank Towns, is so caught up in justifiably blaming himself that he is nearly ready to give up. But his navigator, Lew Moran, coaxes him towards survival and mediates between the rest of the group and Stringer, a young, arrogant, and hypersensitive engineer who has figured out a way to cobble together a jerry-rigged smaller plane from the wreckage of the original. Stringer, though unbearably officious, is in all likelihood their only way out, if Moran can keep him from storming off in a fit of pique and keep the others from killing him.

Also among the survivors are Trucker Cobb, a chief driller being sent home from the fields because he's begun to lose his mind and Captain Harris, a gung-ho, by-the-book, British officer and several of his less enthusiastic men. There's also Roberts, who, in a gesture of insane but touching tenderness is giving his water ration to the monkey. Together they form an ill-matched group and as thirst, starvation, exposure, madness, and desperation turn up the torque, social order and morality and simple human decency are shunted aside and the men begin to turn on one another. The only thing that gives them some sense of purpose is the slender possibility that Stringer will somehow manage to salvage a workable plane and that Towns will get it together enough to fly them out.

Mr. Trevor keeps the action moving, but doesn't hesitate to draw out the tension, particularly between Stringer and Towns, the two men who are the equally important keys to survival, but who end up vying for authority over the group. This adds an element of Lord of the Flies to what would be a decent enough action yarn anyway. In this case at least, though the movie is now better remembered, the book holds up well as an exciting piece of fiction in its own right.

GRADE : B+

Rating:
Summary: fine forgotten novel
Review: The first movie tie-in that I can recall reading was a Star Wars novelization in Spring of '76, before any of us had even really heard about the
movie. At first I just assumed that the George Lucas had based his film on the book, but it gradually dawned that, to the contrary, the screenplay had been the source of a quickie book. (As I recall, the book is credited to Lucas, but I think Alan Dean Foster actually wrote it.) It seemed sort of like a rip-off to me even at an early age and I've been suspicious of books that are also movies ever since. So when I found this one, with scenes from the fine Jimmy Stewart film on the cover and a big movie announcement on the back, I looked it over carefully to make sure that the book had come first. Imagine my surprise when a little research turned up the fact that not only was Elleston Trevor a well regarded author, but he was also the writer known as Adam Hall, who wrote the Quiller series of spy novels, the first of which, The Quiller Memorandum, was voted the 1965 Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Indeed, Elleston Trevor turns out to be a synonym too, for an Englishman, born Trevor Dudley Smith.

In Flight of the Phoenix, Elleston Trevor (for that was what he had his name legally changed to) gives us a harrowing tale of survival against the elements and human frailties in the Saharan desert. Fourteen men and a monkey, returning from the Libyan oilfields, live through a plane crash, but are left without food, water, or a radio, and because a sandstorm had blown them off course, no one is looking for them. The pilot, Frank Towns, is so caught up in justifiably blaming himself that he is nearly ready to give up. But his navigator, Lew Moran, coaxes him towards survival and mediates between the rest of the group and Stringer, a young, arrogant, and hypersensitive engineer who has figured out a way to cobble together a jerry-rigged smaller plane from the wreckage of the original. Stringer, though unbearably officious, is in all likelihood their only way out, if Moran can keep him from storming off in a fit of pique and keep the others from killing him.

Also among the survivors are Trucker Cobb, a chief driller being sent home from the fields because he's begun to lose his mind and Captain Harris, a gung-ho, by-the-book, British officer and several of his less enthusiastic men. There's also Roberts, who, in a gesture of insane but touching tenderness is giving his water ration to the monkey. Together they form an ill-matched group and as thirst, starvation, exposure, madness, and desperation turn up the torque, social order and morality and simple human decency are shunted aside and the men begin to turn on one another. The only thing that gives them some sense of purpose is the slender possibility that Stringer will somehow manage to salvage a workable plane and that Towns will get it together enough to fly them out.

Mr. Trevor keeps the action moving, but doesn't hesitate to draw out the tension, particularly between Stringer and Towns, the two men who are the equally important keys to survival, but who end up vying for authority over the group. This adds an element of Lord of the Flies to what would be a decent enough action yarn anyway. In this case at least, though the movie is now better remembered, the book holds up well as an exciting piece of fiction in its own right.

GRADE : B+

Rating:
Summary: Book continues to elude Hollywood hoo-ha
Review: With yet another movie treatment of this clever and accomplished novel about to explode onto our screens, it's even more to readers' advantage to check out Elleston Trevor's original story.

The 1965 Robert Aldrich version was a worthy effort but nevertheless held back from tackling the undercurrent of menace and sheer adult writing that made the novel such a triumph in the first place. The 2004 <a href="http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/flightofthephoenix/">Hollywoodization</a>, with Dennis Quaid. G Ribisi and Miranda Otto, barely seems to pay lip-service to the title before galumphing off in good old 'Indiana Jones-meets-Hidalgo' fashion towards lowest common denominated Phantasia-in-the-Sands.

Read quick to avoid disappointment.