Deep Water

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious thriller
Review: Deep Water is sophisticated, sarcastic and unrelentingly funny.
Here's a refreshingly twisted take on Disney, corporate profits and the incredible naivete of a population all too eager to bask in the pixie dust.
It moves. It's got a healthy dose of romance and action. And, for Floridians, it's a caustic reminder of the staggering impact of the sweetheart pairing of entertainment industry and media hype. After Speed Week, Smokeout and Final Orbit, I expected nothing less.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably entertaining
Review: I have't read Hiassen so I can't compare as some other reviews have done, but I found this book to be totally funny. The plot and its various turns *were* unbelievable, but the subtle and overt jokes are so funny. I guess I didn't expect something real...and the storyline is so quick that you don't spend a lot of time needing to believe it. Date's humor and satire is right on. Very entertaining!!

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably entertaining
Review: I have't read Hiassen so I can't compare as some other reviews have done, but I found this book to be totally funny. The plot and its various turns *were* unbelievable, but the subtle and overt jokes are so funny. I guess I didn't expect something real...and the storyline is so quick that you don't spend a lot of time needing to believe it. Date's humor and satire is right on. Very entertaining!!

Rating:
Summary: Blind Date Turns Bad
Review: I love Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey's novels and had expected a lot from S.V. Date. What makes Hiaasen and Dorsey so good is that they can take the absurd real news stories and turn them into believable thrillers. Date is a very good writer buts to often resorts to tricks to resolve problems. When reading good fiction, the reader needs to suspend belief and become engrossed in the story. Date has created a tale that is so unbelieveable, with so many co-incidences to get his characters out of trouble, that I lost my belief factor and interest.

Rating:
Summary: The paper got one right! This one is a great funny read.
Review: I picked up this book at National Airport before a cross-country flight, after having seen the good review just that morning in the Washington Post. It's a great, funny read -- more like Double Whammy or Tourist Season, less like Skin Tight -- that was a perfect diversion for the long hours at 30,000 feet.

Rating:
Summary: Disney gets skewered
Review: Many years ago, on a classic episode of the Simpsons, Dr. Hibbert was explaining the very rare evil gene, which -- when found -- indicated complete evil. "Hitler had it," Hibbert explained, "Walt Disney had it..." At the time, I found the line hilariously over-the-top yet somehow strangely true. Whether its the total and complete commercialization of its beloved roster of characters or the endless hype machine that saturates America every summer when a new musical is released, there's always been something strangely sinister about the Disney Corporation. No matter how enjoyable the classic Disney cartoons may have been, it's hard to forget about stories of Disney lawyers swarming on day care centers that dare to put up pictures of Mickey Mouse without asking permission and paying royalties. Even though I have often found the various Disney Theme Parks to be the Happiest Place on Earth, there's still always been a strange undercurrent of paranoia, a gnawing feeling that I was in the presence of pure evil.

Apparently, I'm not alone in this, as S.V. Date's comedic thriller Deep Water proves. Date, a veteran Florida journalist, presents us with a portrait of Whipple World, a theme park/retirement community that has been created primarily to make money for the once-benevolent, now-black-hearted Whipple Corporation. As Date's quickly-paced plot unfolds, we quickly learn that all is not well at Whipple. The corporation is losing money, Whipple World's planned retirement community is being subverted by elderly suburban guerillas, and -- lastly -- Whipple World itself has been rocked by a few unexplained deaths. Ernest Warner, a burned-out reporter who has traded his idealism for the chance to end his career writing Whipple puff pieces for the local paper, is assigned to write yet another glorified publicity piece for Whipple but, with the help of the lovely Emma Whipple, he slowly undercovers a convuluted scheme to solve Whipple's financial woes at the expense of a couple hundred lives and the environmental stability of Southern Florida. It all branches out into a rather convuluted plot involving a lecherous choreographer-turned-small-town-Mayor, a demolitions man trying to come to terms with his own sexuality, a sherriff with a foot fetish, and two fun-loving, if psychotic, polar bears. Mostly, its just an excuse to poke some serious fun at the latter day Disney Corporation and the book does so with an intoxicating relish. As might be expected with a plot this huge, the satire runs out of gas before the end of the book and a few attempts to make a serious statement seem obtrusive when surrouned by such over-the-top antics. However, this is a genuinely fun book and Date keeps the book moving at a quick pace that manages to gloss over the occasional joke that doesn't quite work. While Ernest and Emma are intensely likeable protaganists (one hopes to see them in a future book), the other characters are all wild stereotypes but a wild stereotype is still a lot more entertaining then the boring stereotypes that seem to populate so many other books. All in all, this book is a good, fun way to kill off an afternoon and satisfy any secret fears about what might really lurk within the heart of Disney.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this one for the new year
Review: Mr. Date continues his winning streak of topical and biting satire. Another great work and as good as the equally excellent "Speed Week" and "Smokeout." I don't laugh out loud at many books but Date's ability to find the absurd and hilarious in surpising situations makes for a very enjoyable read. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Hip, funny, and quick!
Review: This book is a great send-up of Disney World--though of course it isn't called Disney World--and those weird, sanitized neighboring resort communities. S.V. Date's books are like Carl Hiaasen's. They're based in Florida, and they're fun to read and fast-paced. This book would also be a good gift for anyone who can appreciate poking fun at the corporate culture of Mickey Mouse. True, it's an easy target, but this book does it well.

Rating:
Summary: Blind Date Turns Bad
Review: This guy writes like he sat down to reproduce the Hiaasen formula, unfortunately without Carls' talent. It's not funny, it's not believable, it's not even interesting.

What a sad third rate imitator.