Rating: 
Summary: Top-notch author who offers a stellar account of life at sea
Review: The Perfect Storm is by far the best book ever written about life as a fisherman in the Gloucester area. Junger's novel breathes life into every page. His accounts of the horrowing days at sea of the crew of the Andrea Gail reads like Melville! For anyone who loves the sea and enjoys top-notch reporting, buy The Perfect Storm!!! I just wish the book included a glossary of the many fascinating and interesting nautical terms.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic, and Eye-Opening
Review: "The Perfect Storm" is an excellent book. The U.S. Naval Academy is using it as part of its Naval Science Curriculum. The book describes the dangers of the sea, and the frightening power of mother nature. This book is even better because Junger does not fabricate the events that took place on the doomed ship. Instead he tells you what it might have been like, based on interviews of survivors. The book tells of the efforts of man to outdo mother nature, and of the power she has. I found it to be excellent!
Rating:
Summary: Compelling documentary that changes the way we see the sea.
Review: This compelling documentary puts the reader deeply into the lives of east coast fishermen and women, and a taste of the coast guard as well. I will never again order fish without thinking of scenes from this book - and now that I've read it, if I ever find myself drowning at sea, I'm sure it will seem like a familiar experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Good info for you land lubbers
Review: An interesting peak into the lives of the commercial fisherman and what might have become of the crew of the Andrea Gail. The author takes some liberties with the story because no one actually knows what happened besides that there was a huge storm. The book is a little choppy in places but is easily read in 1 or 2 sittings. It gave me insight into an area where I had none. A good summer/beach read!
Rating: 
Summary: Barely whets appetite on suspense; too much dry detail
Review: "A reader" on 5/26/98 has echoed my feelings on this book perfectly. I expected a suspenseful read with laced with vivid human drama; I expected a "page-turner". What I found was a true life event with far too much techno-talk and a story ("the worst strom of the 20th century") that unfolded as fast as ketchup runs out the bottle.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent in surprising ways.
Review: Junger's book ends up being fascinating for many different reasons, despite its weird structure. It starts out as the tale of one fishing boat caught in the "perfect storm", but since no one lived to tell the story of that boat, much of the excitement of the story comes from his patching together other stories. Besides, for the most part, the lives of the fishermen and those they lived with on land are less than compelling because these are ordinary rather than exceptional people. By far the best and most compelling writing in the book is about the Air National Guard helicopter that goes down after a rescue attempt. Other interesting segments of the book deal with the basic mechanics of long-line fishing (i.e., how it is done today), the mechanics of drowning, and meteorology. Junger has strung together a variety of almost stand alone chapters, but the end result still for the most part captivates one's attention.
Rating:
Summary: The movie could be better
Review: Ahoy! Ahoy! Now hear this! Now hear this!Ready for a true life sea shanty? Follow now our hard living, hard loving, and hard drinking Swordfishermen as they set out to the stormy NorthAtlantic in search of the last remaining and elusive Xiphias gladius. Watch our intrepid fishermen orchestrate their on-board fax-machines, satellite photos, observation aircraft, and Doppler sonar to locate and catch each remaining individual fish. Witness their women pine and worry themselves into alcohol lubricated neurosis waiting in port. Marvel at the Fishermans Co-op aggressive extermination of the species, and equally aggressive search for Federal subsidies. Sortie with the National Guard Air Sea Rescue (your tax dollars at work) when our heroes are too drunk to find the radio for their hourly report. "The Perfect Storm" should have remained a short story. You can hear the editor enthuse Mr. Junger to "fill it out" with tales of Ninja air-sea rescue types, their helicopters and satellite communications, and nerdy NOAA types with their computer models. But after our heroes die it is pretty much a Tom Clancy gee-whiz, techo-display. That's just what a young author needs to get his first book turned into a "treatment" and that into a screen-play and that into a monster Christmas movie... and you can select the cast. It's a fast book. You will read it in one sitting, I am sure that the movie will be just as fast and just as anemic. I see in the reviews that this book is compared many times to Krakauer's twin best sellers; that is to be expected from readers who choose their books strictly off the Newspapers List. In the end it is a book about foul weather. Those of us interested in shipping and ocean survival will defer to the long out of print "Posted Missing" by Alan Villers, detailing big ships in big trouble; J.McPhee's "Looking for a Ship", solely for his eerie 4 page account of all the ships lost in one month worldwide; and the ocean survival epic of this century "Endurance" by A. Lansing, 1915. Junger is not even close to any of these writers in subject or skill. Put this book up on your shelf next to Clancy or Crighton. That is all! That is all!
Rating:
Summary: A Monstrous Tale of the Sea
Review: Sir Walter Scott said it perfectly when he wrote, "It's no fish ye're buying, it's men's lives." Read this book and you'll never eat a swordfish steak or a tuna salad again without thinking of Billy, Bobby and the other men of the Andrea Gail, a long-liner swordfishing boat lost off the coast of Nova Scotia at the end of October, 1991. There is a real monster in this Halloween tale, far more frightening than any conjured up in a Hollywood studio. What makes this monster even scarier is that it was conjured up by Nature in the special effects studio known as Earth's Atmosphere. It's not only real, it can happen again. There are only two criticisms I have of the book. The first two chapters are a slow start but if the reader perseveres, he or she is rewarded with an unforgettable, hellish tale of the sea. The second is that us land lubbers would like to see a picture of a New England swordfishing boat. I still haven't figured out what the Andrea Gail's "bird" is.
Rating:
Summary: Far better than my expectations
Review: When my wife gave me this book, I thought, "Why would I be interested in reading about a commercial fishing boat?" I was more than pleasantly surprised, however, to find a new depth for my fascination with both nature and the sea. I felt a great appreciation for the crash course in seamanship, fishing, and rescue operations, as well as the courage it must take to work on a fishing boat more than once. I felt confident in the research efforts put forth by Mr. Junger, and appreciated the candor and obvious patience of the accounts given by survivors of both the storm and the accompanying personal tragedy. As a land-locked Oklahoman, I was compelled by the harsh lifestyles and working conditions of commercial fishermen, and the difficulties of trying to mesh such a hazardous career with some kind of regular life on land. Junger does a terrific job of combining mounds of technical information (from many different fields of study), facts from the event, and the stories behind the story. I could visualize most of the characters throughout the book and achieve, at the very least, a minimal understanding of what their feelings must have been. And contrary to some of the previous critics, I couldn't care less if the Coast Guard machinery specifications weren't reported to military standards. I'm sure that a lesson in engineering wasn't Junger's goal; he wanted to tell the story, and he certainly accomplished that goal. Furthermore, if you want to diagram sentences and study composition structure, try a Little Brown Handbook. If you like adventure in the midst of the harsh beauty and power of nature, then this book is no less than terrific.
Rating:
Summary: Moving, frightening, awesome - indescribable
Review: Junger introduces us to the characters gently, we get to know them and like them. He then describes the life they lead, harsh and unforgiving. Throughout the book I knew what the end would be but he kept me interested until he ended with the denouement, THE STORM. One of the finest examples of man against the elements, and losing, I have ever read. His description of the storm and the presumptive end of the crew was very moving.
| 
