Eruption

I don't usually have much time for reading due to family & career commitments, but I heard about this book on the radio and thought I would enjoy a good summer read. I wasn't wrong!I remember reading Jurassic Park many years ago, and I found the science parts to be dense. The plot was interesting, but the story telling took a lot of time. I haven't re-read it in my adult years, but in my teenage years Crichton's sciencey nerddom really seemed to slow the pace of an otherwise thrilling plot. This is not to say I didn't appreciate his scientific insights or research, but it wasn't the star of the show to me.Eruption flips the script on that style. The science is plentiful, but it lurks just below the surface and is believable enough for the pedestrian reader to easily suspend disbelief, but the science elements are never belabored to the point of detracting from the plot.Of course, this is not a pure Crichton novel, so the difference in style may reflect Patterson's storytelling style. Nonetheless, the plot elements, the brainy research, even some of the tropes are pure Crichton. I am normally skeptical of a posthumous work being published, but Patterson really dug into this one and did his best to do justice to his predecessor and posthumous collaborator. The only places where the melding of styles felt a bit awkward to me were parts that had been obviously updated since Crichton's death in 2008 - references to social media influencer-types, billionaires with space exploration companies, the 2018 eruption of Kīlauea, and so forth. These were clearly necessary efforts by Patterson to modernize the plot, but they too often leaned into simplistic tropes. I suppose they were only distracting to me because I knew Crichton passed away in 2008, and wouldn't have had a hand in crafting those parts of the story.In interviews, both James Patterson and Sherri Crichton were coy about what portion of the book was due credit to Patterson vs. Crichton. I would guess at 60/40, with the larger share being Patterson, but whatever that percentage, it was an enjoyable read.The only reason I would ding this book at all was a pair of comments my wife made a few chapters into her reading. She has a PhD in biology and environmental sciences and I trust her insights on these things. A very minor spoiler alert is required before I share these two comments, though I'm keeping the details general and not spelling out how these two details influence the overall plot. Her first comment was that the mechanism of transmission of an herbicide via a virus, which features prominently in the plot, makes no sense from a biological perspective. Her second comment was that while the military or government could screw up a lot of things, there is no way they would store hazardous material near an active volcano.That said, if you can suspend disbelief on those two points, you will have a very enjoyable read. I finished the entire book in less than a week, which is unheard of given my usual schedule.

Entertaining and exciting, but to be clear the result of this partially posthumous collaboration is a James Patterson novel in the Michael Crichton mode, and does not truly read like a work of the late, great Mr. Crichton. The discursive explorations into scientific matters that gave Crichton’s books so much verisimilitude are mostly absent here, instead we have James Patterson’s emphasis on short chapters and fast pace. However this remains an entertaining novel and still delivers enough arcana about volcanoes to be credible. Since we can’t have another true Michael Crichton novel this collaboration will have to do, and it does rather well. It is a great gesture to Michael Crichton’s many fans that his widow Sherri Crichton and James Patterson collaborated to bring this project to life.

Fast moving activity, i enjoyed getting to know each character, and the hunt for the main reason of concern. Of course it was well written by both of the authors, I couldn't tell where one stopped and the other picked up. I am familiar with the islands, currently living there, so that was neat, having been to the big island of Hawaii and visiting the Volcanos National Park. One of the neatest things was including Hawaiian culture, history and language.Amazon sold the hard cover book at a reduced rate and delivery was prompt.

When I heard that a “lost manuscript” by Michael Crichton about volcano eruption had been finished into a novel by James Patterson, it was a no-brainer for summer reading. I’m a sucker for a geo-apocalypse story.No question, this novel is a page-turner. It’s exciting, and always made me wonder what would come next: it held my attention. The chapters are extremely short- a few pages at a time- making for easier reading. It will certainly make an awesome action-thriller movie. I hear that Spielberg has already signed up for it. The characters are developed well enough without having to make the book too long and, after all, the main character could be argued to be the volcano itself, Mauna Loa. I think I know of, or have met, all the volcanologists portrayed in the book. And by and large, they get Hawaii- the Big Island and its people- satisfactory enough.That said… reading this book required a suspension of disbelief that grew to the point of just becoming annoying. I think I know why: the book is set in the near future, but it appears that Crichton finished his writing about 20 years ago, and no one (Patterson? Hello?) managed to update it to be tech-realistic for the mid-2020s. As a result, there are too many plot twists and casual occurrences which felt like glitch-in-the-matrix moments or “WTF?” moments. If it were stated that this book was set in a very slightly alternative universe, I’d have been cool with that.As for the depiction of the volcano and the natural world – the atmosphere and ecosystems surrounding it, the science advisor didn’t do their job, in a very basic way. (I’m a professor of earth science and a professional geologist, who is not a volcanologist by specialty, but has dabbled in it, by the way.) There are some real howlers which wouldn’t pass muster with an introductory earth science student. Even if one is willing to suspend disbelief about the known history and eruptive behavior of Mauna Loa to accept the premise that the novel describes events around its biggest and most anomalous eruption ever, ever… and even if you accept the premise that the U.S. military would have done some head-scratchingly incongruous things on the Big Island during the Cold War (that’s the closest I’ll come to a spoiler), well, there are too many glaring misstatements of basic science. I could easily take numerous pages out of the novel and ask students to circle the errors therein on their final exam, the next time I teach freshman-level geoscience. It just became tediously annoying. Hopefully, they can be left out of the movie.For a more entertaining, more gripping, more satisfying, and more exciting Crichton update, read The Andromeda Evolution, Daniel H. Wilson’s 2019 update to Crichton's The Andromeda Strain.

Gripping book. A definite page tuner. I gave this book to someone who loves volanoes and has been to the Big Island of Hawaii many times. He says this book is definitely worth reading and that this book is factually accurate.

It was ok, extremely slow in the beginning then picked up about 3/4 of the way through. I'm sure it will be a movie but it just had too many main characters and just characters overall to keep up with. A LOT of characters died, guess I wanted more miraculous saves and surprises that didn't come. The ending was fast, too fast, almost like the writer was bored with it. It was just done, the end.

カバーが5センチほど破けていました。封筒に入れる際ではなく、もともと破れていたようです。読むには支障ありませんが、本好きの私はがっかりいたしました。。。

The authors clearly know their subject. The volcanoes on Big Island are so realistically described. The story takes the reader there with believable characters and heart stopping action. This is a book that will stay with the reader

Birthday gift,well loved..