Pulpy Seaplane Adventures - Review of "Night Over Water"
Night Over Water by Ken Follettreview rating: 3 of 5 stars
From GoodReads:
"September 1939. England is at war with Nazi Germany. In Southampton, the world's most luxurious airliner-the legendary Pan Am clipper-takes off for its final flight to neutral America. Aboard are the cream of society and the dregs of humanity, all fleeing the war for reasons of their own...shadowed by a danger they do not know exists...and heading straight into a storm of violence, intrigue, and betrayal..."
This was a hand-me-down tag-sale purchase from my father. I think he picked it up since he is an aviation buff, and on that score the book comes through - plenty of loving descriptions of the Clipper and of a Tiger Moth used in an early chapter.
For plot and characterization, I kept feeling like I was more watching a local theatre play or even more like a LARP. A lot of time is spent in an enclosed space (the Clipper) exploring how the different characters interact with several different plot lines interweaving.
They don't interweave all that well. In addition, I felt I saw the few plot twists coming a mile away.
My biggest gripe was with our POV characters. Of the 5 POV characters, three are female. All three female characters are played up for their sexiness and seem to have major problems coming to and sticking to decisions. Nancy Leneham (the oldest of the female characters) starts as very self-assured, but has it all messed up by love and Daddy-issues by the end. The other two women, Diana Lovesey and Margaret Oxenford, show themselves to be indicisive, easily led, and rather incompetant.
Our two male POV characters are manly, decisive, and (especially in the case of Harry Marks) improbably successful. Their only weaknesses? Their love for their respective women.
*sigh*
I know it's pulp. I like pulp. I'll even give historical pulp a pass for reflecting the morals of it's time.
But this felt sometimes like the author was coming off a bad relationship and wanted to punish his ex.
That said, a part of me still wants to rent a hotel ballroom for a weekend, decorate it in Pan-Am colors and stick two-dozen LARPers in there with characters swiped from this book and see how it goes. Assuming I knew how to run a LARP.
View all my reviews.
This was a hand-me-down tag-sale purchase from my father. I think he picked it up since he is an aviation buff, and on that score the book comes through - plenty of loving descriptions of the Clipper and of a Tiger Moth used in an early chapter.
For plot and characterization, I kept feeling like I was more watching a local theatre play or even more like a LARP. A lot of time is spent in an enclosed space (the Clipper) exploring how the different characters interact with several different plot lines interweaving.
They don't interweave all that well. In addition, I felt I saw the few plot twists coming a mile away.My biggest gripe was with our POV characters. Of the 5 POV characters, three are female. All three female characters are played up for their sexiness and seem to have major problems coming to and sticking to decisions. Nancy Leneham (the oldest of the female characters) starts as very self-assured, but has it all messed up by love and Daddy-issues by the end. The other two women, Diana Lovesey and Margaret Oxenford, show themselves to be indicisive, easily led, and rather incompetant.
Our two male POV characters are manly, decisive, and (especially in the case of Harry Marks) improbably successful. Their only weaknesses? Their love for their respective women.
*sigh*
I know it's pulp. I like pulp. I'll even give historical pulp a pass for reflecting the morals of it's time.
But this felt sometimes like the author was coming off a bad relationship and wanted to punish his ex.
That said, a part of me still wants to rent a hotel ballroom for a weekend, decorate it in Pan-Am colors and stick two-dozen LARPers in there with characters swiped from this book and see how it goes. Assuming I knew how to run a LARP.
View all my reviews.
Labels: Review, Role Playing, Seaplane
posted by Christopher at 14:25
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