Turbulence (Paperback)

This is the basic storyline where the book builds up on

It all starts with a flight out of the US where the worst airline ever starts a flight with 2 legs 1 to london from dallas and the second leg to capetown. The flight is delayed for several hours before it even takes of on both occasions and the passengers are lied to and taken for animals in a cage by the crew on the airplane especialy on the leg form london to capetown, this enrages the passengers beyond belief. In the meanwhile there is an investigation on air piracy and air rage because the Sep11 attacks have just happend and the NRO, FBI and CIA are investigating a possbile air rage that could be used as an weapon against an European capitol. The story really hits of from this point of view.

This book is the best I've read in a long while and will recommend it to everybody who likes air thrillers. Mr Nance Thumbs up big time.

In order to push this message the author had to concoct a story that would bear out the message. And this he did, but the story is too unrealistic to be believed, and it even contains several inconsistencies that highlight how unbelievable and poorly constructed the plot is.

Inconsistency no. 1: The plane lands in Katsina in Nigeria in the middle of a battle between rebels led by Jean Onitsa and the Nigerian government troops. Onitsa stages a mock hostage taking of the passengers and demands ransom money from the USA and the Nigerian government. But this mock hostage taking will only work if the pilot of the airplane either backs up Onitsa's claims or at least does not dispute Onitsa's claims that he has taken the passengers as hostages. Onitsa had no way of expecting this to be the case, so the whole idea of the mock hostage taking is crazy. (In fact the airplane happens to have a radio failure so the pilot is unable to dispute Onitsa's claims and Onitsa succeeds in getting a $10 million ransom from the Nigerian government! But Onitsa had no way of knowing there would be a radio failure, so Onitsa's "clever" stunt makes no sense.)

Inconsistency no. 2: James Haverston, an airline employee at Heathrow airport, is worried about one of the passengers, Brian Logan, and checks him out on the airline's computer database. The next day he gets a frantic call from Washington. Does Haverston recall anything special about a passenger named Logan? If there was a problem with passenger Logan it is VERY important that Haverston confirms it. But by then Haverston has forgotten the name of the passenger he was worried about the day before, and therefore refuses to confirm that he had a run-in with a passenger named Logan, even though he would otherwise like to help the man in Washington. In reality all Haverston needs to do is to check the flight's passenger list to get Logan's first name and then to check the database again, at which point he would recognize Brian Logan's history and could confirm his encounter with Brian Logan.

A more general inconsistency or unbelievable twist in the plot has to do with the relationship between Brian Logan and the pilot. Logan, with much justification, becomes more and more antagonistic towards the pilot, and inspires an uprising among the passengers against the pilot. At one point they even try to break into the cockpit by force. The pilot is equally antagonistic towards Logan and the passengers. But then suddenly and without much justification they settle their differences and start cooperating! But considering the pent-up situation and the degree of enmity between Logan and the pilot their sudden reconciliation rings very false.

I've just talked about some of the negative aspects of the book so far. To conclude this review I'll just say that if you can ignore these problems with the plot and the author's promoting of his message then the book is fairly good and keeps you reading. So it's definitely not a total failure.

Rennie Petersen

On the whole, the text is factually correct, although interspersed with unbelievable characters, over the top scenes and a blatant disregard for realism. Of course this is a work of fiction and maybe I am being slightly overcritical, but I found the character development (when it existed) transparent and forced to fit the storyline rather than the storyline developing the characters.

What could have been a series of tense and exciting scenes left me cold as I found the text full of corny lines and forced drama. I almost always found myself guessing what would happen next, and in some cases almost guessing the exact line a character would say.

Nance's earlier books are much better, although I did notice a similar writing style in The Last Hostage where action gave way to substance.

Nance's Phoenix Rising is a good example of a well-written book with believable characters.

Turbulence is not Nance's best work, although I would suggest that it would make a great action movie. I could almost see Bruce Willis speaking whenever I read the co-pilots dialogue.

If you are looking for a light action read then you may well enjoy this book, although if you are looking for a good story set around the aviation industry I suggest Airframe by Michael Crichton.