Poseidon Adventure Movie Tie In [Mass Market Paperback]

Although one of the best known disaster movies of the 70's came from this novel, this book is far from a mere adventure story and the focus is not on the disaster itself.

This novel is a study of people and human nature. What the author has done is assemble a collection of characters (a few more than in the movie), a number of whom do not like one another--especially antogonist/protagonist Mike Rogo and Rev. Scott, respectively. They are placed in a life and death situation in which they are forced to interact on more than a social level--they are forced to rely on one another.

As the story unfolds, so does the psyche of each character and there is not a one who's personal history is not explored. As the struggle to survive becomes increasingly more demanding and life threatening, we see relationships unravel as each character's demons and vulnerabilities are exposed.

Tensions, resentments and bitterness bubbling just beneath the surface of the characters prior to the capsizing come welling forth, sometimes violently, throughout the course of the story. For better or for worse, all are changed forever by the end.

Most notably, we see a the facade of the "nuclear family" torn down for good as the Shelby family is ripped brutally apart. Unlike the cardboard characters of Susan and Robin in the movie, the two are more developed in this book, along with parents, Richard and Jane. Susan suffers a violent encounter with a crew member and Robin is lost forever, while simultaneously the marriage of their parents Richard and Jane fall to pieces before the eyes of all.

All of this takes place against a backdrop of danger and mayhem as the striken liner continues it's slow tortureous plunge. The characters witness death at its most brutal form and literally stare into the face of Hell, watching dozens, including members of their own survivalist party meet their doom.

And in the end, when the ship finally goes down, the former life of each survivor goes down with her.

Although a huge fan of the movie, I loved this book for completely different reasons. This is a powerful story and an engrossing read. In the end, I found myself asking myself one simple question: What would I do if faced with the same circumstances?

Granted the film adaptation by Irwin Allen is a classic of its kind, but Paul Gallico's source novel is so, so much more than a mere adventure novel. The Poseidon Adventure is also a dark psychological novel about the human will and the human character, how it constantly shifts and changes, yet remains the same at its very core. Don't be fooled by the swift pace and high adventure, careful reading of this excellent piece of entertainment will be a richly rewarding experience for you. Highly recommended.

For those expecting this to be like an over the top, action adventure flick where the cute and clever kids save the day, and the plucky square jawed hero pulls everyone through... forget it. Author Paul Gallico has created a dark masterpiece where he uses the disaster as a metaphor for the turning of people's seemingly ordinary lives literally upside down and stripping them of their quaint civilized comforts. Reverend Frank "Buzz" Scott leads a rag tag group of people from the dining room to hoped for salvation in the ship's engine rooms and the keel and rescue.

But the journey is far from easy, facing the perils of a capsized vessel, with obstacles like upside-down stairways, flooding passages, deep booming explosions rocking the ship, failing emergency lights, and machinary and boilers falling from their mountings. They also face their own inner demons as well. Scott ferverently believing that the only way to reach safety is via the engine rooms and await rescue in the propeller shaft wings, while ignoring other possible, safer routes to the ship's former bottom.

Others in the group as well as those they meet along the way provide for drama and an examination of the human condition when placed in mortal danger. The failure of the lights results in a stampede by fear-driven crew running down a main corridor like lemmings to their deaths they are trampled, or killed by falling over stairway openings or into a large pit where a boiler tore through several decks of the upturned ship, the young girl of the group Susan is raped.

The young boy Robin, brother of Susan is lost in the blackout and crew stampe, never to be found again, and his exact fate is chillingly never revealed to the reader.

This book simply pulls no punches, though it does show the other side of the human equation as people help the eldery Rosens through the ship's twisted and inverted bowels, and Belle Rosen saving everyone with her suprise feat of swimming through a flooded corrider, though it later costs her life when she dies of a heart attack mere minutes from rescue.

When Rev. Scott dies, James Martin, a proprietor of a haberdashery, gallantly takes charge and sees everyone through the rest of the way. The ending is not easy, either. Not only is Robin never found and Mrs Rosen as well as several others die along the way, but the survivors of Scott's intrepid band must deal with the biting sting that other survivors, some left behind in the dinning room, had a much easier time in going the other route to the ship's cargo hold. The route Scott insisted they not go. But ultimately they are alive when so many others have died, either succumbing to their baser natures as the crew did during the blackout, or passively staying put, hoping for someone to come to them.

For those used to the 1973 adapation of the movie, this book will be just a wee bit of a downer with the boy dying and his sister being raped as well as more gruesome ends for people, but the characters as other reviewers have pointed out, are far more interesting and multi-dimensional, even Susan's rapist is shown to be nothing more than a fightened young boy, who realizes the terrible thing he has done to her and runs off to his death, driven by guilt. So this is not for the faint of heart, but it is ultimately a rewarding look at the human heart in the face of disaster.

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