Customer Reviews

Peter Benchley's Creature

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It is difficult to write a good monster novel. If the author makes the creature too unbelievable, the reader will just not buy into the concept and dismiss it as wacky. If the creature is not fantastic enough, the reader will lose his sense of awe and fear. There is no question that this is a tough balancing act.

Unfortunately, this book never finds that special balance. The idea toes the line between being trite or moderately interesting (Nazi experiment produces hybrid monster) but the delivery is lacking. There is nothing I can say that will articulate exactly what this book is lacking except that I feel it is missing that intangible "magic".

My advice to you is to read this if you must, but otherwise there are other better monster novels out there.

This novel was a great book. Wonderful plot. lots of suspense. You felt sad for the people who died because Peter gave you so much info about their lives. And you feel so sad for the poor sea lions that get eaten. This is a real addicting book.

The only complaint is the ending.

God, all of Benchleys endings are strange.

I mean, the thing was blown to bits!
dont all his books end that way?

And the thing isnt a shark. its more like a half human monster. The only reason i can think that he named it white shark is because the scientist, Simon Chase, was studying a white shark. But aside from a few minor srew ups, its a good read.

Peter Benchley, the suspense master of the sea (author of "Jaws" and "Beast"), creates a new shark-filled tale with a twist. As a young man, scientist Simon Chase was too consumed with his work on sharks that he left wife and infant son Max to continue his rigorous studies of the sea. After developing the Osprey Island Marine Institute near Long Island's North Shore, he feels content with his work and realizes that he has failed as a father. Attempting to rectify the faults of his fatherhood, he spends much more time with his now pre-teen son and hopes to start the next chapter of his life as an excellent role model.

While monitoring a sixteen-foot mammoth of a great white shark, he notices several claw and gash marks on the creature. Chase believes that something is deadly wrong, so he informs Dr. Amanda Macy of his problem. Macy leases the institute, using the resources to unravel the horrific truth--the menace is a monster produced by a demented Nazi scientist, which has hatched 50 years later and is wrecking havoc on Chase's community. "White Shark" is an intuitive, yet slightly absurd look at the horrors that can evolve from evil minds, but the true ludicrousness of the Nazi war weapon references is overshadowed by the excellent dialogue between father and son. "White Shark" struggles to incorporate all of the plot twists and ecologic jargon into a concise, cohesive unit; however, it triumphs as a heartfelt tale of how a father and son can come together in the most adverse situations (even if the attack of a fifty-year old shark-creature is that adverse situation). A good, fast-paced read--nothing more, nothing less. Fans of "Jaws" may want to check it out, otherwise stick with the classic.

Well I read the whole book, even though it wasn't exactly what I was hoping it would be based upon my remembrance of reading 'Jaws'. In the novel 'Jaws' we are enfolded into the lives of several people and how they deal with a monster shark terrorizing a small town dependent upon tourism for their livelihood. Here, in 'White Shark', we are subjected to Benchley's ranting and raving and preaching about environmental issues, we are given cardboard characters that are predictable and a monster that is unbelievable science fiction.

I guess the author thought that if he called a book 'White Shark' we the readers wouldn't mind if he substituted an evil monster fish man created by Nazi's at the end of World War Two. Opps, I spoiled the surprise, however, in my defense, the subject comes up in the first chapter. There is a great white shark in the book, however, she plays a secondary role and doesn't eat anyone. Benchley, I think, when he wrote this book, was still feeling some guilt about presenting sharks as evil when he wrote 'Jaws', however, I don't think he chose a good vehicle to preach his greenie beliefs and I don't think resorting to a Nazi bad guy is the best way to make sure you present a monster that can be killed off without offending anyone.

I'm not sure how to rate this book, it was interesting enough to finish reading, however, I don't know what to characterize it as, and find it hard to rate in a certain category, which is usually how I rate things, how they stack up against other similar books. Because I can't exactly call it average, I'm going to go with a two star, but it may be a little bit better than that to those that enjoy this type of work.

Just a note on Peter Benchley:

I bought "JAWS" by Peter Benchley after I heard how great it was. It wasn't. Nothing like the extraordinary film, it's perhaps the ONLY book I've ever read that is WORSE than the film adaptation.

Why? Brody's wife, Ellen Brody, gets into an affair with Matt Hooper and it's ridiculous. Pointless. It really serves nothing to the plot, and the detail is sickening. Benchley must have been "excited" when he was reading it. (If you catch my drift.)

The entire book was just pretty dumb. The movie is far superior.

Much like "JAWS," Benchley's "Shark Trouble" is a bit stupid. But it's better than "JAWS" because it's more fun to read. I recommend this with hesitation.

This book tells the story of a marine biologist who studies great whites and his son. they are terrorized by an Nazi experiment gone free. Apparently this thing was trapped in a u-boat and released when the u-boat was excavated. The thing gets loose and swims to the Maryland coast. Both the Marine Biologist and his son find a romance. Boring. This is one thing I hate about books, they always seem to have a love connection, sometimes it helps, but other times it hurts like in this book.

This book was extremely PREDICTABLE!! I did like how he went into some detail about observing the great white shark that the biologist is studying. But other than that the book pretty much sucked. This was my first and last Benchly book. Save you money and buy some other author. If you want a quick and boring book and have about a day to spend reading, then by all means read this book, but if you want to read it rent it at a library or borrow it from a friend who bought the book unknown to its boringness.

I like Peter Benchley. I love the water, and so I love reading books about the water. My favorite movie is Jaws, and I am into anything based around the ocean and its mystery. If you are like me you will enjoy this book. Benchley is great at building excitement and suspense. The characters are pretty strong and likable. The story flows along quickly. This is a good summer read. Nothing too deep here, but a fun ocean thriller.

There's something lacking to this still intriguing tale of a monster gone haywire--even scaring the sharks away! Benchley spends a lot of time building up the scenarios--only giving you quick glimpses of the murky menace as it kills and kills, throwing tempting morsels of info about the heroes without offering a whole package...chumming for readers, I suppose. The main problem I had was that it was simply too short. It was as if the author had something else he'd rather be working on, so he quickly cut his line and tied the whole thing off. For all its cinematic buildup, the big dispatch-with-the-monster scene came too soon and wasn't satiating enough. Not bad, a good, quick, page-turner, but it could've been longer and better.

This started off as a great novel: a long-forgotten Nazi terror weapon, one of many that didn't make it in time to win the war, is unwittingly unleashed off the east coast of modern America. We don't even know what the weapon is - other than that it's alive in some way. When divers find its container, untouched since the U-Boat that had carried it had been sunk near the end of the war, it's brought out of suspended animation. And it begins to feed. Meanwhile, in one of those charming seaside towns that populate Peter Benchley novels, a brilliant but cash-strapped marine biologist begins getting clues that something hungrier than normal is prowling the waters of his town. Observing the same suspicious claws-marks on the remains of its victims, Simon Chase knows we're not dealing with your typical squaliform. What could it be?

Actually, Benchley manages to keep that central point charmingly elusive, and I'm not going to spoil that mystery even as other reviewers have. It's clear that this creature - codenamed "White Shark" is no ordinary creature. However, it's the only really mysterious element of the book, and Benchley protects the idea rather than develop it. While Chase builds up clues, clueless landlubbers (anybody still alive after "Jaws" or "Beast") mysteriously vanish. Though he's smart, Chase won't solve the mystery before he meets a German veteran of the "White Shark" program who will of course explain everything to him. "White Shark" is one of those novels run by characters who are written as being brilliant while never amounting to be all that smart. The victims of course are all clueless morons who know nothing of the terrors of the deep, but merely have their instincts about it. (Chase is too smart to be scared, something he demonstrates in an incredible scene in which he swims alongside a real white shark - a scene which pretty much sapped this book of both its terror and plausibility. If Benchley feels that the hype of "Jaws" should be met with a cold and un-dramatic education into the misunderstood reality of predatory sharks, then he should write non-fiction books that don't capitalize on the same ignorance that guides his luckless victims). By the end, the story of "White Shark" comes ashore, and the novel seems less like a re-tread of "Jaws" than the first "Alien" movie. By then, I was ready to toss this fish-story back.

This is an awesome book for those who like sea creatures and suspense. Some of his other books are better but this is a must read for shark lovers. It has a uniques twist to it and a great story line.