Category 7 (edition 2007)

I went on a search for novels about Natural Disasters and from looking at this one, written by an Emmy Award Winning Senior meteorologist as the blurb states before anything else, I thought I'd definitely picked a winner.

Wrong.

The title of this books is Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History, yet the storm doesn't really actually happen. It builds, and we get small "chapters" from the storms POV that always seem to end with it just getting closer, but never really hitting the coast.

What I wanted was some Day After Tomorrow type scenario, the weather smashes up the world and survivors have to deal with hellish shifts in weather. Instead I got a lesson in meteorology and how terrorists use it to create storms to kill us all, however this storm named "Hurricane Simone" never actually manifested.

I skimmed through many pages waiting for the big reveal, the huge tidal wave to smash against the earth, the tornado to wipe out a city, and I didn't get any of that. In fact towards the end, page 223 of a 370 book, one of our "main characters" Kate is enjoying a jog on a dock by the water on a beautiful day surrounded by other joggers and walkers, boats on the water and she even remarks that it would be a "perfect day to dive". So... no storm worries for Kate.

I will say a lot of the chapters are split up into different character's POV at different times and in different cities all over the US. It's very confusing to keep track of when so much information is just shoveled a the reader and we're expected to remember which one is Elle, Kate or Lisa. I assume Kate is jogging somewhere the storm isn't going to hit, which as a storm buff who is desperate to find out why she's missed three storms on the last few months, I would think she'd want to be right there in the middle of the action.

Instead of the hearty natural disaster novel I was hoping for, I got what is basically a 200 page long discussion between twenty or so characters, none of whom have any substance, and every time they appear we get a massive "info dump" of their past, how they think of people they work with, storms, etc all without this character actually saying or doing anything. And all they seem to do is TALK about the storm, TALK about how bad it could be, TALK about researching storms, TALK about how dangerous it might become. But that's it, it's all talk. We never get in there with the action.

Example, Carter (who is one of the political characters, he might be the President. I forget and can't be bothered to check) is sitting at his desk and for almost two and a half pages muses about how nice the weather was the earlier summer, a centuries old jet stream in Canada, and conservative TV Pundits. At the end of all this is the very simple sentence "Carter didn't really care about any of that." Great, I'm so glad I read it then.

Our apparent heroine, Kate, states towards the end of the novel: "This is New York, people don't get freaked out by the big things." It's a book written in 2007. Maybe I'm just a naive Australian here, but from what I've seen New Yorkers are quite rightfully scared by the big things. And at least twice in the novel they mention the Towers and 9/11. Maybe it was a joke that even the characters didn't get.

At some point a character dies, which then becomes the focus of the story. A story labelled Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History has turned into pages and pages of people mourning over someone I don't really remember anyway and can't figure out why Kate's upset. Is he the same old tutor of hers that she was screwing now that his wife was dead?

Finally, on page 299, we get the revelation that the sky changed. But as far as I can tell this is just because the sun is setting and the kidnapped person watching them is using the sky as a time dial to count how long they've been stuck. Nothing to do with the storm. And so leads into a few pages of this kidnapped victim being interrogated by the FBI for reasons they don't explain.

On page 311 we actually get some action from the storm. But we seem to have missed the exciting part. Now the streets are empty and whatever chaos has apparently happened. Our genius heroine Kate declares on page 319 that there's no storm category higher than five. No wonder she missed those other storms, her brain is often elsewhere.

It ends with nothing much else happening. Definitely nothing to do with the storm that's worth mentioning. Kate meets up with some guy Jake (wait, he might be the teacher she was screwing) going to lunch.

All in all, I would not (despite it's title) classify this as a natural disaster novel. If you like political drama/thriller, pick this one up. The fact that it claims to be about a storm is kind of a smokescreen.

Oh, loses points for having a political character named Winslow who is referred to by his nickname: Win. BookFail. ( )

If you expect an action-fuelled, and somewhat low-brow, approach to disaster books then this Bill Evans novel will leave you disappointed. Yes, there is the storm of the millennium, however this slow building tale is centred around politics and science, not the storm. Based upon the science of weather control, Category 7 (a storm classification that currently only goes up to five) follows a group of businesses, some governmental, others rather shady, as they clash over weather control. There are still diabolical master-mind villains and nerdy heroes as the genre requires, however the pace is much slower than anticipated. The science is sound, however the narrative style makes it difficult to gain traction with the characters early on. Overall Category 7 is entertaining and a worthwhile read for fans of the genre whilst action and intrigue fans should be wary of the narrative style. ( )

CATEGORY 7 is an enjoyable weather-based thriller, although it took me awhile to get into the story, due to all of the unfamiliar terms. Once I got through it, though, I found myself immersed in the story.

The basics: a meglomaniac decides to take revenge on the President by using his creation, the ability to control the weather, to send a massive Category 7 hurricane towards New York City. Panic and devastation ensue, and it's up to a small-town weather reporter and a CIA operative to stop both the hurricane and the bad guy.

Like I said, this really is an entertaining and enjoyable thriller, and once you learn the weather-related jargon, you'll be in for a really good story. ( )