Bill Evans (2) (1960–)

I like disaster novels; and I like bad disaster movies (Sharknado, anyone?). This book seems to combine the worst of both and cram them into an entertaining though completely implausible plot.

Take equal parts monster hurricane, psychotic narcissist, bigoted Southern "gentleman," and plucky but broken female lead mix with a flat supporting cast...and you get this book. This science is sort of interesting...at least for an armchair weather nerd that doesn't really follow the science. I think show more it's a bit too long. show less

I received this book for free through the Goodreads first reads program.

I will admit that I love books set in the arctic. Something about those people who are hardy enough to live on a remote outpost on the ice really fascinates me. This book grabbed me from the opening chapter, and kept my interest throughout.

When I first read the description of the book, the concept of a weather machine terrorizing the world seemed silly. But as I began to read the book, the scenario seemed so believable show more that it became scary. The explanations for what was happening in the book sounded plausible to me. I don't know enough to say that it was all scientifically accurate, but to me it sounded real. I now have one more thing to worry about, a mad scientist trying to destroy the earth through manipulation of weather systems.

Dry Ice fit my definition of a five star book. It was interesting, I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen, and after I finished the book, I was still thinking about it. show less

After nearly 150 reviews, this is only the second time I've handed out a single star. After considering the many problems and inadequacies of Frozen Fire, the second novel by collaborators Bill Evans and Marianna Jameson, I contemplated the novel's strengths. There's simply no getting around this fact--there are none.

And this comes from a reader highly predisposed to like this novel. I have a thing for "trashy underwater fiction." Can't get enough of it. And Frozen Fire definitely falls show more into that territory. It's the story of a megalomaniacal island despot who wants to use his immense wealth to mine methane hydrate from the depths of the sea. And it's the story of the sociopathic eco-terrorist who wants to stop the operation and bring as much destruction as possible to the earth in the process.

Wait a minute... An eco-terrorist who wants to destroy an operation which may bring cheap, clean energy to the planet, and instead decides to wreak havoc upon the environment, speeding up global warming exponentially? You may be thinking, That plot makes no sense. Bingo! The plot and the actions of the central characters make no sense at all.

The only thing worse than the plot was the characters. It was like they were all competing to be as unlikable and unbelievable as humanly possible. There wasn't a single character to empathize with or root for. The best thing I can say is that there were a couple that weren't completely detestable. There was absolutely nothing to invest in with this story. For a thriller it plodded. The science was bad. And the use of language was deplorable.

I'm very sorry. I don't make a habit of doing this. If anything, I'm overly positive about books, but this novel has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. show less

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 show more 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. show less