The Flight of the Phoenix

This book has a fairly simple overall plot. A plane crashes in the desert, and when dealing with dire conditions the men who survive the crash try to find a way to survive the desert. The writing is gripping, and the personalities of the characters build through the book. The descriptions of the harsh conditions of the desert on the men, leave the reader disturbed, but wanting to read more. Themes that include the power and beauty of nature are intertwined throughout the book. Survival for these men is presented almost as a complicated puzzle which must be solved to avoid deadly consequences. It was a page turner for me- the writing is excellent!

The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor is an excellent story that has spawned two very good movies. Pilot Frank "Shut It Down" Towns is sent to shut down an oil rig that has gone dry in the middle of the Libyan desert. On the way home, the plane crashes in a horrific sandstorm, killing two of the passengers. The survivors of the crash must band together to survive. Their original plan is to sit tight and wait for someone to come and rescue them until one of the passengers, a young aircraft designer named Stringer, proposed building a new plane out of the wreckage and flying to safety. What follows is a race against time as the survivors must battle the elements with limited supplies as they try to survive. Elleston Trevor's novel is a well-told character study of what happens when people are placed in horrific conditions. Much of the novel centers around the fight for authority between Towns, the experienced yet self-doubting pilot, and Stringer, the young, obsessed aircraft designer. By the end of the novel, Trevor has fleshed out all the characters so the reader legitimately cares whether they survive or not. If you enjoy this novel, check out the 1965 classic starring Jimmy Stewart and Richard Attenborough and the exciting 2004 remake starring Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi. For a well-told story with believable characters and an unexpected twist, check out Elleston Trevor's Flight of the Phoenix!

"Flight of the Phoenix" held my attention, as an adventure novel should. What makes this book stand out is a character who is ignored for the first half of the book, because he's quiet and keeps to himself. In the middle of the book he becomes the most important character. In the penultimate chapter the plot twists around this character in what has to be most unexpected surprise I've ever seen in a novel. The character is a young engineer with Asperger's Syndrome, although the book was written thirty years before Asperger's Syndrome was discovered. Individuals with this form of autism are extremely intelligent but have poor social skills. They're ability to focus on a task can be their greatest strength or their downfall. In "Flight of the Phoenix" this is what saves the men, but then...well, I won't give away the plot! I listened to the audio download, which was very good except you really need to see what a Skytruck looks like, as the characters talk about different parts of the airplane wreckage. A quick Google search will find you photos of this type of aircraft.

With yet another movie treatment of this clever and accomplished novel about to explode onto our screens, it's even more to readers' advantage to check out Elleston Trevor's original story. The 1965 Robert Aldrich version was a worthy effort but nevertheless held back from tackling the undercurrent of menace and sheer adult writing that made the novel such a triumph in the first place. The 2004 Hollywoodization, with Dennis Quaid. G Ribisi and Miranda Otto, barely seems to pay lip-service to the title before galumphing off in good old 'Indiana Jones-meets-Hidalgo' fashion towards lowest common denominated Phantasia-in-the-Sands. Read quick to avoid disappointment.

A cargo plane carrying workers accross the Libyan desert is brought down by one of the sand storms that the region is famous for.For the survivors the struggle of life and death will soon make them all aware of the value of human life and the determination of one man who will not take defeat. He is determined to survive and make it home and soon comes up with an amazing idea, that, if he can convince his fellow survivors to help, will get them all home safely.- They can jury-rig a crude areoplane out of the well preserved remains of the cargo plane that has become their unbearable home.