The Flight Of The Phoenix

Rating:
Summary: When You Put Your Mind To It...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Novel
Review: I read this book when I was in High School, I'm 44 now, and I still remember the last line in the book, "Out of the desert walked seven men and a monkey." I'm currently searching for this book and will pay a good price for it. If you have not read this, read it. Its also been made into a movie, starring James Stewart! 1965

Rating:
Summary: fine forgotten novel
Review: The first movie tie-in that I can recall reading was a Star Wars novelization in Spring of '76, before any of us had even really heard about the
movie. At first I just assumed that the George Lucas had based his film on the book, but it gradually dawned that, to the contrary, the screenplay had been the source of a quickie book. (As I recall, the book is credited to Lucas, but I think Alan Dean Foster actually wrote it.) It seemed sort of like a rip-off to me even at an early age and I've been suspicious of books that are also movies ever since. So when I found this one, with scenes from the fine Jimmy Stewart film on the cover and a big movie announcement on the back, I looked it over carefully to make sure that the book had come first. Imagine my surprise when a little research turned up the fact that not only was Elleston Trevor a well regarded author, but he was also the writer known as Adam Hall, who wrote the Quiller series of spy novels, the first of which, The Quiller Memorandum, was voted the 1965 Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Indeed, Elleston Trevor turns out to be a synonym too, for an Englishman, born Trevor Dudley Smith.

In Flight of the Phoenix, Elleston Trevor (for that was what he had his name legally changed to) gives us a harrowing tale of survival against the elements and human frailties in the Saharan desert. Fourteen men and a monkey, returning from the Libyan oilfields, live through a plane crash, but are left without food, water, or a radio, and because a sandstorm had blown them off course, no one is looking for them. The pilot, Frank Towns, is so caught up in justifiably blaming himself that he is nearly ready to give up. But his navigator, Lew Moran, coaxes him towards survival and mediates between the rest of the group and Stringer, a young, arrogant, and hypersensitive engineer who has figured out a way to cobble together a jerry-rigged smaller plane from the wreckage of the original. Stringer, though unbearably officious, is in all likelihood their only way out, if Moran can keep him from storming off in a fit of pique and keep the others from killing him.

Also among the survivors are Trucker Cobb, a chief driller being sent home from the fields because he's begun to lose his mind and Captain Harris, a gung-ho, by-the-book, British officer and several of his less enthusiastic men. There's also Roberts, who, in a gesture of insane but touching tenderness is giving his water ration to the monkey. Together they form an ill-matched group and as thirst, starvation, exposure, madness, and desperation turn up the torque, social order and morality and simple human decency are shunted aside and the men begin to turn on one another. The only thing that gives them some sense of purpose is the slender possibility that Stringer will somehow manage to salvage a workable plane and that Towns will get it together enough to fly them out.

Mr. Trevor keeps the action moving, but doesn't hesitate to draw out the tension, particularly between Stringer and Towns, the two men who are the equally important keys to survival, but who end up vying for authority over the group. This adds an element of Lord of the Flies to what would be a decent enough action yarn anyway. In this case at least, though the movie is now better remembered, the book holds up well as an exciting piece of fiction in its own right.

GRADE : B+