Rating: 
Summary: This book is an American Tragedy
Review: I don't understand how the publisher simply allowed this book to be written without better guidance. Dillon's pages are filled with so much repetition, that it appears that he was just out to make his "page quota" for the book. Also, shame on Amazon for recommending this Tragedy.
Rating: 
Summary: Once started you can't stop.
Review: I now live in Anacortes from where the story begins. I personally know several of the main people involved in the sinking of the "A" boats back in 1983. It was a town tradgedy that still has lingering affects on the town today. I tried to read with an unbiased air as when I read Perfect Storm. Both books are real stories of real people, told with an almost fictional feeling. I highly recommend this book and hope it makes the New York Times bestseller list also.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Book Sick
Review: I picked up this book expecting it to be about a great tragedy at sea, maybe encorporating a great survival story or a heroic struggle with the ocean. However, this is a book more about courts and hearings to assess liability for the accident and set new safety standards for the fishing industry not too much about the tragedy itself. If you like to read about politics and policy, this is the book for you, but if you like to read about stories at sea, you'd be better off choosing a different book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not really a book about being lost at sea
Review: I picked up this book expecting it to be about a great tragedy at sea, maybe encorporating a great survival story or a heroic struggle with the ocean. However, this is a book more about courts and hearings to assess liability for the accident and set new safety standards for the fishing industry not too much about the tragedy itself. If you like to read about politics and policy, this is the book for you, but if you like to read about stories at sea, you'd be better off choosing a different book.
Rating:
Summary: Lost at Sea
Review: I read The Perfect Storm when it was first published. A friend of mine who had just sailed from New York to Spain recommended it to me. Lost at Sea is the next Perfect Storm. My son is a commercial crab fisherman and I hear these stories but this book leaves nothing to the imigination. I took the book on a six week ski trip to read at my leasure, three days later I was looking for another book.
Rating:
Summary: I find this book lacking on both fronts
Review: I wanted to like this book, but did not; could not. I am a commercial fisherman (both coasts and Hawaii, Alaska for the past ten years) and have participated in the various Alaska crab fisheries for four years. I am also a fiction writer, with my first novel halfway complete. I found this book lacking in both its grasp of the fishing life and in the quality of the author's prose. Dillon does not understand fisherman enough to get why they would undertake this "terrible lifestyle." Condescension! If he does not, or is unable to conceive of another man making this choice, he should not be writing about this subject. I found the prose uninteresting, relying excessively on cliches and formula to generate the desired response. This book was lacking in each and every way. Oh, well...
Rating: 
Summary: Not a literary masterpiece, but a story worth reading.
Review: I won't give Patrick Dillon great praise or criticism. I read the book from the perspective of another ex-commercial fisherman from Anacortes, that also happened to go to high school and play school sports with many of the victims and other subjects of the story. I'm thankful for the details provided, and, contrary to other criticism, I understand Dillon's dismay at the choices made, even though I understand those choices myself. You simply can't understand without being there, and one 45 day trip does not make you a fisherman. Going back again does. If you've ever thought about going up there, or doubted what you've heard from someone who has, you need to read this.
Rating:
Summary: A good follow-up to "The Perfect Storm"
Review: If you couldn't get enough of Sebastian Junger's "Perfect Storm," along comes this somewhat less compelling but still very readable account of another fishing trajedy. This one was man made rather than natural, however. Dillion's account of the hazards of fishing off Alaska's wild coastline is the highlight of this book. People who love the sea or enjoy a good adventure should give this story a read.
Rating:
Summary: Lost at Sea is the better book
Review: Like The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air, Lost at Sea is a nonfiction account of a recent tragedy.But Lost at Sea is a better story told my a writer with far more talent. This is the one to read.
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: Lost at Sea is the best book about commercial fishing and fishing vessel safety I have read. Patrick Dillon's research and writing on the A-Boats in the Bering sea is excellent. A tremendous achievement.
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