Harry, Harry, Harry. Harry, Harry. Harry.What have you become? What aberration is this? What has become of... How in Gods name can a novel about the eruption of a super volcano be as dull as volcanic ash?This books leaves you with more questions than "House of Leaves" and none of the questions are about the story as there doesn't seem to be one.Maybe in the sequel...I don't know if I can do it.I started to read this as a sleep aid or something to help decide what I should have for lunch.Firstly, because bugger all really happens (beside an eruption on the scale that humans have never imagined and he somehow manages to make this background noise, he manages to turn the volcano into a neighbor pumping out loud Rap music - you can hear the base rattle and you know its causing all the issues but can't see it and it is just there, somewhere in the neighborhood, causing problems, being annoying, but not here. If a character didn't whine about not being able to wipe their arse with soft toilet paper and blame this on the volcano, one would forget what this book is about.) The second reason, this book talks about food. I don't mean now and then, I mean friggen always, its a book that Anthony Bordain would write if he was a boring shut-in. Not a chapter or scene goes by where someone is not eating something or thinking about eating something or buying something to eat later. This may be an engine to show privations that will occur later on you think? NO! They just order take out Thai food. I was beginning to expect him to fully describe their bowel movements, just for, you know, closure on the food thing.Truly this book should be called "People Do Mundane Shit" with the subtitle "and an Eruption Occurred While Veronica Ate Nachos"He spends more time describing a characters love of hot sauce than he does what the hot lava was like during the eruption.And it ends on two people leaving a bloody restaurant. That's it, one pays the check and they leave...What the hell man?Where you on a diet when you wrote this?Dear God, this book could have been a chapter, I lie to you not. I bet this book was a chapter and then he decided that his book could be spiced up with some dazzling prose about how tacos in Maine compare with those of the west coast.Curse you Turtledove, you are a vicious bastard as I will have to read the second to see if anything actually happens to anyone besides food poisoning.Damn it, I am hungry again.Thank you and don't forget to tip your waiter. This is going to be hard to write, because I have been a Turtledove fan for years. And I did not like this book.The premise is that a Super volcano--in this case, Yellowstone National Park--erupts, sending thousands of tons of ash into the atmosphere, lava by the ton rolling across the countryside, huge rocks flying high. It is a disaster of history changing proportions, and it raises hell with the environment as we know it. And yes, this is a fact. Yellowstone is a super volcano, scheduled to erupt some time in the near future. Check it out on YouTube.But my problem is that the eruption seems to be a subplot to the daily lives of the people in the novel, and this comes across more as a soap opera than a gripping, this could happen to you novel.This is book one of a trilogy, and I am not inspired to read the last two volumes. Very disapointing.
What do You think about Supervolcano: Eruption (2000)?
Would have been much better if the supervolcano was more of the story.
—sonsie
fantastic read - could not put this down
—Escadeliah
