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I'm having trouble with this book. The author seems to be interested in bringing back scenes of poverty and climate change to the US. Saying to the readers, "This could be you and your children." Maybe he's trying to hard. Maybe I've read to many of his stories. I'm starting to lose interest. I'm 20% into this book and thinking about putting it down permanently.

I couldn’t get past chapter 9. It was all too bleak and hopeless. Will there be solidarity and cooperation after the climate collapse? I don’t know but i want to – have to – hope so. But the author’s answer (up to the point i got to) is a clear »No!«.

I don’t really know what i expected here. One destroyer vs. u-boat duel isn’t really enough for a novel-style – and especially novel-length – book. So we get lots of biographical sketches of all the people on the destroyer USS Borie. These just aren’t very interesting. Nobody’s fault, but i don’t have to read it, so i don’t.

Oh. That is why Openstreetmap didn’t find »New Hebrides«. There is no such thing. Hasn’t been since Vanuatu became independent in 1980, long before there was a 747-400. So, what about that. There is a small chance that that is explained somewhere later in the novel. But i guess this is just the author being at best lazy and looked up a nice island in a really old atlas and didn’t bother to check if the name is still valid.

Also, the plan of the protagonist has at least two, maybe four major flaws: • He is telling his 6 h sop story to a CVR that overwrites anything older than 2 h. • NTSB and ATSB are about transport safety, and analyze accidents: what can be done so that this won’t happen again. What recommendations for pilots, maintenance staff, airlines as a whole &c. can be derived from this? • Even if NTSB & ATSB would analyze the 2 h of CVR, they won’t publish that »manifest«. • Also, with the given parameters the aircraft would probably crash somewhere in the middle of Australia. But the guy might mess it up and crash into the ocean much sooner, and even if they want to, they might not actually get to the black boxes, if they are deep down in the ocean.

Also, the number of technical errors just in that one chapter is astounding. Only some can be attributed to character error. Some somewhat. The (which one, the captain or the co-pilot) talking about the flight recorder might happen, but usually they would start the explanation with »first of all, there are two recorders, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder ...«. Some are just the author not doing the most basic research. The spiral staircase of a Boeing 747-400. Yeah, no. The newer 747, like the 400, have a straight staircase, not a spiral one.

Stuff like believing the APU will keep running after the fuel is gone works as character error, but what exactly did he think that think would run on? (The answer is obviously that he didn’t think.)

Ugh. I reject the premise set out in the first chapter (»47«. Very clever, the backwards chapter and page numbering 🙄). That being that we should listen to a guy’s story because he destroyed millions worth of equipment and coerced hundreds of people. In the name of aviation safety: not »listening« to the »CVR« is the one thing that will deter copycats the most.

Es ist aus einem »Mini-Verlag«. Da will ich mal nicht soo viel über den Schriftsatz lästern. Nur ein bisschen. Schriftart ist Bookman. OK. Kann man nehmen. Die Schrift hat zwei »ß«s. ein mit und eins ohne Unterlänge. Aus Gründen. Das ganze sieht etwas verschwommen aus, was eigentlich Spitzen sein soll, sind abgerundet. I-punkte laufen mit ihren i’s zusammen. Zu viel Tinte? Schlecht fokussierter Belichter?

Nicht was ich dachte. Das ist eher ein Lehr- als ein Lesebuch. Ich dachte, wir kriegten so ¾ kurze, einfache aber interessante Esperanto-Texte. Vielleicht mit ein paar Worterklärungen, und nichts weiter. Pustekuchen. Alle Texte sind, um Seiten zu schinden, doppelt, und dann gibt es lange Wortlisten, esperanto und deutsch, und dann nochmal eine Übersetzung, die natürlich die Wörter der Liste wiederholt. Ich fühl mich betuppt. Ich will mehr Texte! Am ende haben wir viel Erklärungen auf Deutsch, was denn in dem Teil vom Poemo de Utnoa steht, den wir nicht im Original zu sehen kriegen. Tolle Idee. Nicht.