One of those books that I liked but did not like enough. Like most of his other books, this one is well researched by Crichton but I guess not enough to hold my full attention.

The beginning was "fun", for a lack of a better word (how fun can airplane accidents be?!?) and even the whole technology mumbo jumbo was somewhat fun (trust me, there is a lot of it) but than the political thing came along where contracts were threatened due to safety issues/concerns and my brain tried to turn itself off. I kept it on but the batteries were losing power up there. I understand at some point it will get all business-y but I wasn't looking forward to it.

The ending was good but I feel like it was not big enough hook or a twist to make me give the book enough stars. Still, I am giving it at least 3 stars just because I like Crichton and his style.

This one is on a "mehh" scale for me but that is not to say that it was a bad book or a bad read. In fact, I could have read this book in a day or two if I did not have work. Chapters were few pages each and they read very fast.

A fast-paced techno-thriller about an in-flight accident investigation. Two of the lead characters are women, which is unusual for Michael Crichton. That does not make Crichton a feminist, though, far from it! The single mum Quality & Assurance VP, is the protagonist. The single and one-night-stander journalist is one of the antagonists.
After all, it is universally known among male supremacists that good women are those raising their kids, not those lying around. Can’t help wondering if Crichton would have voted Trump.

I've never read Michael Crichton before and after Airframe I'm pretty sure I never will read Crighton again. The plot itself which concerns an inflight accident on an airliner isn't bad. It's the multitude of acronyms (With no glossary for them) and the characters who are essentially caricatures.

The story is told mainly through the eyes of Casey Singleton who along with a secretary and a media coach, who is in the book for about four pages, are the only "normal" people in the book. Casey is a VP/troubleshooter/amateur aviation detective/ for Norton which is the company that built the plane that the book is about. Throughout the book Ms. Singleton deals with a group of characters that is simply not to be believed--Coworkers who are almost all geeks, media personalities who are mainly dishonest, union members who are all dishonest and violent. It just too much. Sweet little Casey and her secretary are the only people who come off as being genuine which makes for a pretty stupid story.

The grande finale of the book is simply ridiculous. I won't give anything away and spoil it for other readers. Suffice it to say that what happened never would have been allowed to happen. It's just a joke.

IMO, Crichton's best novel. The technicality of it is really astounding, as though an aircraft engineer wrote the story and not him. A very interesting mystery that goes deep into all the incredible work done by aviation investigators after a crash.

I appreciated the premise. The fact that this book was at least somewhat inspired by true events brought a different level of unease to the atmosphere.

I'd call this largely plot/mystery-driven. Few of the characters have much depth, outside of our single-mom industry professional lead... so it's difficult to connect on an emotional level. Attention is snared at first thanks to the scene-setting, which involves a mother and her infant in impending peril. (That just felt like a cheap investment shot.) And the prose is serviceable, if not especially memorable.

As much as this book has aged, one of the parts that felt unsettlingly relevant was the journalistic aspect--with their if-it-bleeds-it-leads focus on ratings over truth. Which made one particular scene (wherein the cut-throat young reporter bites off far more than she can chew) all the more satisfying. Add to that the tragic irony of the twist, and it's clear there is an underlying skill to the storytelling.

I found a lot of the Airplane industry technical aspects were actually pretty interesting. As was the basis for its own specific brand of corporate espionage.
The pacing just takes a while to get off the ground... so to speak. >.>

Following the phone it in for Spielberg antics with Lost World previous, Crichton is back with Airframe doing what he does best - finding a topic he was interested in, researching the hell out of it and then building a thriller around it.

Once again, there is a suspicion that Crichton had a time machine and could see the near future at the time of writing. There are haunting future echoes of the MCAS faults with Boeing 737 MAX which occurred in 2018/19 over 20 years after Airframe was published.

As with some previous releases, Crichton goes on to explore the changing impact of globalisation on the US manufacturing sector along with a critical take on the role media has in fixing the narrative in the eyes of the public.

Despite an abundance of technical and aviation specific terminology, this is one of Crichton's better paced books with lots of quick fire point of view changes to keep you guessing most of the way. Some people may find the ending too abrupt and a little unsatisfying but I was fine with how it was handled. I really enjoyed Airframe but I'm hoping the remaining books in publication order lean more into future technology and science fiction rather than be a critique on the fall of US manufacturing.

Up next is Timeline and without reading too much about it, I guess my wishes come true...

great book hard to put down:)

This is an older book, and one that was on my to-read list for a while now. I saw it on Spotify and hit their audiobook limit; thankfully the local library had it available through Libby.

I listened to this while doing low brain activity work so I may not have caught everything, but I think I got 99% of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it for all the aviation processes throughout. It checked the nerd box for me there. The writing style was solid. The descriptors weren’t lengthy or unnecessary. The story moves at a perfect pace. Character development is present - always a must. The conflicts presented are complex enough to be reasonable and not easy to see how the resolution will come. The awful characters get their appropriate end for the most part without it being a too clean ending. It mimics reality, which I appreciate.

I’d recommend for those interested in learning a bit about aviation - the author uses different characters well, although somewhat obviously, to explain concepts - and those already in it.

Enjoyable listen with Francis Cassidy reading.

This one is might want to get a copy of to read and loan out.

I listened to an audio version of this book while unpacking at our new place and the recording was good but the book was eh. As a rule, I love the bit of Sci Fi that is usually in Michael Creighton books, but this one was just a mystery. A plain old who-done-it, how-did-it-happen. No futuristic science or outbreaks, or dinosaurs. (Just kidding about the dinosaurs.) but it wasn't even a thriller because it was so predictable.

I learned a lot about airplane manufacturing, and Creighton's obvious distain for media and the press was again apparent, as it is in State of Fear. I enjoyed those parts of the book. Other than that I found it really flat.

Oh, and the crass language. I can always do without that. Boo.

Si bien Crichton es una lectura ágil siempre, que entretiene y se lee rápido, este libro me pareció demasiado técnico. Suele tener explicaciones técnicas, sin sobrecargar, pero acá se excede en detalles que explican la falla del avión. A ratos se hacía muy pesado de leer. Aún así, la trama está bien construida, divierte, y vale la pena de leer. Lo otro fue el final, algo predecible. Es una lectura para fanáticos de los libros de catástrofe, o que sigan a Crichton. #puntocritico #crichton

For someone scared of flying, I was recommended this book. Well written, gripping and full of facts about planes and the level of testing involved before they are used commercially. It has alleviated some of my terror and I hope the next time in fly (May), I remember this feeling.

Considering that this book is about the greed and corruption of big businesses and aeroplanes malfunctioning, I was expecting it to be a lot more action packed. Instead, it gets kind of bogged down in bureaucracy, although that’s not necessarily a problem. It’s still interesting, it’s just interesting in a different way than I was expecting.

It was also a serendipitous little read because I picked it up not long after I watched a documentary on Netflix about Boeing. The gist of both that documentary and this book by Crichton is that while aeroplanes used to be built only with passenger safety and security in mind, times have changed somewhat and most airlines are now under pressure to cut costs and make savings.

The good news is that there’s also some great characterisation here, and when you combine that with all of the unknowns that the characters are trying to wrap their heads around, it makes it a cracking little read that keeps you going. It might not be Crichton’s best book, but it has a lot going for it, especially once the action starts to pick up.

One thing that I will say is that I was a little annoyed by the book’s blurb, which contained a couple of spoilers and talked about things that didn’t happen until a couple of hundred pages in. I don’t think that was necessary to sell the book, and indeed I only checked it in the first place because it’s a habit I have when I start a new read. I didn’t even glance at it when I bought the thing.

Most of the negatives that I could highlight came down to personal opinion rather than any objective measure of what’s good or bad, and I was pleased to see that the technology didn’t feel too dated, which has been a common problem with Crichton for me.

And the negatives are outweighed by the positives, the main example of which is the fact that it’s just a decent thriller novel that keeps you turning the pages. There might not be aeroplanes falling out of the sky, but there doesn’t need to be.

I think the stakes are higher in Crichton’s other books, and it’s not as though there are dinosaurs roaming around or a virus from outer space that has the potential to wipe out the population of the planet. Instead, it’s a much cosier vibe, a business-based thriller that reminds me of what I set out to do with my novel, Former.ly.