Airframe

A Novel

By: Michael Crichton

Narrated by: Frances Cassidy

Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane...

At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies in paramount in the public mind, a lethal mid-air disaster aboard a commercial twinjet airliner bound from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation.

Airframe is nonstop Crichton: the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that has been a Crichton hallmark since The Andromeda Strain.

©1996 by Michael Crichton (P)1996 by Random House, Inc.

A Good Listen & a Solid Story

I listened to this book right after listening to Timeline. At first I thought that the pace of this book might be a disappointment, but as the characters developed I became more involved and eventually found myself really wanting to know what was going to happen next.

The story is very believable with lots of relevant historical references to air transportation events. The protagonist, a women, faces not only the challenges of finding the cause of a mysterious air disaster, dealing with an unrelenting press, and avoiding being set up as a fall guy, but also the stigma of being a women in a male dominated engineering environment.

The ending is clever and will catch you by surprise if you do not listen carefully. There are lots of insights into air travel safety. If you like your pace more like that of a mystery novel, with lots of technical background, you will like this book.

Kept me interested... though somewhat unbelievable

I have mixed feelings on this book. On the one hand, I found it very interesting (being an engineer, I enjoyed the technical details). Much of the book seemed very factual, including a behind the scenes look at the making of weekly "news shows".

On the other hand, I guessed at the ending early on... this didn't bother me too much since I had to keep listening to see if I was right. What I most disliked was the unbelievable (at least to me)underlying conspiracy story (including murder attempts).

Story was a little slow, but still good

the story was hard to get fully engaged, I put it down a couple of times and started again later. I love Crichton, and this one was good, but not his best.

The Adventure You Would Expect from Crichton

I chose this audiobook largely because I have enjoyed Chrichton's other thrillers, especially Disclosure. As usual, I missed obvious clues and was left wondering how I missed them. Recently on the news, there was a story about an airplane engine that caught fire. My mind flashed back to this book and what it had taught me about airplanes, and I found myself talking about the book and how different parts of the plane are not always made by the same companies as the airframes. Phenomenal learning blended into a great storyline.

Narration is absolutely the best

Well written story. The profanity could have been toned down a little bit. Frances Cassity is marvelous as a narrator. She does a voice for each charactor and when she reads the logs you can see it happening. She has a wonderful voice and is able to do so much with her voice. I can actually see the charactors talking and arguing in this book.

A very good 'thriller' well told

Would you consider the audio edition of Airframe to be better than the print version?

I have never 'read' Airframe the book, but I think based on other books I have read and listened to, Airframe would fall into the 'better performed than read' catagory.

I am old enough to still remember sitting by the 'radio' and listening to mystery stories being performed. It really does release the creative imagination to create the scene from the words and the performers provide the emphasis & context that has to be decided on the fly while reading the story.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

The book kept moving the story forward and held my interest from beginning to end. A good book always has you asking what will happen next and I want to find out.

Which character – as performed by Frances Cassidy – was your favorite?

All the characters were well differentiated by Cassidy and that made the telling more interesting and allowed the imagination to do its work.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

A top notch thriller in the classic tradition of story telling.

Any additional comments?

I will listen to this book again, but I have no plans to buy and read the book.

Another Exciting Michael Crichton Novel

Michael Crichton again delivered a gripping story that this reader didn’t want to put down. He made technical information understandable and interesting. The story was tense and fast paced. The narrator did an exceptional job.

Crichton at his best

Airframe has the perfect amount of technical detail and is a fascinating story that keeps you constantly interested.

Great book - ok performance.

So, like most Michael Crichton books, this one had me from the beginning. The story is compelling but some of the things are a bit dry to listen to, and you can miss out on nuances when things come to light and ask you to compare.

There are a couple of nitpick things I have with it overall though. First, this was a pure conversion from a cd, including the "this story will continue on cd #". There were a couple of sections that skipped/repeated because of the cd conversion. Also the narrator tried to hard to give the main character a distinctive voice. It made her sound like a breathless ditz, which obviously she is not.

Try it, you'll like it.

This book is worth listening to even if you didn't like the author's earlier books. If you are like me, and you're interested in believable behind the scenes analysis of an airline crash, this is definitely worth your time. There is a significant subplot regarding TV news magazines like 60 Minutes which adds to the enjoyment of this book.