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.

Meh, a bit technical but at least its not preachy.

I got to the the end of the story, so it wasn't too bad, but definitely not one of Crichton's best stories. But it's also not his worst. Somewhere in the middle, below Timeline, above State of Fear, probably around Prey.The narrator was a bit monotone and it just sort of petered out at the end. Probably not worth a credit.

Airframe (Unabridged)

A good book but it dragged on about needless things. I recommend the Abridged version.

Good Book.

Is a good book. A bit long on tedious details. The story line is very intriguing.

Good book but, could have been deeper and better

Michael Crichton is an excellent writer. This is not a sci-fi book, rather it is a drama/thriller. I enjoyed very much but it had a couple loose ends which I will not disclose hence writing a spoiler. This is a 4 star book. It is not a classic, but it does keep your attention and with a great performance by Frances Cassidy. I would recommend this for a nice comfortable read. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Airplane textbook, mildly intriguing mystery

I love Crichton. Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Timeline are among my favorite books, of his and in general. I had tried many times over the years to get into this book, but just could not. Since I've read almost all of Crichton's other books, I decided to try the audiobook when I saw it on sale. Honestly, the first half of this book is so boring. Every page has about 20 new airplane related acronyms that, frankly, you forget the meaning of a minute later.

I was very close to just giving up altogether, but I have to admit that the central mystery of what happened during the flight was interesting enough to push through. I normally listen to audiobooks sped up slightly (1.25x speed or so), but the narrator seemed to be reading so slowly that I kicked the speed up to 1.6x speed and it was so much better. Not that she was bad per se. She was fine, nothing special, but nothing abysmal (like the narrator for the Timeline audiobook - now that was terrible).

I decided to give the story an overall of 3 just because when I finally got about 2/3 of the way through, I was actually really engrossed in the mystery aspect of the plot and powered through the rest in one sitting. But really, unless you really love airplanes, this book is very difficult to get into. #Boring #SatisfyingEnding #AcronymBonanza #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

Great narrator, great build-up, lackluster conclusion

Great narrator- she was enjoyable to listen to. The build up of the story was very good with interesting and thorough details of commercial airplane flight and manufacturing, and good character development. My issue was with the ending. I feel like the author had several exciting directions to take the plot and he went with a very bland and uninspired ending.

Technical jargon

There was a lot of technical jargon to get through, but overall it was a good "read".

great book

I was impressed with the detail that the Mr. Crihton wnet into. I am a cnc programmer/machinist and I relate to some of the problems in tracking a problem. Loved it

One of Michael Crichton's best.

Michael Crichton was an amazing author with a talent for merging fact and fiction. The story is brought to life by Frances Cassidy who not only has a beautiful voice but one of the most talented voice actors I've ever had the pleasure of listening to.

One of the Best reads ever...

I read this book years ago and it just popped into my mind to try it again and just as much as I love it back then it's great. You could see that this book was almost made into a movie because it takes her into the inner working of the airline industry. Fantastic