The Coming Global Superstorm

by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber

Book Overview

With its broad range of current and bestselling nonfiction titles -- including biography, history, essays, humor, politics, popular science and memoirs -- this series fills the need for books that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671041908
• ISBN13: 9780671041908
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Okay, I'm Spooked

I started this book a couple of days before the new year. Before I was half way through the book, severe storms with hurricane force winds had hit France. By the time I had finished the book the chief meterologist of the U.S. and Great Britain had issued a joint statement warning of global warning. Now Scotland has been hit by a storm with sustained winds of 100 m.p.h.This is exactly the scenario Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber lay out in their book. It made an already scary book even scarier.This is a thought-provoking book and I recommend it for everyone.

Compelling Hypothesis (chachetpanache@hotmail.com)

This book pieces together three seemingly unrelated groups of facts to come to an astonishing conclusion: Earth's climate is inherently unstable, and we may be on the cusp of a catastrophic climate change.The first cluster of facts relates to the evidence for escalating climate change, and I think they do a good job of collecting these while conceding valid criticisms of the orthodox global warming hypothesis (e.g., that global temperatures on the whole aren't rising nearly as fast as the computer models say that they should, given the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that CO2 levels are even now anomalously low in geologic terms). They present a picture of global warming and species extinction that is primarily a result of very long-range climatological instability to which mankind may be contributing, rather than putting the whole burden of it on our shoulders. In this way, they avoid the shrill guilt-mongering tone of the environmentalists while gently suggesting that we as a species can do something about the problem. This is a very refreshing approach.The second cluster of facts on which they draw concerns archaeological anomalies such as the Sphinx, the Baalbek ruins, the Cheops pyramid, etc., that are exceedingly hard to fit into the standard theories of man's prehistory. Astonishingly, they relate these to the whole global warming debate by positing that the ancient flood legends are a thinly-disguised history of what happened to the relatively advanced prehistoric civilization that must have created these imposing ruins. My one criticism of the book would be that in delving into this area, they revel too much in interpreting and extrapolating ancient legends, reinterpretations of the zodiac, etc., rather than sticking to very solid facts (such as the gigantic ruins created by the engineering feats of the ancients). In their defense, they do clearly state where they are speculating.The third cluster of facts relate to actual archaeological and geological evidence of past superstorms and massive species extinctions caused thereby, such as the fossil evidence of sudden freezing of the mammoths, core samples of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that show sudden temperature shifts and changes in atmospheric methane concentrations, etc. I thought most of this was quite solid.The authors -- correctly, in my view -- don't extrapolate global warming trends linearly, but instead posit that these trends will reverse violently at some point. This isn't apocalyptic millenial madness; this is the way many chaotic systems behave. Earthquakes are a good example: the continents are drifting slowly with respect to each other, but the changes don't, in the main, happen gradually. There is a gradual buildup of energy and strain in the system, during which time everything appears to be reassuringly stable, and this is followed by a sudden, catastrophic release, and then the whole process repeats, on

Thought-provoking and well written

Expecting to read more of the "same-old" doomsday speculation rampant on Art Bell's radio show, this book suprised me with both its message and its scope. With the exception of some of the initial chapters, which provide an overview of recent theories regarding the age of mankind, the entire book was new material for me. It was the first time I'd heard of a "superstorm", how one would form, and the effects such a storm would have. The prospect is terrifying. The book is so well-written, however, that I felt the book's message was a call to action rather than an simply a disruptive alarm. The authors cleverly intersperse realistic-yet-fictional scenes of the onset of such a storm between the factual, sometimes dry prose. The result is a book that is extremely informative and a pleasure to read (similar to "The Hot Zone").Grounded in science and only minimally speculative(the authors state very clearly where they do so), this book is well worth reading and contemplating. I hope the book finds its way into academia soon.

A griping page turner!

I just finished The Coming Global Superstorm. What do I think of it? Its one an incredible read! I picked this book up on Friday and by Sunday I had read it three times! Both Art and Whitley have a way of griping the reader and holding on your attention! Its very hard to put this one down once you begin reading it! Art and Whitley did an outstanding job! the book is well put together and well thought out! They managed to tie in a fictional story of the Global Superstorm with the hard scientific facts.Also includes works from their abandoned book The Edge:Man's Mysterious Past and Incredible Future. Which they manage to tie in logically with the Superstorm. This book is very timely, I would like to thank both Art and Whitley for this book. This may well be the most important book you will ever read! This is no Doom and Gloom book- If we can stave off this Superstorm-and we CAN! Then we have a brilliant future ahead!- And we DO!

Fair Weather Warning

Though both Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber have very vocal critics about their ideas and motives you cannot deny the impact that both individuals have had on our society's popular culture. Continuing to create debate and discussion is The Coming Global Superstorm which I am sure will create a "storm" of conversation with it's readers. Mixing both "fictional" scenarios as well as documented data Bell & Strieber paint what might be a very dim view of our planet's fate, but rest assured there is always a chance for change. Could a storm overtake the entire planet? If it did would we survive? This book takes on questions such as these and as Mr. Bell himself has said "..trys not to alarm, but inform." I may not always agree with the concepts of Mr. Bell and Mr. Strieber but as I sit in my office in SouthEastern Michigan this first week of December and watch the thermometer jump past 62 degrees I can't help but wonder, didn't it use to snow around here at this time of year?