Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

The offshore oil rig represents one of Earth's last frontiers; the ultimate example may be found in the North Sea, 300 miles off the coast of Scotland. What's it like to live in this hostile environment, in unnatural isolation, and to work to the point of exhaustion? Curiosity prompted Alvarez (The Savage God, The Biggest Game in Town to visit the Shell installation at Brent Fields. The magnitude of the operation is impressive: the work force moves around by helicopter, and the air control center handles as much traffic as a large airport; the largest ``flotel'' can accommodate 500 people; supply vessels transfer cargo in 40-knot winds and 50-foot seas. On a rotating system of two weeks on, two weeks off, the 12-hour workdays amid constant noise and vibration take a psychic toll on the riggers. The people best fitted for offshore work, Alvarez found, are ex-military men. He talked at length to pilots, roustabouts, managers, divers and the chief official of the Shetland Islands. It's an amazing account of humanity triumphing over the elements. Much of this book has appeared in the New Yorker. (April 23) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Writing as much about the people as about the technology involved in seabed oil drilling, Alvarez offers an enthralling look at life in an environment where nature can, and sometimes does, literally go mad. (Ap 15 86)

Kirkus Book Review

An absorbing, if brief, account of life on an offshore oil rig. In 1971, oil was discovered 300 miles off Scotland, and the North Sea, formerly known simply as one of Earth's most hostile environments, became an economic bonanza--and ailing Britain's saving grace. In 1983, Alvarez (The Savage God) ventured into the bleak seascape of North Sea oil installations. He came to know the men who run the so-called Brent Field, living on the edge of danger, isolated almost to the point of being imprisoned, working near sheer exhaustion to dull the omnipresent dangers. Alvarez interviewed the men who convinced Shell Oil to drill near the 61 st parallel (roughly the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska) and entrepreneurs who made their fortunes there. He also explored how the oil development has transformed life in nearby Aberdeen, Scotland, and the desolate Shetland Islands. Alvarez is able to convey in intimate and engrossing detail even the most mundane daily tasks offshore, such as transferring cargo by crane onto a platform from a supply boat pitching in seas boiled by 40-knot gales. Indeed, the prose is readable throughout; the final chapters--on the quirky Shetlanders and their austere landscape, and the otherworldly existence of divers who routinely repair structures 500 feet below the North Sea's turbulent surface, live in cramped, pressurized compartments during their four-week-long shifts, and must ""decompress"" for days before heading home--are poetic. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.