Saturday, January 07, 2006

STORMY WEATHER/TOURIST SEASON/STRIP TEASE -- Carl Hiaasen

Random House Audio Books
6 Audio Cassettes
Stormy Weather ©1995; Tourist Season ©1986; Strip Tease ©1993
Read by Ed Asner

Three books by Carl Hiaasen on six (abridged?) cassettes.

I have enjoyed the children's/YA books by Hiaasen, and so I was looking for a crash course in his adult novels. While the library packaging for these books does not indicate whether or this set is abridged, I would suspect that it is.

STORMY WEATHER was probably the most enjoyable with the various plots and sub-plots coming together. TOURIST SEASON seemed less busy, but also less cohesive. I recognized STRIP TEASE almost immediately as the basis for the Demi Moore movie by the same name.

WHat I don't like about Hiaasen is very casual dismissal (usually by means of a grisly death) of major characters as almost a footnote. In Strip Tease, "the most poweful man in Florida politics" ends up a corpse in a fish locker on a yacht, and I feel that we are told that much only because as readers we demand to know. The loser, drug-addict, ex-husband of the female lead in the book, winds up chopped in to tiny bits in a sugar cane factory. We are told this by taking us out of the immediate action and sending us in to the future -- being told what will happen.

I won't be eagerly seeking out any of Hiaasen's adult novels in the future.

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