Landfall

This is the second Nevil Shute that I've read, and I'm starting to get an impression of him as a workmanlike writer who tells a good story. His prose is a little clumsy. I couldn't tell you how many times Professor Legge was referred to as “the civilian”, or how many times the hero's car's engine was described as “worn”. I was left particularly bewildered by an odd paragraph in which Shute inexplicably appears to break the fourth wall and writes in first person singular about encountering some secret material regarding the protagonist Chambers.

Shute makes up for his shortcomings with his profound technical knowledge, his ability to convey it to the reader, and his gift for stringing together a good plot. Quotable he isn't, but the stories stick. In this case he has got me very interested in going to look at the Avro Anson on display at an aircraft museum near me.

The acid test is: will I read another Shute? Sure I will.