On a small Caribbean island the latest 'reality' TV series begins. For Dana Kirsten, winning the $2 million prize could mean saving her sick child's life. But while the nation watches her every move, Dana is entering a contest for her life, and there can only be one survivor.
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Vassa Island has been specially rigged with remote-control cameras, a surveillance-satellite system, and the most powerful television transmitter ever created. For a small fee, anyone with a computer can access any of the 638 cameras live - twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week - and vote as the twelve carefully chosen contestants vie with each other, and with the hazards of the island.
But, only fifteen minutes into the opening transission, the show's support crew all die horribly. Then the shocked contestants hear a mystery voice announce: 'This has just become the ultimate reality show.'
From that moment on, they are hurled through a maze of traps and endurance tests. And when the fascinated worldwide viewers daily vote an individual off the island, it isn't just exile... its death.
The review of this Book prepared by Melissa Farrell
This is a great story about a reality television show that goes pyscho. To leave the island with your life you must meet many challenges and pray the audience doesn't vote you off.
The review of this Book prepared by BRENDA KELLY
Ballantine, Nov 2001, 24.95, 384 pp.
ISBN: 0345446976
is America's latest reality television show where twelve contestants are flown to the deserted island of Vassa in the Caribbean. Challenges confront each participant and every three days the audience votes on which person is eliminated. The final survivor wins two million dollars and his or her heart's desire. Dana Kirsten, a last minute substitute, wants to win because she has a ten-year-old daughter living on borrowed time with a doomsday clock ticking away if she fails to obtain experimental treatment in Switzerland.
On the first day of the stay at Vassa, the TV people are all killed by a mysterious ailment. A voice calling itself Control informs the contestants that an Ebola-like virus infects them all. On the day that a contestant is scheduled to be eliminated, a temporary antidote will be administered to the survivors. The winner will gain the ultimate prize, his or her life.
This mind-boggling thriller is a technologically aged version of Agatha Christie's “And Then There Were None”. Jim Brown has written a complex fast-paced story line populated by three-dimensional characters. The audience will root for some of the cast members to escape death and will feel sad when many do not. This novel contains more twists and turns than a meandering river or a mountain road.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
