The Tsunami Countdown by Boyd Morrison

I recently picked up this fictional novel from a local library for my daughter and found it very interesting in light of what we have learned from the research on this forum about comets and impact-originated earthquakes and tsunamis. Also interesting is how normal people react to the news of and how they behave in a disaster. I think it would make a good and entertaining read for many forum members.


Spoiler Alert





The story is about Kai, a professor of geology and acting director at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, as he struggles to save the people of Hawaii and his own family from the wrath of a mega tsunami. The first half of the novel tells about how he and a colleague interpret incoming data about a small earthquake in a remote part of Pacific ocean. According to standard interpretation, such a small earthquake, in a region that never had an earthquake, cannot generate a tsunami. But little things like the disappearance of tidal buoy sensors and the missing of a Boing 747 near the earthquake point leads him to conclude that it is a massive tsunami caused by a meteor impact and issue a tsunami warning very early on, which gives valuable time for people to evacuate. (There was an actual crashed airplane due to meteor impact covered by Sott here). The biggest tsunami wave to arrive in Hawaii is up to 300 feet high.

The second part of the story is packed with actions as the tsunami arrives and is not much different from a typical novel. However, what fascinates me is the detailed descriptions of how people blatantly disregard the most explicit instructions to evacuate and how to do so, putting themselves and others in unnecessary dangerous situations and sometimes certain deaths. Although it is expected behavior from what we know about the normalcy bias and human psychology, it really hits home when reading it in an actual context.

Given that the book is only recently published, I wonder if it is an attempt to prepare the public about what is to come?

I really liked this little book, an adventure book for young readers and not so young, like me. ;) I usually like apocalyptic stories and this book is one of them. There is a lot of action in the book, also many information about tsunamis and how to be in a tsunami situation. It is a very educational book. I think this book can be read in family and then try to answer to some very vital question in relation with the story because in the book you can see many different characters, many ways that each one reacts when in the middle (before, during and after) a tsunami. We can question their point of vue, try to understand if their actions were good or not, try to put ourselves in their flesh and try to see if in a dramatic situation like this one, what we should have done.

Action, adventure in the book is a good way to attire attention to young readers but the book is not just action and adventure. Very serious subjects are in this book like survival, maturity, integrity, love, friendship, compassion, STS way to see things, or STO. This is very interesting.

Thank you for talking about this book. I am not a parent but I if I was one I would surely buy it for my kids. I learned many thing about tsunamis.

It is interesting one idea that is very strong in the book: you can do anything to educate people, give them information that can save their lives but if they don't want to listen or understand, you can't do anything more to change them and save their lives. It is a book that talks about responsibility, in very simple terms. And in a tsunami situation, for example, you have to be very responsible and being responsible can save your life.

I checked this book out on Amazon and was surprised when reading the author's bio:

Fresh from earning a BS in mechanical engineering from Rice University, I got a job with Lockheed working on the Space Station Freedom project at Johnson Space Center. I got to play with a lot of cool stuff like the space shuttle and station mockups, the robot arm, and the Precision Air-Bearing Floor, which is like a giant air hockey table that simulates microgravity. The best experience I had was when my job required me to fly on NASA's Vomit Comet, the same KC-135 plane used to train astronauts for zero gravity and to film the space sequences in the movie, Apollo 13. I didn't vomit.

After a couple of years at NASA, I decided to go back to grad school and get a PhD in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech. My specialty in ergonomics came in handy at RCA, where I designed electronic program guides for TVs and digital satellite systems. During my career at RCA, I earned eleven US patents.

When my wife and I moved to Seattle for her residency at the University of Washington, I got every ten-year-old boy's fantasy job in the Xbox games group at Microsoft. As a usability manager, it was my responsibility to make games as fun and user-friendly as possible. Yes, I got paid to play video games. I was credited on both PC and Xbox games, including Project Gotham Racing 2, Flight Simulator 2004, and Forza Motorsport. I left Microsoft to become a full-time writer, but I'm still a gamer.

Click to expand...

Apart from that he is a Jeopardy Champion and *cough* quite good looking. Oh, and he also is a professional actor. Too good to be true?

His schtick seems to be to take popular myths and stories - Loch Ness, Roswell, Noah, King Midas, and weave fictional layers around them. A little like Dan Brown? I am still interested in the Tsunami book, though, had two dreams about tsunamis last summer and live now quite close to the Pacific ...

M.T.