How to Survive a Sharknado: a book review

How to Survive a Sharknado and other Unnatural Disasters

By Andrew Shaffer, SyFy, and Three Rivers Press

What is this exactly? A mashing of monsters and natural disasters, like the somehow-popular Sharknado as seen on SyFy Channel, this book is a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to survive these cheesy movie cataclysms.

This is a humorous spin on the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks from Chronicle Books a few years ago. An Indiana Jones-inspired title in this same vein came out a few years ago, pitting yourself against the same dangers that the intrepid archaeologist faced. At least all of those were based on real dangers.

How to Survive a Sharknado is a humorous spin of merging a menacing creature and a natural disaster. Sharknado. Bataclysm. Dinoshark. Some are even simplistic myths like Saber-Toothed Tiger and Manticore. However it is squashed together, they are only trying to have a little fun.

And it is funny at times. If you get caught in an Arachnoquake web, “The more you move, Marky Mark, the more likely you are to attract her attention.” A Swamp Volcano may ignite your gas tank: “Talk about going out with a bang.” The humor is slight and feels like lines delivered by the stars of the cheesy movies.

There’s almost the sense that SyFy is publishing this in order to stamp a copyright on this and other creative ideas. With the fame (and I still wonder how anybody watches these movies) of the current Sharknado 2, because someone apparently clamored for more, this is their attempt to market these terms and ideas before another C-movie company took these ideas and ran. And if this is simply a list of the next two dozen or so SyFy Channel movies, then I know what channel I am not watching in the future.

FTC disclaimer: “I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.”

Author info:
http://www.randomhouse.com/author/222330/andrew-shaffer-with-contributions-by-fin-shepard-and-april-wexler

More info:
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/240076/how-to-survive-a-sharknado-and-other-unnatural-disasters-by-andrew-shaffer