Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #769192 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Synopsis
A history of the great roller coasters of the world traces their evolution from their pioneering designers to the creation of modern high-tech coasters, accompanied by trivia, anecdotes, and memorabilia.

Customer Reviews

Comes close to being a great book, then lets itself down.
It's tough for me to come up with a verdict on this book. It tries so hard to please both those the hardened coaster fanatic and those with a passing interest in the subject, and ends up sitting uncomfortably somewhere in-between the two levels.

Let's start with the positives. Thankfully, it avoids falling victim to the flaw that lets down many of the roller coaster books I've read, namely making the assumption that great coasters are found solely in the USA. In fact, Bennett provides what has to be the most geographically even-handed book I've come across, giving roughly equal billing to Europe and America, while giving good coverage to the less famous rides of the Far East. Furthermore, it is one of the few books to give the superb coasters that travel the German funfair circuit the credit they deserve.

Also in its favour is the fact that it is not just a guidebook telling you what coasters can be found where. A good chunk of the book is devoted to the science and history behind the ride. From the origins of the coaster, through to features on long-gone rides, the book offers a lot of good information and excellent photographs for the budding coaster historian, all presented in a highly accessible manner. Besides the coasters themselves, a chapter is dedicated to a series of good biographies of some of the great designers, which again impresses thanks to the fact that it includes not only the celebrated designers of the past (Fred Church, Harry Traver etc), but also recent designers like Ron Toomer (designer of The Big One at Blackpool), and Anton Schwarzkopf (designer of countless classic steel coasters), whose inclusion helps to prevent the chapter from coming across as overly nostalgic.

While 90% of the book is excellent, it is badly let down by a series of silly - and I mean SILLY - errors. Here are some of my biggest gripes:

1 - Photographic errors. Far too many photos are printed back-to-front, while others are incorrectly captioned (a two page feature on Tonnerre de Zeus at Parc Asterix in Paris is accompanied by a large picture of Megafobia at Oakwood, Wales). Worse, It's easy to imagine people seeing the pictures of the Cobra at West Midland Safari Park, deciding to try it out, and arriving at the park only to realise that the book failed to mention that the ride was dismantled years before its publication!

2 - Diagrams and explanations. A diagram of the layout of the Crystal Beach Cyclone is so badly captioned as to be almost useless - a straight piece of track on the diagram corresponds to the caption "high speed figure-8" for example. Elsewhere, a discussion of coaster physics is explained via a bizarre section named "A Fictional Conversation with Anton Schwarzkopf" - whether the great designer actually uttered the words attributed to him is left unclear. The final section, a guide to the world's coasters, is blighted with an overly complicated colour/shape coding system which is which is made worse by the fact that the descriptions are sometimes plainly wrong - I doubt Alton Towers will be too flattered to see Oblivion, one of their star rides, listed as a children's coaster! In another odd twist, the listing for German coasters suggests that the only coaster there are those on the travelling fair circuit, despite having photos of German theme park coasters earlier in the book!

These errors may not be the end of the world, but they do suggest a lack of research. When you come across a new piece of information, the amount of errors elsewhere makes you unwilling to accept the author's word as fact. For example, having been impressed by the section on coaster history, I'm suddenly inclined to believe what the book has to say when I realise that, in the case of Oakwood's Megafobia, or the portable Olympia Looping, it fails even to spell the rides' names correctly!

This could (and should) have been a fantastic read, and I really wish I could endorse it. Unfortunately, the number of careless errors means that I can only recommend it to those with a passing interest in the subject. My fellow coaster fanatics, I wish I could offer a glowing recommendation, but I'm not sure I can. The errors are too big and too frequent for that. It is definitely the best book I've read in terms of giving a global view of the subject, but that's ultimately because I'm yet to find a really top-notch book. It's certainly worth having, and it certainly seems fantastic when you first flick through it. Sadly, it doesn't really live up to that initial promise.

Publishers Muck It Up
I bought this book at Blackpool in 1999 and found it fascinating. It starts with a review of coaster history and the great designers before sections on great rides and individual parks.
It is the next part which irritates - the incomplete gazetteer. I know the author says that it is incomplete but to miss out parks such as Phantasialand and Heide Park - the section for Germany consists of, "There are many travelling fairs in Germany, where portable rollercoasters are temporarily built on compact sites..." - is cutting it down too far. Also, there is a full page picture of a ride in Las Vegas at the start of the gazetteer which the gazetteer then goes on to miss out altogether.
Another quibble is the proofreading. Inconsistencies between picture captions and the text are found with page 185 giving the name of one ride as both White Canyon and White Cyclone, page 101 gives a designer 2 names and these are just a couple of the more glaring errors because they occur side by side.
A few factual errors have also crept in - shoot those proofreaders - but only an enthusiast will spot them.
This work is ideal for introducing the names of Miller, Schwartzkopf and Arrow to those who have always liked the rides and have a bit of curiosity about them.
Overall, this is a really good book but it is high time a second, updated edition were issued. The end section, Records, is now out of date.
I have the feeling that the publishers edited the manuscript excessively and have made the author look foolish as a result.

Very good book!
In think this is a very good book because it has alot of info on coasters around the world. Its got coaster records (Speed, Length) And loads of colour pictures. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in Roller coasters.