A humoristic original guy the writer of this book is; Eric Auxier. He nowadays flies big ones, but there was also a short period that in Alaska he flew smaller ones. This book is drenched with everything that Alaska IS: fantastic landscapes, beautiful birds, desolate landsapes, mountains, a lot of bad weather and little opportunity to make a succesful emergency landing there, if it goes wrong on the way.
Through the book you taste that Eric Auxier is crazy about Alaska. He has passion to the square for it. Passion for flying in Alaska. Anyway passion for flying. Alaska is a sort of youth love of the writer and that had to, one way or the other, end in this roman that from front to back radiates everything from Alaska and flying. Let alone the fact that Eric Auxier portraits his experiences and love for the job in a roman is to be called original. It is an exceptional roman, in the way that the content of the book is not totally made up. A few events have actually taken place and have been a little adjusted to make it all a bit more juicy.
The story plays at the airport of Juneau in Alaska. For fun: Google that location with Google-maps and that you immediately understand why this place is the ultimate startingpoint for two young pilots, Daniel “DC” Alva and Allen David Foley. When you actually really zoom in on Google-maps you’ll see southwards of the asphalt lane also a parallel lane in the water with planes that cast off at the north side. You simply want to be part of that! Eric Auxier sets the story at an airline company surrounded with all kinds of caricatures, say flying fanatics that you can imagine with a transport company in Alaska, where everything is ‘much for little’.
Actually the front page says enough. Passion and respect for nature…but a good ‘aviation book’ would not be a good aviation book if there were no women in it. So that one woman is apparent and she makes it the two friends pretty difficult. The necessary dose good humour is in the book: ‘8 feet between the bottle and the t
hrottle’ we keep it in! I personally found the check of DC by Mrs Innes rather nice to read. DC has the check of about 1,5 hours, by this lady after a short night with booze and all kinds of manoeuvres in a plane that is relatively new to him. Because the writer has used multiple personal true experiences in this roman, I was constantly wondering which episodes from the story had truly happened; was he the one that was crucified by the examiner after a ro
ugh night? What experiences Eric Auxier of the crash? What more adventures did Eric Auxier experience there on the women front? What almost is certain is that the flight safety examiners and inspectors take a big place in the experiences and experiential world of the writer. What do you say, Eric Auxier?
But seriously, Captain Auxier describes all fictive persons extensively and they are also based on reality. He writes relaxed, with humour and true passion for Alaska, the flying but also for the writing itself. Through his writing style you almost literally crawl in the jacket (and the airplane) of the central persons and that is simply delicious. Across the story the necessary aviation jargon comes round that for as well as pilots as not-pilots is an extra source of recognition.
Would you like to follow Eric Auxier? That is possible through his bog: http://capnaux.blogspot.com/.
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