Steiner’s book $20 Per Gallon is one author’s doomed forecast for Mr. and Mrs. American-Gas-Guzzler's at the pump demise. He begins his report with an economic forecast, goes on to catalog a list of the problems that our gas laden society has brought upon ourselves, and then concludes with a description of what a rise in gas prices would mean to every working part of our society’s gas dependent future. According to Steiner and his colleagues, the gas industry is doomed to fail as economic recession continues to keep Americans away from the pump.

Rarely do I read a book that I just cannot find anything good to say about it, but, surprisingly, I have found it in this one. I have to be perfectly blunt. If you are prepared to listen to a strong doom and gloom report with quote after quote from excerpted experts, then this is the audio book for you. But, if you always think the glass is half full, or I should say the "tank," pass this one by. The author begins his report with secondhand laments from other soothsayers and hypothetical statisticians. I found this book’s negative forecast to be redundant after the third disk and it just didn’t get any better in the tenth. He simply continues to quote one expert after another, which becomes repetitively annoying. The only real purpose for this book was to provide a soap box for the author.

I found this book to be full of futuristic, nonsensical information. If we all believed what it has to say, we would all be trading in our cars for bicycles. While gas prices have indeed climbed, they are not to the heights that Steiner purports to be in our future. Eight dollars a gallon? Not any time soon and hard to believe they will ever be $20. And then to fuel the skeptical mind, he goes on to plead his unconvincing case about everything else attached to these high gas prices, from dying SUVs, train travel, sushi consumption (don’t know how that entered into it) and airline collapse. He does give some positive reflection in his hope that if gas prices rise to $20 a gallon, it will force us into a world of innovation and efficiency. He didn’t convince me, but I’m a skeptic; and I’m not even from the "Show Me" state.