[Mr. Eckert] has skillfully woven newspaper and eyewitness accounts into an exceptionally exciting narrative [A Time of Terror] that moves as rapidly as the events of the disaster it describes. The horror and the suffering are relieved by descriptions of courage and inventiveness that sing of the triumph of humanity. Not since Walter Lord's A Night to Remember … has a calamitous event been so spellbindingly recreated. Purists may object to Mr. Eckert's liberal use of invented dialogue and stream-of-consciousness, but the result is a vividness and immediacy that will capture and hold readers of all ages.

Robert H. Donahugh, "New Books Appraised: 'A Time of Terror'," in Library Journal (reprinted from Library Journal, March 15, 1965; published by R. R. Bowker Co. (a Xerox company); copyright © 1965 by Xerox Corporation), Vol. 90, No. 6, March 15, 1965, p. 1319.