Hair-raising suffering and heroism in the Arctic.
The gripping account of a fatal polar adventure.
Journalist Levy, the author of River of Darkness and Labyrinth of Ice, chronicles the tale of an Arctic expedition that featured a great deal of heroism as well as disaster. Its leader was Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962), an experienced polar explorer who was perhaps better at self-promotion than organization. In 1913, he convinced the Canadian government to finance an expedition to investigate Inuit people on its northern coast and the poorly charted sea and islands beyond. A veteran of the exploration genre, Levy capably describes the backgrounds of a dozen significant figures and the complex job of buying ships and stocking them with supplies sufficient for several years. In a hint of what lay ahead, the author notes that the ships were not designed to break through sea ice and were stocked hastily to meet an obligatory spring departure date. Sailing north during a particularly cold summer, Stefansson’s ship became icebound. After a few weeks, he abandoned it, leaving for a purported hunting trip but then walking to land in an attempt to resume the expedition. Drifting east, the ship was crushed, forcing 25 crew members to survive on the ice and then struggle across 50 miles of frozen sea to a desolate island north of Siberia. Their only advantage was their captain, Bob Bartlett, an Arctic veteran and superb leader who kept them together and, with an Inuit companion, walked 1,000 miles to Alaska to summon ships that rescued 14 survivors. Many fascinating histories of exploration stick to the evidence, but popular writers often novelize their material, inventing dialogues and their subjects’ inner thoughts. Levy belongs to this group, but his tale is entertaining and probably more or less what happened. The author includes maps, a list of characters, and a timeline of “Relevant Arctic Exploration, Expeditions, and Disasters.”
Hair-raising suffering and heroism in the Arctic.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27444-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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