The Abominable - Dan Simmons

   It must be me.  I really thought that there was a supernatural element to The Abominable.  A horror that stalks the main characters on Everest.  It was me.  I read the blurb on the inside cover and misinterpreted it because of The Terror and Drood.  "Deep in Tibet and high on Everest, the three climbers - joined by the missing boy's female cousin - find themselves being pursued by someone, or something, in a nightmare that becomes a matter of life and death at 28,000 feet.  What is chasing them?......As they fight their way to the top of the world, the friends uncover a secret far more abominable than any mythical creature could ever be."  It does go on to say, and this is important:  "A pulse-pounding story of adventure and suspense, The Abominable is Dan Simmons at his spine-chilling best."
                                

   It is.  The Abominable is a pulse-pounding adventure story, and filled with suspense. I loved it.  I could not put it down.  But it does not have the 'something' from a nightmare, the creature I was hoping - and kind of expect in a Dan Simmons novel.  Despite my dismay that there is not much of a supernatural element to the novel, it is a thriller, and very well done.

I have struggled with what to say in my review, because I don't want to give away what the plot is about, because that would give away what this story is about, and it's a story that is truly enjoyable to read.

The main character is Jake Perry, who recounts his story in a series of journals to the writer Dan Simmons, who meets him while looking for stories about adventures in the Arctic Circle (for his eventual novel The Terror).  Jake Perry writes the journals from the perspective of someone in the 1990's, looking back to when he was very young in the 1920's, in between the two world wars.  At this time, in 1924, two men disappeared while climbing Mount Everest - George Mallory, and Sandy Irvine.  Along with them, but not part of the same group, a young man named Lord Percival - Percival Bromley - has also disappeared, presumably dying in an avalanche a German following the party claims to have seen. 

Jake is a mountain climber, climbing with Richard Deacon and a French guide, Jean-Claude, when they receive the news that the attempt on Mount Everest has ended in the tragedy.  Lord Percival's mother is grieving and wants the three men to try to recover her son's body on Mount Everest, if it can be found.

The real story for me is their climb on Mount Everest.  Dan Simmons did his research well, intertwining a real-life story of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who did disappear on Mount Everest in 1924, with the fake climb of this novel of Jake and his climbing friends.  There is much more to this story - the background of WW 1 and the lasting effects on everyone in Europe; Jake and Deacon and Jean-Claude themselves, as they outfit for the climb, which is being done in secret since Deacon was thrown out of the National Geographical Society (who  funds the early expeditions to climb Mount Everest, and gets the required permissions from Tibet, and Nepal for the climbers).

The main body of the book takes place on Mount Everest, as they begin their climb towards the summit, and the growing realization that they are not alone.  Being a mountain climber, the risks involved, are described in detail.  The love of climbing, the desire to get to the peak, runs through this book.  And the descriptions of what it is like to face a challenge - an overreaching rock, pure ice, crevasses in the snow - and surmounting them, make this a gripping read.  I really enjoyed how they climbed, and the description of the cold, and the natural dangers they faced.  I loved it, in the end.

What I didn't like so much was who was chasing them, and why.  I will say that this turns out to be a secret mission in more ways than one, and that there is climax, and a resolution, that is  resolved in a satisfying manner. What I loved was the thrill of the climb.  Could they reach the top? Would the mountain defeat them?

It led me to looking at actual accounts of climbing Mount Everest, and the discovery that Mallory and Irvine are real people who did attempt to climb Mount Everest then.  They were not discovered until much later, in the 1950's.   I read about some of the recent attempts on Mount Everest, and was dismayed to read at how commercial it has become.  There are lineups to get to the summit!  I don't know why I am shocked and saddened by this, but I am. And still the mountain claims victims, every year.
                                                         
 I am now looking for a copy of Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, (Amazon review here), based on the true life 1996 incident when 8 people died in one day in an attempt on the summit.

                                                        
 That led me to other books I am looking for now, The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, another point of view from that same attempt on Mount Everest, Amazon review here. And to find videos of Mount Everest to watch.  I'm also fascinated by K2, which is an even more dangerous mountain that Mount Everest.  
          

The irony is that I am afraid of heights.  Worse, I suffer from severe vertigo at a mere 10 stories high.  There is no possible way I could climb those or any other mountain.  The only real mountain I have been close to the top of, Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia, is only 6,000 feet high.  Long ago, once I was at the top of their then highest ski run (1976, we are talking about here.  Long ago.).  I saw the view as I got off the T-bar, saw the mountains all around and that we were higher than anyone, and thought I was going to fall off the top of the world. I sat down and skied on my bum until about half-way down the mountain, where our usual runs began, and stood up and skied the rest of the way down.  I never went back up again.  And yet, or possibly because I am so terrified of heights, I am fascinated by these mountains and the life and death challenge of climbing them, and of getting back down again.  The Abominable woke that desire to know more, in me.  From the armchair, of course.

It is not the book - supernatural terror haunting them - that I thought it would be.  It is a very good adventure thriller.  Superb tension, suspense, fun characters, and fabulous descriptions of climbing and the thrill of it.  Just don't look for monsters - they are there, just not supernatural ones.

Oh - there is one tiny incident.  Possibly.  With something other than people on the mountain.  I leave it up to you to decide if it is indeed the famous Yeti, which is supposed by the Tibetans to live on Mount Everest. The yeti is referred to in the book, so I'm not giving much away here.  Just -  let me know in the comments what you think, when/if you read the book.  I really hope you do read it. It is fun, and an exciting thrill ride.

Highly recommended, especially if you want a book to take you away from everything for a weekend.    4.7/5  (because darn it, I wanted there to be something supernatural there!)

Happy Friday!!

Reasons to be happy today:

- it's Friday. Fridays are generally good days. The end of the work week, and two full days of being home with my family lie ahead. Possibly sleeping in to 8 am if the little ones let us.

- it got above 0 c today (that's 32F). And not just about, it got to over 40F!!! We were standing at our window at work, waiting for the temperature to rise: "Is it warm yet?" "No, I can see the smoke {from the building across the street} blowing in the wind from the north still." "No, it's freezing rain, hear it hit the windows." We left work, it wasn't quite warm yet, but by the time we got across the river, I felt like singing. It was warm! and the sun was trying to break through. A lovely way to end the day. I even opened the windows a crack once home so the house could air out a little.

- I went book shopping. Aha! you say. I thought you went last week? At least, that's what my husband said. "You know I ordered those two books so I could finish the series with Nymeth and Kerry. Well, they came in." Slightly baffled look on my husband's face as he nods slowly. So off I went......and this is what I came home with:
- The Grey King, book #4 in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series
- Silver on the Tree, #5 " " "
- Tithe - by Holly Black - see below. Someone did a book review, but I can't find it right now, nor remember who. I'm sorry! Because there is a Bad Blogger out there, and you deserve a point! Let me know if it's you!
- The Naming (Canadian title, on Mariel's blog it's The Gift - UK title book one in the Pellinor series) by Australian writer Alison Croggon *Mariel, here, reviewed the 4th book in the series, which got me interested. Someone else also mentioned her to me on their blog - I can't find it now. Please let me know if you reviewed her sometime in this past year!
and, finally, *drumroll*
- We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter Beagle. Yes, they had a copy!!!! So Nymeth gets point, for being the first to bring it to our attention, on last Sunday's Salon. Nymeth is racking up those points, and not just on my blog either......Now, when I saw this book, I paused, and wondered: do I buy it straight from the publisher? I checked my copy, and it's from the same publisher. So then I thought, "if I buy it from my independent bookstore, thus ensuring both the survival of it and that the money is going back to the right publisher/writer, I can help two things out I love very much." My bookseller said they had just got the book in. So I felt very happy, helping out with those first week sales that Nymeth mentions in her book review of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, today's post.

I thought I would also let you know thatthis same bookstore, my favourite independent bookstore in Ottawa, is sold out of Drood by Dan Simmons! Hopefully first week sales for this are good! I might have treated myself to a hardcover, because I know there is no way I can wait for the soft-cover edition to come out. Next time....more are on order. Isnt' that a good thing to hear? "More books are on order."

So that's what my Friday was like. I'm just about to sit down to watch the 3rd to last ever Battlestar Galactica episode.....I'm happy that it's on tv tonight, though very very sad it's about to end.....

I hope wherever you are tonight, Gentle reader, you have a good book to read and reasons to enjoy the weekend ahead!

Thank you, Nymeth! New book from Dan Simmons...

After I wrote my apology in my last post, Nymeth came back in the comments and left me the news that Dan Simmons of The Terror fame (see my favourite books for 2008!), has a new book coming out Feb 9,


and this is what it is about:

"From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY --
Drood Dan Simmons. Little, Brown, $26.99 (784p) ISBN 978-0-316-00702-3

Bestseller Simmons (The Terror) brilliantly imagines a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for Dickens's last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in this unsettling and complex thriller. In the course of narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck and trying to rescue fellow passengers, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. Along with his real-life novelist friend Wilkie Collins, who narrates the tale, Dickens pursues the elusive Drood, an effort that leads the pair to a nightmarish world beneath London's streets. Collins begins to wonder whether the object of their quest, if indeed the man exists, is merely a cover for his colleague's own murderous inclinations. Despite the book's length, readers will race through the pages, drawn by the intricate plot and the proliferation of intriguing psychological puzzles, which will remind many of the work of Charles Palliser and Michael Cox."
link to rest here of the publisher's early reviews, from Dan Simmon's Website. Thank you so much, Nymeth, for the link and to telling me about this book.

so, Nymeth springs to the top of the Bad Blogger list for me :-) and I am a little bit amazed at the synchronicity: here I was reviewing The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which talk about Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens and how the murder inspired both their subsequent books, and here is Dan Simmons, writing a book about both of them as main characters! And it sounds an absolutely fascinating book, perfect for a February winter read. I don't often buy hardcovers, though I think in this case, I will make an exception. I've been a Dan Simmons fan for a very long time, and early reviews make this book sound like possibly the read for 2009. Though, some may want to hold off reading this until Carl's RIP4 challenge later this year, I don't think I can wait!

A new book to read!

The Terror - Dan Simmons

As you know, when I first began this book, I could barely stop reading it. About half-way through I took a break, it was so intense, and I had been reading it non-stop. When I was ready, I picked it up again, and finished it in 24 hours. Again, I could not put it down! It is that good. I could not stop reading it.

So what was so gripping, you ask? How could a polar expedition to find the Northwest Passage - Franklin's 1845 expedition - be so thrilling an adventure in horror that I was left gasping for air sometimes? Because it is a story that is based in part on real events, and Simmons is a master at recreating prosaic details of life at sea. In this case, they are encased in ice, for almost the entire novel. And for someone like me, who dreads the onslaught of winter, just the idea of being stuck in the arctic where it is colder beyond anything - anywhere - else on earth, an unrelenting cold for 8 months of the year, with snow 10 months of the year - and where they are it only melts on the land so there is always blinding light then - this would be my hell on earth. So from the opening line: 'Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts.' to Paragraph 2 beginning: 'The temperature is -50 Fahrenheit and dropping fast.' my attention was caught, spell-bound.

I have to admit that at the beginning, I was desperately afraid this was going to be about polar bears, and for the first 40 pages despite the hypnotic storytelling, I almost put the book down because I wasn't going to read a 700 page novel about polar bears eating people - not scary to someone who every winter hears stories of the polar bears coming down to eat the garbage in Churchill Manitoba, and the bears have to be tranquilized and returned up North - they do eat people, which is real-life horrifying enough. I wanted a supernatural thriller, and the back blurb had led me to believe it was. So, despite my misgivings and because of the amazing storytelling, I presevered, and by page 75 I began to relax. There ARE polar bears, but they are not the threat at all. There is very much a supernatural presence here, and how it is explained is part of the almost unearthly beauty of this book. Because this book is about more than facing the supernatural, it's about survival. Survival in inhuman conditions, with over 100 other men. There - I saw you shiver. You know what I mean. Anything can happen with that many people trapped on two ships for two years, slowly going nowhere, living off what they brought with them.

This is such a satisfying horror novel. The men on the ships are each characters in their own right, whether they get a paragraph or chapters to themselves. The ice and snow and temperatures - the North - is another prominent feature. If you are like me, and dislike winter, then make sure you have plenty of hot things around you. (Hmm, I wonder if this is why I began drinking hot chocolate at night, late last week?)

I have mentioned earlier that this is a gripping read. It is. The tension is stretched taut in this book, so much so that I read long into the night, over meals, whenever I could, skipping whatever wasn't necessary to do - and disliking what I had to do that took me away from reading! - I had to get back as quickly as I could to the story, and the characters. I liked some of them so much - Capt Crozier, Lt Irving were among my favourites - and the revelation of what happens as they lay trapped in the ice is riveting.

Shadowing everything is the realization that this is the voyage that Franklin and his men did not come back from. This book is a blend of fact - the voyage, the ship life, a real-life expedition to the North - and fiction - the creature that is killing them off, the Inuit people who may or may not save them, the fictionalization of many of the characters. Just because the book is based on the expedition does not mean all the characters are real - and unlike many real-life 'memoirs' that have the book community examining veracity vs story, this is a novel,unabashedly so, and the blend of the real with pure imagination makes for an unforgettable horror novel.

I loved it.

There is true terror among these pages, and a growing horror at the fate that befalls the men. The true horror isn't just the supernatural element but also what happens to the crew on two ships - The Erebus and The Terror - over the long 2 years they have been frozen in the ice. By taking a real-life disastrous expedition and adding another darker element to it, the book is a delicious mix of gut-wrenching horror and creepiness. It is a perfect read for this horror challenge, for the lengthening evenings as fall arrives (tomorrow!) and lurking on the horizon, cold and snowy winter.

The real reason to read horror and ghost stories is to discover how contact with fear, in whatever shape it comes in, can be faced and survived. Whether we create the horror from within or without is an ongoing debate for psychologists, which the next book I am going to review in my next post, The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff, also touches on. The experience of reading horror gives us clues in how to survive the experience of facing horror. At least, that's one reason among many for why I enjoy these stories, and why I am loving this challenge so much. The Terror has an extra dimension to the fear, a mythic fear, but to say anymore would be to give it away. Any contact with the mythic changes us, that's what Joseph Campbell said in A Hero With a Thousand Faces, and The Terror is one well-crafted example of contact with the supernatural.

So, that is 3 books out of 4 that I have completely enjoyed so far. This is better than the last 10 years of trying to find a decent ghost story to read!!

I think The Terror is well worth reading. I love it for so much more than the horror. Above all, it is the characters and their awful starvation that I remember most, and the ice and snow surrounding them. And amongst that, the unknowable, terrorizing them, waiting.

I love really good horror stories!!!