Review by Booklist Review
Douglas Mawson is not as well known as Amundsen, Scott, or Shakleton, but as this intense and thrilling epic shows, he deserves a place on the pedestal next to these other great explorers of the Antarctic. Trained as a geologist, the Australian-born Mawson launched an expedition to a largely unexplored region of Antarctica in 1912. The effort soon turned into a grim struggle of endurance and survival against an unforgiving environment. Mawson and his team had to cope with the unpredictability of severe weather, hidden crevices in ice that could easily swallow a man, the loss of their food and other supplies, and their slow physical deterioration. Roberts attributes their survival in no small measure to the guts and determination of Mawson. He is portrayed here as a fascinating combination of reticence and aggressiveness, with an ability to both command and inspire his men. This fast-moving account earns for Mawson and his team a well-deserved place of honor in the so-called heroic age of Antarctic exploration.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Painting a realistic portrait of Aussie explorer Douglas Mawson and his arduous trek through some of the most treacherous icy Antarctic terrain, Roberts (The Mountain of Fear) gives the reader a very close look at the huge risks and preparations of the nearly impossible feat. The author fleshes out Mawson, the 30-year-old lecturer in mineralogy and petrology at the University of Adelaide in South Australia, earning his stripes during a hazardous 1907-1909 Shackleton expedition to the frigid continent. With a superb collection of Frank Hurley's celebrated Antarctic photographs, Roberts parallels the courageous achievements of Mawson's team on the 1911-1913 journey along the previously uncharted regions of the landscape with those of his acclaimed peers, Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen, battling the bitter cold, starvation, and peril to the limits of human endurance. Roberts sums up the dangers Mawson and his crew were up against: "No region on earth possesses deeper or more treacherous crevasses than Antarctica." And what wreaks havoc with every team of explorers that tries to traverse its unforgiving wastes is the fact that crevasses there are not confined to the glaciers. Harrowing, exciting and brutally real, Roberts provides a chilling backstory to polar explorer Mawson's bold solitary survival tale. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Climber and author Roberts (Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer) presents a well-written narrative on the ambitious and arduous Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-13 and its intrepid leader, Australian geologist Douglas Mawson. This large, multi-party expedition aimed to explore and study large sections of the then-unmapped Antarctic continent. Mawson only barely survived after two of his companions died and most of his food was lost in a crevasse. An experienced and knowledgeable adventure writer, Roberts deftly combines polar-exploration history and biographical background on Mawson and his companions with moving descriptions of the expedition's tragedies and triumphs. VERDICT While Mawson may be lesser known than fellow explorers Shackleton, Amundsen, or Scott, Roberts's thoroughly researched portrayal leaves little doubt that Mawson deserves a place among these giants of polar exploration. Best suited to history or adventure fans interested in the history of Antarctic exploration and tales of survival against the odds. Readers may also consider Douglas Mawson's own chronicle The Home of the Blizzard: A True Story of Antarctic Survival or Lennard Bickel's Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written.-Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Mountaineer and prolific author Roberts (Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer, 2011, etc.) returns with a vivid history of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson (18821958) and his 1912 exploration of Antarctica. The author covers the entirety of the expedition, skillfully blending his research of Mawson and his life with details from firsthand diaries and records of the crew. "A scientist in his very bones," Mawson kept meticulous records of the expedition, despite the trip's hardships. While the entire voyage is engaging, the most engrossing part of the tale begins about halfway through the book when Mawson and two colleagues, Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz, set out from their base camp to a point 300 miles southeast. Without warning, Ninnis and a half dozen of the team's best dogs plunged to their deaths through a crevasse, taking Ninnis' sledge and its food rations down as well. With only a week's food (and no food for the remaining dogs), the surviving men stretched their rations by eating any sled dogs too weak to continue to pull the sled. That decision may have led to the painful demise of Mertz, as he may have poisoned himself with an overdose of vitamin A from eating the dogs' livers. His human and canine companions dead, the starving Mawson trekked another 100 miles back to his base camp. When he finally returned to camp, the first man to reach Mawson "beheld the ravaged countenance of the man limping down the slope above him, [and] Mawson knew exactly what [he] was thinking: Which one are you?" Roberts creates a full portrait of Mawson and does justice to what famed mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary would later call "[t]he greatest survival story in the history of exploration."]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
