Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth [Hardcover]
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2010: Set in impenetrable darkness, James M. Tabor's Blind Descent is as awe-inspiring as any adventure story above ground. Tabor's claustrophobic and pulse-pounding narrative follows two of the world's premier cavers--American Bill Stone and Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk--as they race to explore Earth's deepest caves, swimming through steering wheel-sized tunnels and scaling rock walls slick with spring runoff. Caving is dirty and dangerous work, and Tabor pulls no punches in describing the many terrifying hazards that cavers face underground, including falling rocks, hypothermia, starvation, nitrogen narcosis, hallucinations, hypoxia, and deadly anxiety attacks. He captures the eerie mixture of excitement and horror that accompanies life in extreme environments, while shedding light on the ineffable and complex moral code that governs men and women in places where survival is hoped for, but never guaranteed. Blind Descent is a captivating summer read for adventure seekers and armchair adrenaline junkies alike. --Lynette Mong
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Tabor, a former contributing editor at Outside magazine and author of Forever on the Mountain, contrasts two sterling teams, one American and the other Russian, in their perilous search to locate the deepest supercave on earth. While the book dwells largely on the obsessive, authoritative American star caver, Bill Stone, the writer gives just enough ink to the bold Soviet team counterpart ,Alexander Klimchouk, and his fair-but-firm leadership in his expeditions into the subterranean world. However, the personalities of the adventurers aside, it's the fascinating information of the big supercave treks that holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2010: Set in impenetrable darkness, James M. Tabor's Blind Descent is as awe-inspiring as any adventure story above ground. Tabor's claustrophobic and pulse-pounding narrative follows two of the world's premier cavers--American Bill Stone and Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk--as they race to explore Earth's deepest caves, swimming through steering wheel-sized tunnels and scaling rock walls slick with spring runoff. Caving is dirty and dangerous work, and Tabor pulls no punches in describing the many terrifying hazards that cavers face underground, including falling rocks, hypothermia, starvation, nitrogen narcosis, hallucinations, hypoxia, and deadly anxiety attacks. He captures the eerie mixture of excitement and horror that accompanies life in extreme environments, while shedding light on the ineffable and complex moral code that governs men and women in places where survival is hoped for, but never guaranteed. Blind Descent is a captivating summer read for adventure seekers and armchair adrenaline junkies alike. --Lynette Mong
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Tabor, a former contributing editor at Outside magazine and author of Forever on the Mountain, contrasts two sterling teams, one American and the other Russian, in their perilous search to locate the deepest supercave on earth. While the book dwells largely on the obsessive, authoritative American star caver, Bill Stone, the writer gives just enough ink to the bold Soviet team counterpart ,Alexander Klimchouk, and his fair-but-firm leadership in his expeditions into the subterranean world. However, the personalities of the adventurers aside, it's the fascinating information of the big supercave treks that holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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