Lincoln Hall's tale is one of the two or three best and most engrossing accounts ever written about travel in Antarctica.
The writings of Scott, Shackleton, Mawson have an enormous grandeur, but they suffer from two great deficiencies. You find them running out of adjectives and insights to convey the awesomeness of Antarctica's great mountains and the spaces between them, to convey what all this and the withering cold do to the human spirit in its threatened little sheaf of flesh. Secondly, they were sometimes less than frank about the conflicts and variations of personality which occur even amongst the bravest parties. So they failed to give their work its full human dimension.
Lincoln Hall can write very well about the unspeakable aspects of Antarctica. This book will go a long way towards explaining why some humans drag themselves through a landscape of frightening dimensions and hellish cold, all for the sake of some revelation which is almost impossible to pass on to others in words.
Besides that, I'm pleased to say this is an old fashioned ripping yarn. Simply what befell the party on its 21-metre vessel going to and returning from Antarctica is all to do with survival by centimetres and luck and courage. And in the spirit of the best Antarctic literature, the party faces a situation where even to reach Mt Minto, even to spend an extra day climbing it, could mean becoming trapped in Antarctica for the whole winter of darkness. Because of its force and narrative energy, I hope this story reaches thousands of readers.
