08/12/2013
Even Jake Perry, the fictional travelogue author Dan Simmons “meets” in his latest novel, jokes that his reader may not make it through this “endless stack of notebooks.” But lovers of Simmons’s blend of alternate history, mystery, and myth will appreciate this three-act thriller set in the interwar years. Young American alpine climber Jake is invited on a “recovery” mission to find Percival Bromley, a British lord who vanished on Mt. Everest. Much of the novel is devoted to the strategies and techniques of mountain climbing as it was developing in the 1920s, and Jake, his friend Jean-Claude, and team leader Deacon spend a lot of time rubbing elbows and comparing gear with real alpinists of the era. But amid the wash of detail, Simmons plants crucial facts and conjectures about early-20th-century Europe that won’t pay off until Jake and his party are nearing the top of the world. Can murder and carnage be fully explained by the evil of men? Is a supernatural threat looming over the expedition? As usual, Simmons doesn’t answer all the questions he’s raised when the mysteries surrounding the loss of Percy Bromley are resolved, but his fans, like Jake, are sure to enjoy the journey. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates. (Oct.)
The Abominable: A Novel
Narrated by Kevin T. Collins
Dan SimmonsUnabridged — 29 hours, 40 minutes
The Abominable: A Novel
Narrated by Kevin T. Collins
Dan SimmonsUnabridged — 29 hours, 40 minutes
Overview
It's 1924 and the race to summit the world's highest mountain has been brought to a terrified pause by the shocking disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine high on the shoulder of Mt. Everest. By the following year, three climbers -- a British poet and veteran of the Great War, a young French Chamonix guide, and an idealistic young American -- find a way to take their shot at the top. They arrange funding from the grieving Lady Bromley, whose son also disappeared on Mt. Everest in 1924. Young Bromley must be dead, but his mother refuses to believe it and pays the trio to bring him home.
Deep in Tibet and high on Everest, the three climbers -- joined by the missing boy's female cousin -- find themselves being pursued through the night by someone . . . or something. This nightmare becomes a matter of life and death at 28,000 feet - but what is pursuing them? And what is the truth behind the 1924 disappearances on Everest? 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. A pulse-pounding story of adventure and suspense, The Abominable is Dan Simmons at his spine-chilling best.
Editorial Reviews
"It has taken a great American writer to tell the most extraordinary story about Everest that I have ever read."—Nives Meroi
"I am in awe of Dan Simmons."—Stephen King
"Dan Simmons is a giant among novelists."—Lincoln Child
"Dan Simmons is a giant among novelists."
"I am in awe of Dan Simmons."
"It has taken a great American writer to tell the most extraordinary story about Everest that I have ever read."
★ 2013-10-01
A yeti? Jawohl! Simmons (The Terror, 2007, etc.) never met an opportunity for allusive terror that he didn't like, and though his latest is set mostly in the Himalayas, he pays quiet tribute to Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and perhaps Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, with a dash of Raiders of the Lost Ark for leavening. The last, after all, introduced us to the possibility of an Asian mountain range swarming with operatives of the budding Third Reich--but of that, lest spoilers result, let us speak no more. The premise is lovely: A memoirist, years after the fact, turns his manuscript over to a published writer for--well, not fame and fortune, but to find the one, just the one, ideal reader. He is one of three climbers who, having heard of the death of Mallory while having lunch after a hard climb of the Matterhorn, decide to head to Everest and find out what happened to their fallen idol. Weird possibilities ensue, including the apparent prospect that Mallory was felled, as were other climbers, by abominable (whence the title) snowmen eager to protect their mountain fastness. But perhaps not, given, as the Allied team (an American, a Briton and a Frenchman) find themselves in the cross hairs of eight-millimeter firearms "[p]opular with the Austrians and Hungarians in pistols designed before the War by Karel Krnka and Georg Roth...later produced by Germans for infantry officers." A bummer to discover such things in the midst of howling spin drifts five miles above the sea, but what's a becramponed fellow to do? Simmons never once blinks in the face of the improbable, and he serves up a lively, eminently entertaining adventure that would do Edgar Allan Poe--and even Rudyard Kipling--proud.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170061600 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hachette Audio |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2013 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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