Danger!: True Stories of Trouble and Survival (Travelers' Tales Guides) [Paperback]

Sean O'Reilly (Editor), James O'Reilly (Editor), Larry Habegger (Editor), Tim Cahill (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Travelers' Tales Guides | Publication Date: January 4, 2000

Here are 28 awe-inspiring stories of danger and survival, guaranteed to get your heart pumping. Whether trapped in an underwater cave, escaping an avalanche, fending off a thug, or surviving a storm at sea, each author faces moments of raw terror and finds deep reserves of courage. From mountain ice to jungle rot, from bombed-out villages and urban ghettos to wild animals and depraved humans, our authors struggle with life, death, and their very sanity on their travels. Notable authors include Sebastian Junger, Eric Hansen, Peter Maass, Bill Buford, Janine Jones, and William T. Vollmann.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Risk lurks on every journey, and the 28 churning stories in Danger! True Stories of Trouble and Survival begin when peril lifts its head, fixes its gaze, and strikes. For this suspense-packed anthology, Traveler's Tales' editors have selected the likes of Bill Buford, Sebastian Junger, Janine Jones, Andrew Todhunter, Peter Maas, and others to write of wrecked villages, rot, injury, ghettos, and glaciers. This is some of the finest writing of its kind, as each story reveals the depths of capacity and incapacity, tolerance, and the struggle to keep a level head.

Just reading the contents tells what's in store: "Ditching at Sea," "Python!" "Just Desert," "Capital of Chaos," "Buried..." Likewise, the tone of this book is evident on every skillfully crafted page. From "Chimney Rock" by Peter Potterfield: "My left arm hung at a bizarre angle. My left leg was twisted outward and throbbing." From "Baja Bites Back" by Graham Mackintosh: "I began psyching myself up to use the Radio Distress Beacon. Would anyone pick it up?" From "Hyena" by Joanna Greenfield: "No sterilization? Who cares? I was alive." From "The Killing of the Catsiburere" by Leonard Clark: "The closest savages drew back their right arms, but did not throw their saw-edged spears...."

A book to be encountered in small doses, Danger! is an armchair guide to pain, suffering, and anguish. A thrilling read from the comfort of a well-heated home. --Byron Ricks

From Library Journal

Excerpted from books by 28 different authors, Danger! aims to get the adrenalin flowing. Selections include a tale of ocean rescue by Sebastian Junger, Peter Whittaker's experience of being buried by an avalanche, Joanna Greenfield's horrifying hyena attack, Peter Potterfield's fall from a rock face while climbing in the Cascades, reporter Peter Maass's being caught in the middle of a battle between Croat forces and the Bosnian army, and Janine Jones's encounter with a Los Angeles gang. The length and quality of these pieces vary, but all are exciting. Everyone in the stories lived to tell the tale, and readers are encouraged to go out and have their own adventures, but after reading Junger's account of an American couple captured by guerillas while climbing in Kashmir, this reviewer found the safety of home very appealing. For those who enjoy living on the edge or prefer to read the survival stories of others, this is a good pick. It may even encourage readers to look for some of the books from which these tales were taken.AJulia Stump, Voorheesville P.L., NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales (January 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885211325
• ISBN-13: 978-1885211323
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,468,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jack into a world of danger and taste the mind of evil., April 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Danger!: True Stories of Trouble and Survival (Travelers' Tales Guides) (Paperback)

Travelers' Tales Danger takes you on a tour of Danger's world. My favorite story in the book is Blademaster. Learn that when faced with a knife wielding attacker that must say to yourself, "today I must bleed a little." Discover the insanity in Rwanda, encounter the hoods of America and the hoodlums of England. I also learned how terrifying it must be to fly in the dark and not know whether you are going up or down. Whether you want to climb perilous crevasses or play with Stinger missles, this book has something for all those looking to safely jack into the violent and dangerous world around them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Contains some fine selections, but not one of the best in the series, December 24, 2005

By 

Odysseus "A Traveller" (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Danger!: True Stories of Trouble and Survival (Travelers' Tales Guides) (Paperback)

The Travelers' Tales franchise faces a challenge that is a result of its own success. They've put out some truly splendid collections of travel literature, creating a resulting demand for more. And it's tough to keep finding great travel pieces up to the standards of the best work they've released.

The pieces in this collection are united by a theme of "danger." If you travel long enough, especially in the developing world, you'll likely ultimately have a few close shaves, experiences that threatened your security and which taught you valuable lessons.

This subject is tailor-made for good reading, the type that gets your blood pressure up, palpably sensing the threat and the fear as you read.

There are several very fine selections in this volume. I particularly liked "Just Desert," wherein the author is lost in the Sinai and finds himself alone in a room with some locals making ominous gestures, far from any aid. "Shaking in the Congo" is also good, a piece in which the author falls ill on the road in the Congo and must lie down unprotected in an out-of-the-way village.

"A Zambian Nightmare" is truly that, in which a young couple is besieged by a gang of thieves in the house they are renting. I also appreciated "Dangerous Liaisons," about a mountain expedition in Pakistan with a nasty, corrupt military officer running the show. "The Season of Fear" captures some of the wild, exotic beauty of the Borneo forest and the people who live within it.

But for every fine piece like these, there is one that doesn't have much to do with travel at all. "The War" is about gang activity in LA. "Flying Blind" is about military flight training sessions in Utah. "Ditching at Sea" is terrifying but is about a helicopter rescue mission going wrong, and is not the sort of story most readers are looking for from Travelers' Tales.

The one piece that really tried my patience was "When it Goes Off," an excerpt from "Among the Thugs." "Among the Thugs" is a book about soccer hooligans, and this isn't the first time I've come upon a similar excerpt from that book in a Travelers' Tales collection. I don't fully understand the fascination that these authors have with soccer riots, but there is no apparent reason to keep recycling these stories in their travel collections.

It's not that these pieces are bad so much as they don't really belong. Presumably the person who picks up a travelers' tales series book is looking for something that captures the adventure of travel in all of its aspects, not just looking for a collection of disparate pieces that interest the compilator.

The best of this and other collections do take you away into that wondrous frame of mind that does the best travel; it's just that this volume doesn't consistently deliver that.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, May 12, 2009

By 

Dee from Gary, Indiana (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danger!: True Stories of Trouble and Survival (Travelers' Tales Guides) (Paperback)

I agree with Munawar Ali above. That being said, people who travel extensively for adventure and then end up almost dying, like most of these folks, are asking for trouble. The gal who traveled over 4 continents on a bicycle and, who would never drive a car due to a childhood traumatic auto accident, had to expect running into a crazy man who beat her up in his apartment when she trusted him and his attempted rape on her. The way she escaped however was very very brave. I personally think in today's world, one has to be crazy to go out traveling all by themselves, running out of money, depending on the goodness of foreigners, etc. Also, my personal opinion only, one is a little off their rocker to try to climb a dangerous mountain where deadly snowstorms come along. It's almost as if they feel they've accomplished something great by suffering to get through their traveling abroad. That aside, the book was a good one. I admit though, I skimmed over the war stories as I am so tired of hearing about war. The story about the hyena attacking its care-taker in my opinion was the best one. For the most part, an excellent read.