Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks [Paperback]

Clint Willis (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 1997

Epic is a mountaineering term that evokes a sense of treacherous disaster — the climb that went wrong; fighting blinding snowstorms and horrific avalanches; days spent tentbound, running low on food, water, and oxygen; surviving broken bones and shattered spirits. Editor Clint Willis has gathered the most exciting climbing literature of the modern age into one cliff-hanging volume with 15 memorable accounts of legend-making expeditions to the world's most famous peaks, often in the world's worst possible conditions. Authors include Jon Krakauer, Greg Child, David Roberts, Alfred Lansing, and others.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some of the most exciting and harrowing mountaineering events ever chronicled are collected in Epic. From Jon Krakauer's solo ascent of Devil's Thumb in Alaska to John Climaco's account of being threatened by a homicidal Pakistani army officer in the Himalayas, these are stories of survival in nature's most inhospitable places.

From Library Journal

The hypnotic appeal of danger, hardship, extreme elements, and facing death are fascinating to many readers, as witnessed by the popularity of The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air. Both books related the drama surrounding nature at its most violent and dangerous. Epic is a compilation of 15 memorable expeditions to world-famous peaks. Included here are Jon Krakauer's solo ascent of Devil's Thumb in Alaska, a winter ascent of Mt. McKinley, and Alfred Lansing's narrative of the 1915 Shackleton expedition. The listener experiences cold, hunger, and fright at the hands of writers who are actual climbers. Their words are powerful because they ring with authenticity. The hardships these climbers endured go almost beyond human comprehension. In one story, a man is stricken with blood clots in his legs; his team members go through tremendous difficulties in an attempt to bring him down rather than continue their climb to the summit. Another story recounts a blinding snowstorm that keeps climbers in their tents for many days and describes the great efforts that must be made merely to melt enough water to stay alive. Rough Water is an anthology of sea stories, mixing fictional excerpts from lengthier works with accounts of factual disasters and includes a portion of Two Years Before the Mast and an episode from Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny. Among the most fascinating are Lawrence Beesley's eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic and a shipwreck survivor's diary of a 74-day ordeal aboard an inflatable raft. What keeps Rough Water from being as compelling as Epic is the offsetting move from true-life encounters to fictional stories and from chapters that leave you hanging, either wanting to know what happens or not caring about the outcome. Epic, on the other hand, is powerful, bringing the prospect of frostbitten flesh, chattering teeth, sudden avalanches, and treacherous ice paths into vivid clarity. The listener feels the intense discomforts and experiences the worry of the climbers but, with morbid fascination, still wants more. Both collections are read by experienced audio narrators Rick Adamson, Eric Conger, Alan Sklar, Graeme Malcolm, Simon Prebble, and the king himself, George Guidall. Each reader performs competently, adding to the suspense and momentum of each story. Parts of the "Adrenaline Series," both books are recommended for public library collections.
-Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (November 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560251549
• ISBN-13: 978-1560251545
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #637,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Damn! My Toes is Froze!, November 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks (Paperback)

Like everybody else, I read "Into Thin Air" and bought more mountaineering books, this being one. Luckily, climbers tend to be a pretty literary lot, because the basic theme of all these books is : Damn, we're out of food/its cold/ I can't feel my feet/hands/nose/my brain is swelling up/I lost my way/tent/sleeping bag/gloves/I almost (or you DID) fall off this cliff. All this is followed by the endless anticlimax of the summit if reached and, worst of all, endless navel contemplation about the meaning of it all. I don't know why this stuff is so compelling, but there it is. I read this book in four sittings when I had a lot of more important stuff to do. Then I went out and bought Everest: The West Ridge by Tom Hornbein. And I live in Florida , have never been higher than 5,000 feet and have never climbed anything higher than the roof of my house. Go figure. I will say that these mountaineering books have a significant collateral benefit - they scare the hell out of the wife.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where's the return to base camp?, December 23, 1998

By 

la3362 (Sin City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book, and read it in one day, pouring through the various chapters and one tragedy to the next. My only complaint is that many of the chapters were excerpts from other books, and the stories sometimes felt unfinished. Those excerpts would cover the hit (or near miss) of the summit, then cover some sort of trial to the participating climbers. The climbers may or may not survive the trial, and then that would be the end of it. I actually craved a little bit more of the post-expedition soul-searching.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book rich in excitement, triumph, and failure., January 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks (Paperback)

This book contains the greatest short stories about climbing that I have ever read. Each story is unique and as entertaining as the other.