Customer Reviews

The Franklin Conspiracy: An Astonishing Solution to the Lost Arctic Expediton

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My word people, what do you want? If your first introduction to the Franklin expedition is this book, then I would say, read some better accounts out there minus the conspiracy theory. However, if you like me, have read countless books on the Franklin expedition, then you will welcome this take on an otherwise repeated tale. If you enjoyed this, you will more than likely enjoy the fictional "Terror" by Dan Simmons. People need to be less negative and relax. I don't think it was the purpose of the author to rehash old news. The point is, we will likely never know what truly happened. It is nice to imagine there might be something out there which was and is being "covered up". If you are that distraught at the book, I question whether or not you really know what you like to read. I knew walking into this one ,because of the title, that what I was about to read was the author's opinion based on loose facts that are out there about this expedition. If I wanted to read a more "factual" account, I would have re-read for the hundredth time the other works I have on the subject. I recommend this book to those who know the story quite well already and don't mind a bit of mystery combined with some imagination.

and hands down, this book is the worst. To put it bluntly, it is a piece of garbage. To intermingle myth with history without a thread of fact, to question every piece of evidence on its own without fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, and to even suggest a conspiracy can survive and let alone be passed down from generation to generation, is nuts. Was there incompetence in the Franklin saga? Definitely. But to suggest a coverup to an event that could not possibly have anything at all to hide, was just a waste of my time. I kept waiting for the punchline, but the book was like a joke that just was not funny. My most painful experience with this book is that I picked it up to take overseas with me, and it was the only English languaged reading material that I had. Never take just one book with you on a trip.

A facsinating and mysterious book that raises as many questions as it answers. The story covers more than just the expeditions of Franklin himself. It covers the tragic mistakes made that make it appear as though the Admiralty had no intention of finding him.

It is a love story as well - Lady Franklin refused to give up the search for her long lost husband. However, the Admiralty first refused to help. Rather than give up, she sent her own rescue party. What the Royal Navy did to make sure it would fail.

It also delves into the previous and subsequent voyages of the era that tried to find the elusive North West Passage.

Giants, mysterious cairns deep into the mainland, graves hundreds of miles apart. Ship wrecks where they have no business being. The apparent death of Franklin early in the voyage - how?

Lead poisoning? As with most simple answers to complex tragedies, this just doesnt come close to answering all the riddles of this desperate story.

What is the Royal Navy STILL trying to hide off King Williams Island?

Great Book.

This book may appeal to fans of the above-mentioned TV show, but history buffs may want to give it a pass. What we get here is a rehashing of the Franklin story, interspersed with snippets of evidence that something supernatural is going on. Unfortunately, these very numerous bits of data are never brought together in any form, leaving it to us to read between the lines to determine what may have happened out on the ice. Fortunately, it's easy to figure out what the author is getting at. Still, he should show us the strength of his conviction and come right out with his hypothesis, instead of asking the frustrated reader to speculate on what is going on.

Each chapter is prefaced by a quote, seldom related to the chapter's content. The maps are poor.

For a more plausible, though stomach-churning, narrative on a possible cause of the Franklin disaster, try "Ice Blink" by Scott Cookman.

In his Acknowledgements, the author thanks individuals without whom "this book would still be languishing in the back of a drawer." Those people may have been well-meaning, but they did a disservice to everyone, including the author, as this wretched book should never have been published. Nor should anyone waste his time reading it.
Much of the book concerns an elaborate conspiracy by the British Admiralty to fail to locate the Franklin Expedition, which it had, as the author concedes, sent out with the most lavish and advanced preparation. As in all such theories, the conspirators are all-powerful and all-knowing, though the author never bothers to explain who the members of "the Admiralty" were, how the membership changed over the years, or how they were able to swear hundreds of officers and men to everlasting secrecy. Though this would be the most (if not the only) successful mass conspiracy in history, the author does not attempt to explain how the omnipotent conspirators would benefit from the failure to find Franklin. Furthermore, if the Admiralty was so omniscient, it would not have needed to dispatch Franklin; or the expedition could not possibly have failed.
The later portions of the book become even further detached from reality and in the process forget to show what these bizarre speculations have to do with the conspiracy. If the Franklin party fell victim to supernatural forces, the Admiralty could hardly have been to blame and would have had no motive for a cover-up.
To Europeans (and probably to its original inhabitants) the Arctic is a strange and terrifying place. In the course of hundreds of years of contact over this vast region, it is not surprising that a collection of odd, weird, and inexplicable occurrences have been recorded. It becomes all too easy to spin ridiculous theories by selecting scattered examples from this immense body of often suspect literature. There will always be mysteries associated with the Franklin Expedition due to the limited and confusing nature of the remaining evidence, but this deplorable book--if it is meant to be taken seriously--adds nothing to our understanding.