In the Kingdom of Ice

Starred review from June 23, 2014
In a masterful retelling, Sides (Hellhound on His Trail) chronicles American naval officer George Washington De Long’s harrowing 1879 expedition to the North Pole, an account as frightening as it is fascinating. Each page envelops readers in the bravery of De Long and the crew of the Jeannette, their indefatigable quest for the “Polar Grail,” and their dogged will to survive. News mogul James Gordon Bennett Jr., a colorful personality who famously sent Sir Henry Stanley to Dr. David Livingstone, was De Long’s patron, mostly because he desired another front-page stunner for his paper. De Long’s journal entries are mixed in with Sides’s description of a voyage fraught with peril—their steamboat was wedged in ice for two winters and,upon released, was crushed. Seeking rescue, the crew hauled supplies hundreds of miles across Arctic ice fields. Weather was harsh, erratic, and frigid with food and shelter scarce; many succumbed to frostbite and madness. Flawed theories of Siberian geography and settlements caused further setbacks. (Disastrously, De Long had already discovered that prevailing theories about warm currents under Polar icecaps were incorrect.) Impeccable writing, a vivid re-creation of the expedition and the Victorian era, and a taut conclusion make this an exciting gem. Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM.

Starred review from June 1, 2014
Another crackling tale of adventure from journalist/explorer Sides (Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin, 2010, etc.), this one focusing on a frigid disaster nearly 150 years ago.When the Jeannette, commanded by a dashing officer named George De Long, disappeared in the Arctic waters of Russia on a long expeditionary voyage that began in the summer of 1879, American newspapers thought it did not necessarily mean disaster: They preferred to see it as a sign that the ship had broken through the dreaded polar ice and was now sailing freely, if without communication, in the open polar sea. No such luck: As Sides documents, the Jeannette and its crew met a gruesome end; toward the end of his narrative, we tour their icy cemetery, here the Chinese cook gazing serenely into the sky, there De Long lying barehanded with arm upraised, as if he "had raised his left arm and flung his journal behind him in the snow, away from the embers of the fire." When contemporaries took that tour and reports came out, the newspapers were full of speculation about even more gruesome possibilities, which Sides, on considering the evidence, dismisses. Given that a bad outcome is promised in the book's subtitle, readers should not find such things too surprising. The better part of the narrative is not in the sad climax but in the events leading up to it, from De Long's life and education at sea to the outfitting of the ship (complete with a storeroom full of "barrels of brandy, porter, ale, sherry, whiskey, rum, and cases of Budweiser beer"), personality clashes among members of the crew, and the long, tragic history of polar expedition.A grand and grim narrative of thrilling exploration for fans of Into Thin Air, Mountains of the Moon and the like.

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March 15, 2014
The author of such best sellers as "Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin", Sides writes history that gets the pulse going. Here, he recounts the voyage of the U.S.S. "Jeannette", a U.S. Naval expedition aimed at discovering the North Pole and funded by the "New York Herald" owner who also backed Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa. Sailing from San Francisco in 1879, the ship quickly became trapped in ice and drifted for nearly two years before suddenly splintering--which left the crew abandoned in a frozen wasteland 1,000 miles north of Siberia.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
With its western frontiers explored and the idea of Manifest Destiny still beckoning, the U.S. in the Gilded Age looked to the North Pole for adventure and conquest. U.S. naval officer George DeLong approached James Gordon Bennett, the wealthy and eccentric publisher of the New York Herald, to finance an expedition. After all, Bennett had sponsored the expedition for Stanley to find Livingstone in Africa and was forever on the hunt for the next sensational story. In July 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail with a crew of 32 men for uncharted waters. It was an extraordinary expedition, cheered on by scientists and adventurers around the world, hoping to verify the theory that beyond the polar ice girdle were warm currents and a habitable climate. Instead, the ill-fated ship found impassable ice pack that trapped it for two years until the hull was finally breached, and the men were forced to find their way across ice floes, 1,000 miles from Siberia. Facing snow blindness, frigid storms, polar bears, scarcity of food and water, and creeping madness, the men fought desperately to survive. Sides (Hellhound on His Trail, 2010) tapped amazing archival material, including diaries, letters, and the ship logs, to render a completely thrilling saga of survival in unbelievably harsh conditions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)