Blind Descent

Starred review from April 12, 2010
Tabor, a former contributing editor at Outside
magazine and author of Forever on the Mountain
, contrasts two sterling teams, one American and the other Russian, in their perilous search to locate the deepest supercave on earth. While the book dwells largely on the obsessive, authoritative American star caver, Bill Stone, the writer gives just enough ink to the bold Soviet team counterpart ,Alexander Klimchouk, and his fair-but-firm leadership in his expeditions into the subterranean world. However, the personalities of the adventurers aside, it’s the fascinating information of the big supercave treks that holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.

April 15, 2010
A compelling look at the people and perils involved inconquering the world's most treacheroussupercaves.

Veteran journalist and PBS's Great Outdoors host Tabor (Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters, 2007) wastes no time setting up the race to find the world's deepest cave as the most important exploratory challenge since the discovery of the South Pole. Whether or not this comparison is significant is irrelevant. What counts is Tabor's knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades. The author examines the two polar opposites at the head of each of two major cave-diving expeditions: the win-at-all-costs, classic alpha-male, American Bill Stone, who led Mexican cave dives in Cheve and Huatula; and mild-mannered organization man, Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk, who spearheaded the exploration of his country's notorious Krubera cave. Only one of these men came away with the distinction of having descended deeper into the earth's core than anyone else. Tabor expertly fashions a fly-on-the-wall narrative from the firsthand accounts of Stone, Klimchouk and their supporting casts of death-defying followers. Even the most well-prepared and experienced spelunkers weren't ready for the exotic dangers presented by these particular cave dives. Tabor leaves little to the reader's imagination, covering the many ways a caver can die—panic attacks, frequent equipment failure, drowning, disease and starvation, to name just a few.Although the author maintains an objective balance while weighing the different methods of Stone and his rival Klimchouk, the surprising success of the more humble and methodical Ukrainian serves as a mild dig on the megalomaniacal Stone's less impressive accomplishments.

A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2010
Journalist Tabor (former host of PBS's "The Great Outdoors; Forever on the Mountain") presents a gripping and well-written account of the treacherous world of deep cave exploration. Focusing on a lengthy and all-consuming competition among teams of cave explorers and cave divers seeking to claim the prize of reaching the deepest point in any cave in the world, Tabor chronicles the sometimes deadly expeditions of the hard-charging American team leader William "Bill" Stone in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the more teamwork-oriented Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk in the Abkhazia region of the Republic of Georgia. Tabor brings to gritty and frightening life a little-known and fascinating niche of extreme exploration by examining the lives, motivations, and vastly differing personalities of Stone and Klimchouk; his smoothly paced narrative builds suspense as it adroitly describes the many trials of their almost unimaginably arduous expeditions. VERDICT This title is best suited to true-adventure fans or any recreational readers seeking a pulse-raising tale of real-life drama and grim determination (best avoided by claustrophobes!). Readers may also like Stone, Barbara am Ende, and Monte Paulsen's "Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent into the World's Most Treacherous Cave". Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/1/10.]Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2010
In Tabors narrative of recent deep-caving expeditions renowned in the speleological community, the saga of exploration occurs in grottos of Hadean darkness, where the margin between life and death is narrow and occasionally crossed. Centering on two leaders who competed to discover the most profound natural cave on earth, Tabor works their engineering and scientific backgrounds into descriptive chronicles of their daring, dangerous descents. He depicts William Stone, who wrote his story in Beyond the Deep (2002), as a controversial leader whose several expeditions to cavern systems in Mexico incurred dissension and fatalities en route to successes in reaching extreme depths. But the superlative laurel of the deepest eluded Stones strivings; that went to Tabors second star, Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk. As driven as Stone but more emollient a chief in Tabors description, Klimchouk took his teams down a sinuous chasm in the Republic of Georgia, vertically dropping by rappelling, crawling, and swimming to more than two kilometers. Fully evoking the peril, lure, and Everest-scale logistics of extreme caving, Tabor is an able dramatist for the adventure-reading audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)