The Abominable

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Dan Simmons has done a lot of research for this book and he wants to make sure that you know it. And believe me you, you will. Is it the story I thought it was going to be, which is horror and Yetis? There is horror but it's created by humans, not mythical creatures. It is the horror of what man can do to his fellow man. What a fun adventure! I've read Ibbotson's YA novels, but most of her career was built off of her juvenile fiction works. While I've read 1 of those (Platform 9 3/4. The book people claimed JK Rowling plagiarized for Harry Potter. I could see some of the claims...), this has started my journey into the rest of her works, and boy, are they fun! If you’re a book lover and want a diverse subscription service, Illumicrate offers a variety of books from different genres ranging from young adult to adult fiction. Each box offers a newly released book along with other bookish items that follow the theme of the month. These items could be totes, book sleeves and even bookish candles. Each item is created to perfectly complemented the theme of the month and the book.

The Abominable by Dan Simmons | Goodreads

Kindle Unlimited not only allows you to have access to a larger catalogue of popular new releases but also access to books from indie authors as well as comic books and manga. So, if you are looking for a service that allows you to have a wide variety of books at your fingertips this might be the subscription service for you. What kind of herbs was she on while in that valley? The country where people hunt foxes is not a good place to bring yetis. Ibottson began writing with the television drama 'Linda Came Today', in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, The Great Ghost Rescue. Ibbotson has written numerous books including The Secret of Platform 13, Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch?, Island of the Aunts, and Dial-a-Ghost. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature. Nevertheless, if you can get around that aspect of the book, it must be said that the last part of the novel is exciting and very well written, if a bit more John Buchan than HP Lovecraft. More The Thirty-Nine Steps than In the Mountains of Madness, if you like. The main characters of the book are: Jake Perry himself, and his two fellow climber friends; Richard Davis Deacon aka “The Deacon” and Jean-Claude Clairoux aka “J.C.”.A short time after learning of Mallory’s disappearance, Deacon (oft-referred to as “the Deacon”) proposes his own expedition up Mount Everest. The plan is devilishly convoluted simple. A young Brit named Percival Bromley, unattached to the 1924 British Everest Expedition, just so happened to have vanished on Mount Everest at the same time as Mallory and Irvine. The Bromley family wants answers, and they are willing to fund the Deacon’s small-time operation on the condition that they search for Percival’s corpse. The Deacon figures that he, Smith, and Jean-Claude can hike to Everest, look for Percy’s frozen body, and bag the summit in their spare time. The Abominable Book Club is a fantastic idea that ‘just’ fell short for me. The main issue was the featured book, it seems a little odd to include a book that is so far into a series. THE ABOMINABLES is a delightful, imaginative tale with a strong moral center. There are some laughs about the yetis, who sometimes take it to far (such as apologizing to a cake they're about to eat), but the earnestness of this novel is charming. The darker moments keep THE ABOMINABLES from becoming saccharine. Still nothing has happened, though our heroes have at least made it as far as India. I don't know whether it was Mr Simmons' intention to fully simulate the tedium of long-distance travel in the early part of the 20th century, but he has certainly succeeded. The problem with The Abominable is that it treats itself as serious literary historical fiction for two-thirds of its length, before veering into something entirely different. It is far too ponderous and self-important to be enjoyed as a breezy poolside lark. It is also far too pulpy and ridiculous to be enjoyed as believable alternative history.

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I appreciate the effort and research which must have gone into this book, but the exorbitant amount of detail simply washed the plot away like an avalanche of unimportant facts (Yep. I did it again) The Deacon-Clairoux-Perry expedition is one funded by Lord Percival’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Marion Bromley, and not sanctioned by any Mountaineering Society, which is why details of it (according to Simmons) to this day remain less known, if known at all. The rest of the book is then spent attempting to climb Everest, with consequences for all involved. Simmons ( The Terror, 2007, etc.) never met an opportunity for allusive terror that he didn’t like, and though his latest is set mostly in the Himalayas, he pays quiet tribute to Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and perhaps Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, with a dash of Raiders of the Lost Ark for leavening. The last, after all, introduced us to the possibility of an Asian mountain range swarming with operatives of the budding Third Reich—but of that, lest spoilers result, let us speak no more. The premise is lovely: A memoirist, years after the fact, turns his manuscript over to a published writer for—well, not fame and fortune, but to find the one, just the one, ideal reader. He is one of three climbers who, having heard of the death of Mallory while having lunch after a hard climb of the Matterhorn, decide to head to Everest and find out what happened to their fallen idol. Weird possibilities ensue, including the apparent prospect that Mallory was felled, as were other climbers, by abominable (whence the title) snowmen eager to protect their mountain fastness. But perhaps not, given, as the Allied team (an American, a Briton and a Frenchman) find themselves in the cross hairs of eight-millimeter firearms “[p]opular with the Austrians and Hungarians in pistols designed before the War by Karel Krnka and Georg Roth...later produced by Germans for infantry officers.” A bummer to discover such things in the midst of howling spin drifts five miles above the sea, but what’s a becramponed fellow to do? I did have fun looking up some of the history on mountaineering and learning about the gear they used. Deacon's instructions hammer in the severity of thin air and the resulting destruction to the body: "This is a technical free climb the Second Step – above 28,000 feet, please recall, where even when one is hauling heavy oxygen equipment, your body and mind are dying every second you stay at that altitude or increase it – the rating of the Second Step is beyond the Alpine club's 'very severe' rating system." (123)Dan Simmons has always been hit or miss for me, but I have to say his historical-horror novel The Terror about Franklin's lost expedition to the arctic remains one of my all time favorite books ever. While his newest novel The Abominable may not be a follow up, it certainly can be considered a companion piece; the fact that both books seem to share the same vein made me hopeful that Simmons will blow me away again. Much time is devoted to descriptive narrative on climbing techniques, a very slow trek into the alpine world of 1925. Simmons shows he's researched the topic extensively. And this is the first time you are introduced to Mt. Everest and other major characters (including the two who-shall-not-be-named) - North Col, First Step, Second Step, interchangeable Sherpas, etc. etc. The books are all fairly recent. The Last House on Needless Street was released in March 2021, and while Tender is the Flesh was first released in 2017 it’s taken it a while to reach an international audienc. Not much to say about the final book; are there horror fans out there who aren’t at least passingly familiar with Lovecraft and the influence he’s had on the horror genre? The books are a good mix of gothic horror, eldritch terror, and near-future dystopia, and with three items every month you’re pretty much guaranteed to like SOME of what you get if not all, but then that’s always the chance you take with these sorts of random item boxes. So, if you are looking for a subscription service that will help you to collect special edition book series, this might be what you are looking for.