Icebound

Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

De: Andrea Pitzer

Narrado por: Fred Sanders

In the best-selling tradition of Hampton Sides’ In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions - the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival.

©2021 Andrea Pitzer. All rights reserved (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Narrator Fred Sanders's grave voice and understated performance work well for this grim and brutal history of Arctic exploration. In the sixteenth century, Dutch explorer William Barents set out three times from Amsterdam to search for a northeastern passage through the Arctic to China. Everyone made it home the first time. The second time, Barents lost crew members to polar bear attacks, drowning, and a mutiny. The third expedition was a disaster, with the ship lost and the crew forced to overwinter in the Arctic. Sanders's narration is quiet and grim, a style that makes the grisly polar bear attacks easier to handle." (AudioFile Magazine)

Extraordinary survival story

While the author had to draw largely on the day to day log entries, the story came alive with animated prose and a real feel for the struggles of the crew.

amazing adventure

an amazing adventure that I had not heard of before. Incredible man over nature Survival Story

Great story. Bad reader. Kept my attention

The narrator was annoying bad. I loved the story. Not well written , but kept my attention with the incredible story and detailed explanation

A good way to “chill out”

A very, very long and basically painful listen. I felt the need to persevere as much as the men involved. But I did so in recognize and honor those who did not come back.

Meh.

I can't really recommend or scathe this book. On the good side it is about artic exploration and survival, on the other there's distinct stereotypes and prejudtices that mark the era the author hails from.

Namely, the author matter of factly explains the brutal things the Dutch really did do like keel hauling and mutiny, while roundly damning them for killing polar bears for their pelts. Specifically he said "it was a surprise there was anything left," which is a laughably naïve statement to anyone who hasn't spent their whole life in a big city. The author also repeatedly brings up vague "slaughter of natives" by European explorers, the vagueries being a product from how that part of history is largely imaginary.

But, he does have attention to detail for the actual saga he tells and doesn't make any accusations at the men he writes about. He explains how the voyage was an investment, and how the explorers had orders to trade and some sailors were punished for pilfering.

Great book - missing maps :(

Before reading Icebound, I was so confused about William Barents I thought he was of Bering Strait. Wrong. This is "Barents" from the Netherlands who explored the Arctic in the 1590s (!) - not far from the Middle Ages. Barents was the first to attempt a northeast passage from Europe to China through the Arctic. Of course such a journey with primitive equipment and knowledge was doomed, retold in glorious detail by Pitzer, but Barents and his crew were arguably the first "modern" polar explorers. Before the Arctic was unknown. After, the Arctic was a destination unto itself. Every polar expedition since traces back to Barents. When they returned home and wrote a best selling book, there was popular hunger for more. Centuries further exploration followed culminating in the golden age in the late 19th and early 20th century. Essential reading for polar literature fans, and 16th century European history.

This is a 5-star book all around. The author deserves full credit. However, the publisher's decision not to include a PDF with maps is unconscionable. The maps are critical to this book of exploration. I was able to piece the route together using Google Maps but it was not fun or easy. Sadly I must lower the rating, which might have the effect of lowering sales of the book, but this is frankly the situation, the book is incomplete.

Interesting story.

Loved the narrative. Harder to understand exact location with reference to specific geographic positions in the Audio book.

Fascinating

I found this book to be very interesting and even fascinating in certain respects. It is very long and bogs down a bit in the details in some places, but not bad. I learned a lot from this book about the history of such and what things were like back then,

Geographically illuminating!

I’d tip my hat, if I had one on,to these beyond brave early sailors. Their travails are colorfully described in this work. Well done author and narrator.

All over the place.

Well I enjoyed the overall story the book itself and the writing is all over the place. I found it somewhat hard to follow with the story supposed to take place in the 1500s but constantly bouncing from century to century and decade decade referencing randomly seeming other people in explores.