James M. TaborRessenyes

Written very well, with thoughtful descriptions of the environment and its harshness. Intriguing plot; can't say I disagree with what the bad guys were trying to do!! It was a pretty good idea, in theory anyway

This book is the true tale of a mountaineering expedition on Mt. McKinley in 1967. 7 out of 12 men died on the mountain, but the exact reasons why and how were somewhat of a mystery. Tabor, a journalist, sets out to uncover exactly what happened and why.

I found this a very engaging read, but it probably isn't for everyone. It isn't quite as gripping as Into Thin Air, but has more of a tone of investigative journalism (think 60 Minutes). I just find it riveting to read about the challenges on the mountain and how the individual personalities handle them. One hard thing though was that with 12 men, it took some concentration to recall who was who - - some had the same first names.

This book really combines all the elements of an adventure, a mystery and a psychological thriller into one story. No stone was left unturned. A great piece of journalism and a great read!

There are far too many of these books on global (viral) disasters, but this was fun to read. Caves can hold my interest for quite a while.

I listened to the audiobook version, and I use the number of exits I miss on the highway as an indicator of my engagement. I find if I'm really caught up in the book, I drift past my turns, or drive around the block a few extra times to get to the end of the chapter. On the other hand, when an audio book doesn't capture my attention, the opposite is true and it's the words of the book that I miss and not my turns. That describes my reaction to this book. Maybe it's a lack of imagination on my part, because there's only so many ways to describe a deep cave, e.g., it's dark, it's wet, it's uncomfortable, and it's dangerous. It has the elements which could make the story interesting and exciting, but the story didn't build along those lines. Tabor describes several different expeditions, in several locations, with different team make-ups, and then started again at a different time and place. The continuity wasn't there for me to make it comparable to climbing Everest or moon landings or other memorable exploits.

Maybe even better than "Into Thin Air" but certainly just as good. And since there was no peak- bagging tourism back then (1967), greed cannot be blamed for the disaster which makes the villains of the piece all the more compelling. Since they refused to speak to the author, or broke off their interviews abruptly, that authenticates the author's account in my opinion.

The author tries very hard to convince us that caving is an adventure worthy of adulation and excitement. Perhaps the weak prose and un- intriguing characters, I just sped through the book to the end. A short article would have sufficed.

Excellent! Reminds me of classic Michael Crichton and early Preston/Child.

In this book, you've got a virus with no known cure except, possibly, one. And the source of this cure had been found in the depths of a very big cave in Mexico. Unfortunately, the little that had been collected previously is now gone and more must be retrieved. Add to that national security issues, spies, and well developed characters and you've got the makings of an excellent techno-thriller.

Not as good as his first, but still as fun to read. Plot gives some pause as it still pertinent even a couple years later.

Pretty good debut. Some good action, but some scenes felt a little rushed while others were misplaced. Tabor knows his cave and diving stuff though and made it approachable for those of us who don't.

A fascinating look at cave exploration.

Decent book, but not that much of a story to tell and a bit too much effort to make it more exciting than it probably was...but it moved along quickly enough and I learned some new things.

If you've read Howard Snyder's "In the Hall of the Mountain King", you must read this. It's probably as close as we'll ever get to knowing what really happened on Denali that day. Also recommended is Jonathan Waterman's excellent " In the Shadow of Denali"...both get my highest recommendations.

This was just OK. It was full of some very interesting information about caves and cavers. I did not care for the way it was written, however. It was presented like a very poorly done documentary.

I think I might have had a higher rating for this book had I read it instead of listened to it.
Tabor's prose is highly descriptive. He'll tell you every single item of clothing and gear that the person has on, each and every step taken during a procedure. The minutia might be okay reading but in audio format it's like a one-way conversation with someone who just doesn't know to stop talking when you've obviously had enough.
Meh. I'm always on the lookout for a good Thriller but I think I've had my fill of Tabor.

Crazy people living underground. Not too technical. Could have used more pictures.½

Hallie Leland was once a microbiologist working in a government laboratory, but after being fired unfairly she now works at a small shop selling diving equipment to tourists in Florida. Her loves for diving/caving and microbiology led her to discover an amazing extremophile miles deep in a cave in Mexico when she worked for the government, which seemed to have the miraculous ability to cure certain incurable diseases, but she was never able to complete that research.

Now the U.S. government once Hallie back, because some terrible disease is ravaging the army in the Middle East, one that can only be cured by Leland's extremophile, and only she knows where to find it. In the dark depths of a terrible cave system,

Thrillers are a tough sell for me. I usually read a few per year, and while they are exciting, I'm rarely enthusiastic about them after putting them down. With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised by The Deep Zone, not only was it a great reading experience but I'm quite satisfied with it now that I've finished it. I suspect it's probably because it's more of an adventure novel than a thriller, but regardless, it's an exciting plot and the characters are well-drawn and interesting. It's always a good sign when characters say things I strongly disagree with and I still like them anyway.

The real star of the book, however, is the cave. I haven't read a lot of caving stories in the past, but I do seem to be mystified by them whenever I do. I felt the same way about Jeff Long's Descent series. The cave creates an amazing sense of danger and isolation, which really ramps up the tension in the book, without the need for gun fights and car chases, which is a huge plus.

Chalk this one up as another thriller I don't hate. Not bad, not bad at all.

Probably a 3.5. I honestly did not find it quite as engaging as the first entry in the series. It didn't seem to take as long to read it, and I note now that it is a little shorter than the first one. Regardless, I like the story and the characters and hope there will be more. I am fan of science-y stuff. In a really weird coincidence, I am also reading [b:The Naked and the Dead|12467|The Naked and the Dead|Norman Mailer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388181219s/12467.jpg|2223651], and I stopped for a moment yesterday morning to look up "Malthusian law" when it was mentioned in that book and it rang a bell in my distant memory. When I picked this up again last night to finish it, by golly, it turned out that it was exactly what Frozen Solid was about. And while Malthus was definitely not all right, I do believe he was far from all wrong.

Excited to start another first reads giveaway. Love the feel of a new book and wondering if e- reader users can get the same little thrill from downloading something as I get from holding a book in my hands...the pages are bright white and the type is crisp. When I found out I was getting the ARC, I went back to the description and thought to myself that it sounded more like the type I might enjoy listening to in the car - kind of light, not requiring a ton of attention. I was pleasantly surprised that I could barely put it down this weekend and stayed up past midnight this morning to finish it. The first chapter really pulled you in quickly. It was really just a very fun and extremely interesting read with the level of detail that was provided, and it came through that some things that would read like science fiction to a regular Joe were far more closer to science fact. Mr. Tabor knows his stuff, and he had me hook, line and sinker. His prose flows very nicely, and while yes of course there were a few things that were just a tad bit of a stretch, or too coincidental, the end result is that I was very much entertained and look forward to his next work!

I think I must have read this before in book form or maybe I saw an article... regardless, this was a good audiobook. Great narrator, good story. I highly recommend this for anyone who like suspense and/or mountaineering drama. Not sure if I get all the insinuation about who was to blame for not doing - something that the author is hinting - but the story itself was excellent and a good listen. One negative is that the author tends to include a lot, a LOT, of side material: "...now's a good time to discuss [some other story]..." and it made it hard to track the main story sometimes.

In this entertaining follow up to Deep Zone, Hallie Leland is reunited with Wil Bowman to combat a hidden biological killer in Antarctica. The mental and physical strain of isolation and severe weather takes a toll on Leland and the rest of the crew at a remote scientific outpost.

..But cave explorers like Vesley and Farr could not see the route and so could not anticipate the dangers, a partial list of which includes drowning, fatal falls, premature burial, asphyxiation, hypothermia, hurricane-force winds, electrocution, earthquake-induced collapses, poison gases and walls dripping with sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. There are also rabid bats, snakes, troglodytic scorpions and spiders, radon and microbes that cause horrific diseases like histoplasmosis and leishmaniasis. Kitum Cave in Uganda is believed to be the birthplace of that ultragerm the Ebola virus.

Super caves create inner dangers as well, warping the mind with claustrophobia, anxiety, insomnia, hallucinations, personality disorders. There is also a particularly insidious derangement unique to caves called The Rapture, which is like a panic attack on meth. It can strike anywhere in a cave, at any time, but usually assaults a caver deep underground.

Holy Crap.

I read this while laying in bed and it frightened me more than I could ever tell you.

I live in an area on the Canadian coast that I'm pretty sure has NOTHING remotely close to what was just described. We have a lot of forests..maybe some wild animals. Actually, a coyote attacked and killed a hiker late in 2009. When I read stuff like this, it only intensifies this fear I have of nature. I don't even like going to the beach anymore. That water belongs to the creatures of the ocean. I'm not going in their house! Also, I can't swim - so that kind of makes me live bait for anything that has the munchies.

I can't understand why anyone would want to go caving. Well, let me rephrase that. I cannot understand why anyone would want to go somewhere where they cannot see any further than a few feet in front of them. The laundry list of dangers involved with going that deep into caves is just terrifying.

Last year, I suffered through some pretty relentless panic attacks. Some nights, I couldn't sleep - I might manage 2 or 3 hours total but it would be in short spurts. Nothing really brought them on; I'd like to think I have a great life that is as comfortable as you could possibly imagine, so it was pretty upsetting that I was having this problem. It has since been rectified but what they describe in regards to The Rapture, is quite possibly one of the most chilling things I've ever heard of.

I'm not saying "all cave explorers are insane and shouldn't do this". Aside from everything I alluded to earlier, I still found the book fascinating. I had no idea that by going that far down, you were subjecting yourself to dangers such as electrocution or horrific diseases. I just assumed that maybe it was just a bunch of sharp rocks and perhaps some bats. You might even stumble upon Bruce Wayne. I didn't expect powerful winds and deadly waterfalls.

It's certainly not in my all time favorites as I felt it was pretty dry in spots. However, the sheer amount of danger involved kept me interested throughout.

Hard to compete with Jason's review, so go read that one at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/113194697. He's dead on about everything, especially the photographs which are astounding.

I remain astonished at the things people will do. This has to be far worse than climbing mountains, because you are basically doing exactly the same thing except it's in the dark and once you have achieved your goal going down you have to survive coming back up.

A quote to whet your appetite: Needing to relieve himself one night, Broad crept to the platform’s edge and let fly into the stream below. To conserve carbide and batteries, he left his lights off and edged cautiously back to his hammock in the dark. Thinking he had arrived, he sat down, but his dead reckoning was off. The hammock spun and tossed him out. His head smashed into the cave’s jagged wall. Stunned, flailing, he fell off the platform. In a move straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, he managed to grab one of the ropes on which the portaledge hung from the cave wall. Dangling there in the dark by one arm over the water ten feet below, Broad screamed for help, but the waterfall’s roar drowned out his cries. With his grip loosening, Broad realized that he would have to save himself, and quickly, or fall and be swept away into the void. He began swinging back and forth, waving his free hand around in the dark, and by sheer chance grabbed one of the other ropes from which the platform hung. With the last of his strength Broad dragged himself back up and flopped onto his belly, gasping and shaking, dizzy with pain, stunned by the fact that he had almost died in this supercave, not from diving but from falling out of bed.

AUTHOR: Tabor, James M
TITLE: Frozen Solid
Date Read: 09/13/13
RATING: 4
GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS: Thriller/2013/Ballantine Books/316 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: #2 in Hallie Leland

TIME/PLACE: Present/South Pole
CHARACTERS: Hallie Leland -- CDC microbiologist

FIRST LINES: Setting up its final approach, the C-103 pitched nose down & snapped into a thirty-degree bank, giving Hallie Leland a sudden view of what lay below.

COMMENTS: Unique setting of South Pole. Hallie Leland is sent to the South Pole to continue research done by a scientist that died suddenly. Shortly after her arrival several others die abruptly and Hallie's research now goes beyond just microbiology.

A thriller set in Antarctica where a scientist arrives shortly before the research station is about to be cut off from the world for months as the temperatures plunge. Her predecessor has died mysteriously after finding an unusual life form living below the ice in frigid dark waters. Soon she realizes strange things are going on and she isn't sure who to trust. What she doesn't know is that a shadowy group has decided to turn around the world's overpopulation problem by drastic means. A romp that's chock full of reasons to avoid the south pole.

This is a great book (that I won from Goodreads) that continues the story of microbiologist Hallie Leland (from "The Deep Zone"). Now she's stuck helping out in Antarctica, specifically in a research station at the South Pole. Good mystery and exciting plot. I love the science aspects as well.