In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World: Amazon.co.uk: Peter Potterfield: Books

Product Description

Mountain climbers recount serious falls, avalanches, dangerous weather, injuries, and air rescues.

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First Sentence
I always thought anyone who fell off a mountain simply blacked out or died of fright or by some other means was delivered from consciously suffering such a disagreeable fate. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lame, 28 Jul 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World (Hardcover)

The author includes his own accident but steers well away from the cause, I wonder why! Its just annoying.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Get an editor!, 3 Jan 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World (Hardcover)

I'm an editor--but I'm also a climber. If it weren't for the latter, I'd have never made it through. This book's stories (well, 2 of the 3) are riveting, but the stories read as if published straight off the rough draft--there is even a clear factual descrepancy or two. The fact that the Mountaineers let this unfinished job hit the book stores is a black eye for a usually fine publisher. If you can stumble through the pained writing (it reads a bit like Fred Beckey's "Challenge of the North Cascades," i.e., the editor was perhaps afraid to touch the thing; did it come straight off a tape recording?) the stories are pretty wild. The Alaska piece is so amazing as to carry itself through regardless of the writing, a real superhuman survival epic; you wonder: would anyone else have survived this? The author's personal story is really about a rescue, which is informative, but perhaps not much interest to nonclimbers. It does leave you wondering "why" the accident happened ... but this is a question the author himself says he can't answer--and it doesn't really matter to the story. The other story, on guide Steve Fischer, reads like filler. I'd still recommend the book, at least to climbers or armchair adventurers--unless they love the English language too much!

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bland, 12 Dec 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World (Hardcover)

Three tales comprise the text, only the first of which is especially gripping. The second, an overview of Scott Fischer's '92 ascent of K2, was a poor choice to chronicle. The third, in which the author is the victim, neglects to explain why the accident happened. Overall, the narrative simply lacked the suspense and urgency of good mountaineering literature.