A Fabulous Kingdom

The forbidding Arctic has long been a subject of fascination to explorers, both actual and armchair, and to writers documenting its exploration. Unfortunately, Officer, an engineering professor at Dartmouth, and Page, a science writer (co-authors of Tales of the Earth: Paroxysms and Perturbations of the Blue Planet), don't add much to the subject by way of excitement. They do, however, provide ample, well-researched detail as they examine the Arctic and chronicle the explorations of a number of 19th- and 20th-century expeditions to the region. The opening chapter provides a good starting point with an in-depth look at Arctic weather and its impact on explorers. The sun, for instance, cannot be used to measure time, because its relative elevation to the land doesn't change. Subsequent chapters discuss numerous specific expeditions, including those of Robert Peary, William Edward Parry and Martin Frobisher. The various groups faced similar hurdles on their treacherous journeys and shared an astonishing bravery and resilience in the face of danger, illness and death. But despite deaths by scurvy, chance meetings on the ice and the almost unnatural allure of the Arctic for these explorers, the book becomes tedious. One expedition melds into another, and explicit details regarding the routes and daily routines accumulate in the authors' unimaginative writing. These minutiae will be important to scholars, but the book will be more redundant than enjoyable for the lay reader, despite its extraordinary subject.