Reviews

• The Flight of the Eagle is a work of fiction strongly based on historical documents. Its literary qualities are overwhelmed by the interesting story of early polar exploration and the daring, though ultimately foolhardy, concept of balloon flight pre powered aviation. The story of polar survival is even more gripping and the whole relates to the efforts some 30-odd years later of Nobile's search for the North Pole.

• A first-person fictional account of the tragic 1897 Andree balloon expedition to the North Pole. You want to stop the madness, but as a reader you drift along to oblivion like the three doomed Swedish aeronauts.

• Note: This book is in English, there's no Swedish. Amazon's product title is misleading (surprise!). The expedition that is the subject of this novel was unwise and poorly planned from the start, even allowing for the time. Despite its sadness, it's an amazing story. I wanted to read this since seeing a lousy VHS version of the movie based on it, heavily cut, years back. In the meantime I read "The Ice Balloon", also very much recommended. That book is factual, this is fiction, although the known facts are described very accurately. Only unknown events and dialogue are invented, and those are quite feasible. The movie, now available on Blu-ray, is also well worth watching, but note the ending has been changed, and is less likely than that used here. I strongly recommend reading "The Ice Balloon" in conjunction with this, and watching "The Flight of the Eagle" Blu-ray (it's not on DVD).

• Book was as described. A satisfactory transaction. An interesting story of a misguided adventure. I suppose the principals were assured that they would carry out their quest when they set off, but not having knowledge of weather conditions they might encounter their adventure failed.

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