Book Review: The Abominable

The Abominable by Dan Simmons

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I've liked Simmons before and was looking forward to this story about an attempted Mt. Everest summit in the 1920s. The problem was that it took at least 300 pages before the story got going. Before that, we got to read about the intricacies of mountain climbing, including descriptions of technique and equipment that was so detailed that my eyes began to glaze over. Unfortunately, much of the book is lost in this kind of minutiae. However, I did like the characters, and when the tension began to ratchet it was very tense indeed. Some nice plot twists involving Hitler and Nazism, and when Simmons actually gets his characters on the mountains, the effects of high altitude, along with the struggle to survive, was really interesting. What Simmons has always done well is using setting to build tension and create conflict, and that was here too. There just wasn't enough of it, and often it was drowned in climbing detail. But still ... if you're into climbing and/or fascinated by the discussion of what boot to wear, then plunge in. I preferred his book The Terror.



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