The Abominable
by Dan Simmons
June 1924. On the brutal North East Ridge of Mount Everest, famous adventurers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine vanish into the snow-whipped night.
Daredevil explorer Richard Deacon devises a plan to follow in the men's footsteps, accompanied only by two friends. Off piste and with no support team, the three men strike for Everest's peak and the most vicious climate on earth.
As the winds rise and the temperature and oxygen levels drop, Deacon and his companions hear howls in the distance. Some dark creature is tracking them up the mountain, sending them scrabbling blindly into Everest's dangerous heights to escape it.
Soon they will discover what happened to Mallory's crew - but can they escape the same hideous fate?
A gripping thriller by a master of the genre, The Abominable blends historical fact with spine-tingling drama - this is one of the most chilling and unforgettable novels you will ever read.
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Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel.
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I really recommend Mike Miller's "The Yeti" instead for a similar but superior story. I read someone else describe it as "'King Solomon's Mines' meets HP Lovecraft," with which I agree. http://www.amazon.com/The-Yeti-ebook/dp/B00FHVNJE6 Dan Simmons' "The Abominable" is basically a far weaker version of his" The Terror," which I actually did enjoy. Both are epic, historical adventures involving frozen climates and supernatural monsters. However, this version of the same story takes all the worst qualities of "The Terror" to the extreme: long-winded exposition, slow start (over 200 pages before they even get to the mountain,) sporadic suspense in the sake of local color and history and confusing, out-of-the-blue ending. This one's for diehards only, or those in love with early 20th century mountain-climbing, of which there's far more than any monster. Again, read Mike Miller's "The Yeti" instead for a more enjoyable and fun read about treasure-hunting soldiers battling the famous monster.
