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Master of Thin Air: Life and Death on the World's Highest Peaks
For readers of Into Thin Air, a riveting high-altitude drama and the passion and drive that inspire outsized mountaineering achievements.
Master of Thin Air opens with a fall that the author very nearly could not stop down an almost vertical rock ramp leading to a three-thousand-foot drop. The qualities that saved him then on K2—in addition to his mountaineering know-how and sheer good luck—drove his sixteen-year journey to summit all of the world's eight-thousanders, the fourteen peaks that exceed 8,000 meters (26,000-plus feet) and take climbers into the death zone. Incredibly, he accomplished that feat without the aid of bottled oxygen for every mountain but one. By preference, he climbed solo or in small teams, without Sherpas. During twenty-three expeditions, he spent a total of three years clinging to the sides of dangerous mountains. He lost more than twenty climbing friends and, in April 2014, witnessed Everest's deadliest avalanche.
His book is a riveting, often thrilling account of what it takes to challenge the Earth's highest peaks and survive. It tells of death-defying ascents and even riskier descents, the gut-dropping consequences of the smallest mistakes or even just bad luck, the camaraderie and human drama of expeditions, the exhilaration of altitude. It is also the inspiring story of what motivates a person to achieve an extraordinary dream, a story of passion, resourcefulness, self-motivation, and hope—even in the most dire moments.
Master of Thin Air opens with a fall that the author very nearly could not stop down an almost vertical rock ramp leading to a three-thousand-foot drop. The qualities that saved him then on K2—in addition to his mountaineering know-how and sheer good luck—drove his sixteen-year journey to summit all of the world's eight-thousanders, the fourteen peaks that exceed 8,000 meters (26,000-plus feet) and take climbers into the death zone. Incredibly, he accomplished that feat without the aid of bottled oxygen for every mountain but one. By preference, he climbed solo or in small teams, without Sherpas. During twenty-three expeditions, he spent a total of three years clinging to the sides of dangerous mountains. He lost more than twenty climbing friends and, in April 2014, witnessed Everest's deadliest avalanche.
His book is a riveting, often thrilling account of what it takes to challenge the Earth's highest peaks and survive. It tells of death-defying ascents and even riskier descents, the gut-dropping consequences of the smallest mistakes or even just bad luck, the camaraderie and human drama of expeditions, the exhilaration of altitude. It is also the inspiring story of what motivates a person to achieve an extraordinary dream, a story of passion, resourcefulness, self-motivation, and hope—even in the most dire moments.
425 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 8, 2017
This is the story of Andrew Lock's quest to summit on the world's 8000 meter peaks. It's an enjoyable read, and a good way to live vicariously, though detail is limited as the author covers over 25 years of climbing. He does give the reader insight into the allure of high-altitude climbing, as well as the training and dedication required. He portrays himself as one of the good guys, doing the hard work to summit through his personal training and effort, without guides, and for the most part, without supplemental oxygen. Makes me gasp for air just thinking of it! While I've read more captivating mountaineering stories of single climbs, if you enjoy mountaineering books, you'll enjoy this.
January 6, 2017
Australian mountaineer Andrew Lock, the 18th person to have climbed all 14 peaks higher than 8,000 meters (about 26,000 feet), describes his quest in Master of Thin Air: Life and Death on the World's Highest Peaks. The margin between life and death is extremely narrow at the altitude of a jet airliner, and his stories are gripping.
All too often, his stories are sad as the "Death Zone" at that altitude leads to a myriad of dangers: hypoxia, exposure, and altitude sickness take their toll, along with natural dangers from avalanches to crevasses to weather. Most chapters end with an epilogue that tells the fates of some of the participants, and this is a grim reminder of the high stakes of the world's tallest summits.
Lock's conversational tone makes for a readable account, and he's fairly even keeled and ego-free, with a humility learned from understanding his limitations in the face of serious danger. His style of climbing is that of conquering personal challenges rather than completing a checklist, preferring alpine style (self-sufficient ascents with minimal equipment, no porters, and not using supplemental oxygen when possible) over siege style (setting up a series of fixed camps to make repeated tries for the summit).
Often the difference between survival and statistic is knowing when to turn back and try again another day, even with the summit in sight. Lock both wise and canny, and chronicles his failed attempts clearly as well, attributing his survival to keen observational skills of the mountain, listening to his intuition about when to continue and when to take a calculated risk, and simple luck.
One of the strange things about Master of Thin Air is that the successful attempts sometimes run together, where the failed attempts each stand out large. Shishapangma is usually regarded as one of the "easier" 8,000 meter peaks, yet conditions forced him to make repeated tries to gain summit--and when he does summit it, he does so with a hair-raising exposed sequence.
Andrew Lock's story is great reading for climbers and explorers of both the real and armchair variety, and one of the best books on modern-day mountaineering.
All too often, his stories are sad as the "Death Zone" at that altitude leads to a myriad of dangers: hypoxia, exposure, and altitude sickness take their toll, along with natural dangers from avalanches to crevasses to weather. Most chapters end with an epilogue that tells the fates of some of the participants, and this is a grim reminder of the high stakes of the world's tallest summits.
Lock's conversational tone makes for a readable account, and he's fairly even keeled and ego-free, with a humility learned from understanding his limitations in the face of serious danger. His style of climbing is that of conquering personal challenges rather than completing a checklist, preferring alpine style (self-sufficient ascents with minimal equipment, no porters, and not using supplemental oxygen when possible) over siege style (setting up a series of fixed camps to make repeated tries for the summit).
Often the difference between survival and statistic is knowing when to turn back and try again another day, even with the summit in sight. Lock both wise and canny, and chronicles his failed attempts clearly as well, attributing his survival to keen observational skills of the mountain, listening to his intuition about when to continue and when to take a calculated risk, and simple luck.
One of the strange things about Master of Thin Air is that the successful attempts sometimes run together, where the failed attempts each stand out large. Shishapangma is usually regarded as one of the "easier" 8,000 meter peaks, yet conditions forced him to make repeated tries to gain summit--and when he does summit it, he does so with a hair-raising exposed sequence.
Andrew Lock's story is great reading for climbers and explorers of both the real and armchair variety, and one of the best books on modern-day mountaineering.
June 18, 2016
I think after reading this book, my conclusion is that these mountains are unforgiving. It's great to see the author conquering all the 8000s but at the same time with each success there were other climbers who didn't make it.
Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this book and the author's description of the different mountains and the challenges he faced. As much as there's Mount Everest and K2, there's many more mountains that provide different challenges.
Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this book and the author's description of the different mountains and the challenges he faced. As much as there's Mount Everest and K2, there's many more mountains that provide different challenges.
February 12, 2019
Very entertaining book about climbing the 8000s. Andrew Lock tells entertaining and exciting stories that are accessible to the armchair climbing aficionado.
September 18, 2021
Great story about a lesser known high altitude mountaineer.
October 29, 2021
Dude is a maniac, can’t believe he’s alive. Quite a different memoir than Viesturs
September 14, 2015
I'm reviewing an ARC I received via a Goodreads first reads giveaway. A 4.
I hope when they say this is uncorrected it means that they are going to actually correct the glaring editing errors in the book. Paragraphs that show up more than once on a page, misspelled words, repetitive usages, etc...As such, the rating I'm giving ignores all of that.
To be a mountaineer you need a certain amount of hubris and narcissism balanced with respect for the mountains and the sport. Andrew Lock embodies all of this. He's the first Australian to complete all 14 eight-thousanders, the 18th person in the world to complete this feat, as well as having the first Australian ascents for 6 of them. For people who don't know much about mountaineering, that's an amazing accomplishment. The man climbed the highest peaks on Earth with summits in the "Death Zone" and kept all his limbs to boot.
The book chronicles every single one of his attempts and subsequent summits. As well with some backstory on his life and the mountains themselves.
Andrew Lock is a phenomenal story teller. However that does not mean he is a good book writer. The way he writes the stories of each attempt, you can imagine someone telling you over a beer at a campsite or a bar in town. It's enthralling. You're fascinated. You just want to hear more. Funny anecdotes. Quips at the right time. A vague sense of the scenery and the people there. The sense of danger. The mood. It's all there. If you heard him tell a story you'd hear one or two at a time, three at most. You'd leave and come back wanting more. And every time he tells you a new story, he'd tailor his story telling to be more personalized.
Reading the book in three sittings is a different story. You're still interested, but it gets repetitive. He talks about every instance of acclimatizing even when it isn't strictly necessary. I don't know how many times I read him going from Camp 1 to Camp 2 to Base Camp etc etc etc... but he did it a lot. And sometimes if you zone out, you might forget which mountain he's on (that doesn't happen for the big ones in the story, but for some "minor ones", it flew by). How many times did he explain why there are old Soviet helicopters in Nepal? The same exact way each time? Around three times I think it was. For a book that's about 300 pages, that's two times too many.
The book seemed to lack real emotion or insight into his mind. It pops up once in awhile but goes away just as quickly. He put in some parts of his diaries and those were fantastic reads. But they were brief and were far too sparse in between. The moments of self reflection came by pretty quickly as well. There are some views hidden in the book that you can see if you know where to look and I appreciated those . The most opinionated he was seemed to be in the Epilogue when he was discussing the Sherpa accident 2014 and the issues he had with how Nepal was running their climbing/guiding industry.
He mentioned at one point another climber he had teamed up with who ended up writing a book that left him (Lock) out completely and made himself into the hero of the trip. Lock took offense to that and cleared it up in this book. I did find it interesting, however, how Lock seemed to be the hero in almost every story in this book. If Lock had a shitty experience with someone, he called them out. On the flip side, Lock went out of his way to name everyone he enjoyed going out with as well. The post scripts at the end of each chapter of all the people from that chapter who had died in later subsequent climbs was pretty sobering.
As far as a memoir goes, I felt that this was "cold". Even as far as detailing the summit attempts and writing, I thought it was lacking something. Go read Mark Jenkins' National Geographic write up about his teams attempt up Hkakabo Razi. When reading a write up of an expedition of any sort, that's kind of what I'd expect. And in fact, was similar in style to Lock's own diary entries that we briefly saw.
However, reading it while imagining someone telling the story in the backcountry or in a bar is a different story. It's a fun write up that's pretty unoffensive (unless you're someone the author hated)and filled with interesting facts and historical information about the peaks. If you like mountaineering stories, definitely go for it.
I hope when they say this is uncorrected it means that they are going to actually correct the glaring editing errors in the book. Paragraphs that show up more than once on a page, misspelled words, repetitive usages, etc...As such, the rating I'm giving ignores all of that.
To be a mountaineer you need a certain amount of hubris and narcissism balanced with respect for the mountains and the sport. Andrew Lock embodies all of this. He's the first Australian to complete all 14 eight-thousanders, the 18th person in the world to complete this feat, as well as having the first Australian ascents for 6 of them. For people who don't know much about mountaineering, that's an amazing accomplishment. The man climbed the highest peaks on Earth with summits in the "Death Zone" and kept all his limbs to boot.
The book chronicles every single one of his attempts and subsequent summits. As well with some backstory on his life and the mountains themselves.
Andrew Lock is a phenomenal story teller. However that does not mean he is a good book writer. The way he writes the stories of each attempt, you can imagine someone telling you over a beer at a campsite or a bar in town. It's enthralling. You're fascinated. You just want to hear more. Funny anecdotes. Quips at the right time. A vague sense of the scenery and the people there. The sense of danger. The mood. It's all there. If you heard him tell a story you'd hear one or two at a time, three at most. You'd leave and come back wanting more. And every time he tells you a new story, he'd tailor his story telling to be more personalized.
Reading the book in three sittings is a different story. You're still interested, but it gets repetitive. He talks about every instance of acclimatizing even when it isn't strictly necessary. I don't know how many times I read him going from Camp 1 to Camp 2 to Base Camp etc etc etc... but he did it a lot. And sometimes if you zone out, you might forget which mountain he's on (that doesn't happen for the big ones in the story, but for some "minor ones", it flew by). How many times did he explain why there are old Soviet helicopters in Nepal? The same exact way each time? Around three times I think it was. For a book that's about 300 pages, that's two times too many.
The book seemed to lack real emotion or insight into his mind. It pops up once in awhile but goes away just as quickly. He put in some parts of his diaries and those were fantastic reads. But they were brief and were far too sparse in between. The moments of self reflection came by pretty quickly as well. There are some views hidden in the book that you can see if you know where to look and I appreciated those . The most opinionated he was seemed to be in the Epilogue when he was discussing the Sherpa accident 2014 and the issues he had with how Nepal was running their climbing/guiding industry.
He mentioned at one point another climber he had teamed up with who ended up writing a book that left him (Lock) out completely and made himself into the hero of the trip. Lock took offense to that and cleared it up in this book. I did find it interesting, however, how Lock seemed to be the hero in almost every story in this book. If Lock had a shitty experience with someone, he called them out. On the flip side, Lock went out of his way to name everyone he enjoyed going out with as well. The post scripts at the end of each chapter of all the people from that chapter who had died in later subsequent climbs was pretty sobering.
As far as a memoir goes, I felt that this was "cold". Even as far as detailing the summit attempts and writing, I thought it was lacking something. Go read Mark Jenkins' National Geographic write up about his teams attempt up Hkakabo Razi. When reading a write up of an expedition of any sort, that's kind of what I'd expect. And in fact, was similar in style to Lock's own diary entries that we briefly saw.
However, reading it while imagining someone telling the story in the backcountry or in a bar is a different story. It's a fun write up that's pretty unoffensive (unless you're someone the author hated)and filled with interesting facts and historical information about the peaks. If you like mountaineering stories, definitely go for it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews