Rating: 
Summary: Book-on-Tape Review
Review: Although I "listened" to this book on tape, I too was lulled into thinking this is like Jon Kraukauer's "Into Thin Air" -- hardly. It is interesting and at first I didn't realize it was a true story. Balf's book does give a bit of a behind-the-scenes glance at how a trek like this is set up & the importance of the personalities of the people undergoing the trek....but I agree with previous reviewers that this was no page-turner (or let's put it this way, I wasn't sitting in my garage, after coming home from my commute, to stay listening to the tape). If you are a kayaker, maybe this is for you - having trekked in Nepal, I found some of the countryside info of interest, but can't really recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The River Wild
Review: Anyone who enjoys stories about the Himalayas, Tibet, or people pushing themselves to peak performance, needs to read this. It's not quite the five-star material of Krakauer's "Into Thin Air", but it's very close. Mr. Balf uses the accounts passed to him by the members of the doomed October 1998 Tsangpo expedition so well that you forget he wasn't there. The History is well used and interesting. The descriptions of the mammoth arena in which the story takes place are highly vibrant. And, the relationships of the men on the team are portrayed with realism, as well as a careful depth that could rival the Gorge itself. These are not people out for glory alone. These are people with a passion. Read this book, and see how they fare against one of the last untamed patches of earth we have left.
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written and not worth the time....
Review: I found this book enjoyable and interesting. I am thankful that there are those who are willing to be explorers, and I am thankful that there are authors who can write their stories for all of us to enjoy. This is a rare find if you want to read about expedition kayaking. It moves like a whitewater river. It's not all rapids. Sometimes you have to float in an eddy while the author gives you some historicial perspective before the next plunge. Sure it could have been shorter, but then we would never have known these men well enough to appreciate why they did what they did. I don't see this as an extreme sport outing anymore than the Lewis and Clark expedition. These men are modern day explorers in an uncharted world who met with tragedy. This is their story.
Rating:
Summary: Writing doesn't flow in this "Into Thin Air" wannabe
Review: I picked up this book based on the intriguing cover, and the back cover description likening it to Into Thin Air by John Krakauer, only with kayaks.The author insists on comparing this kayak expedition down the Tsangpo river to Everest, to the point of becoming repetitive and annoying. He takes a cookie-cutter approach to an adventure/survival non-fiction work, with history, character sketches, logistical work, a flashback, and then the actual attempt. The historical part of the book is boring and not very well fleshed out, and is extremely American/Anglo-centric. An Indian explorer who spent 5 years trying to penetrate the area, including being sold into slavery, is treated as a bungling incompetent. During the present-day part of the book, a Chinese team is trying to run the river, but they are ignored almost completely. Parts of this book are extremely trite - "legendary Valley Mill outdoors camp"? And the references to one character's previous military/CIA experience are just plain fawning. I think this book would have been written much better by one of the river team who was actually there, so I look forward to reading Wick's book on the subject. The story is there, but the author couldn't capture it.
Rating: 
Summary: Last River or Diamond Sow?? It's a toss up.
Review: My comments come after finishing the books "The Last River" and "Courting the Diamond Sow", both of which I read over the last 2 weeks, and was provoked to write by a couple of factors. Reading the existing reviews for "The Last River" particularly, I was struck by the number of people who felt it necessary to slam the book. First, after reading these books I have a better appreciation for the writing skill needed to write a book that is entirely engaging, brings the personalities to life, allows the reader to become part of the adventure, all the while being true to its subject. Second, I appreciate that the writers made the story available so that we could learn about this trip and I don't mean to suggest that either effort was a waste of time and that the writers should hang up their quills. Sadly, in my opinion neither of the books written about the same 1998 Tsangpo journey is terribly engaging. Last River is an easier read while I found the first half, particularly, of Sow a literary slog. Not sure if it was bogged down in description or what; I just found it slow going. Neither book had much of an ebb and flow in the narrative. Even as the tragic events of Doug Gordon's death neared, there was nothing to indicate that one's blood should be heating up and that now was not the time to put the book down. They were very flat in that regard. I differentiate between sensationalism and a literary tidal cycle; perhaps the authors were extremely cognizant of avoiding the former. The Last River spends a greater percentage of ink relating the experiences of the 4 paddlers on the river and off while Sow balances more equally the stories of both paddlers and support team. Also, Wickliffe Walker in Sow deals with the 'fallout' from Gordon's death much more comprehensively than does Todd Balf; Walker spends several pages relating the effort needed to battle rumours and judgments that were circulating at home half-way around the world. While the actual journey and the salient events I expect to remember, these books I expect to forget quickly (but then, I forgot Into Thin Air fairly quickly also). If there are poignant moments from the tale and thoughts to come away with, the one I recall most easily is the second-guessing of Gordon's paddling buddies as described most clearly in The Last Rivers account of Roger Zbel's "What if" self-flagellation. As a paddler, I pray that I am never faced with that.
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It was disappointing that The Last River did not have any photos at all of the area and only a minimalist map. On the other hand, Sow's small collection of photos was hardly comprehensive though the satellite photo was helpful in placing the story. Nether book rates more than a 2.5 - 3, in my mind, nor does one stand head and shoulders above the other. My context: Canadian class IV kayaker; 3 Himalayan river trips in Nepal (in fact and unbeknownst, I was on the Tamur River at exactly the time this group was on the Tsangpo); read years ago the American Whitewater article of the Gordon/McEwan trip down the Homothko in BC.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely not up there with Krakauer!
Review: One of the blurbs I read on the book jacket compared this book to Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm. No way!. Those two books were edge-of-your-seat reading experiences. This account of a kayaking expedition is just plain boring. The action doesn't start until about halfway or more into the book and even then, the cliched writing and deification of Balf's subjects make this book very hard to get through. Unless you are a serious kayaking fan, I would not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Characters
Review: The essence of this book is its characters. If you want the typical second-by-second action, the literary equivalent of "slow-motion" - tense faces, surging muscles, tall waves bearing down, and all that - then this isn't your book. I mean, the river scenes are there, but they aren't the essence. If you want a cheap thrill, read something else. For Balf, this expedition wasn't like that. It wasn't about cheap, take-home, made-for-tv summiting. Sure, they called it "The Everest of Whitewater," but these were no twenty-something testosterone freaks selling an image. These were middle age guys, Harvard and Yale grads, writers, chemists, intellectuals. They all had wives and kids. Yet, at the same time, they were unmatched paddlers - pioneers and legends. Roger Zbel is famous for running the big Eastern rivers in flood when all the young dudes were scared off, and he has dominated extreme kayak racing for 15 years, ever since he and his buddies pretty much invented it, along with the whole new discipline and culture of squirt boating. Tom McEwan was the first big waterfall runner, and he has first descents in many countries. He's considered untouchable in a boat, and he runs his own kayak school nowadays. Jamie McEwan was an two-time Olympian paddler, and a Bronze medalist, the only American male to win a medal in whitewater solo craft. And on the river Doug Gordon was the best of them all . . . Balf knows that. He knows that Tom McEwan could drop off a thirty-foot falls without much thought, that Roger Zbel could run class V in his sleep, that all these guys had been near death on the river. But what Balf gets at in this book is the characters themselves -- what made these intelligent, middle age fathers and husbands leave their daily lives to paddle a river that left many of the world's great kayakers shaking in their spray skirts? He looks at them from many different angles, and it's great stuff. For example, there is a great part about Tom McEwan's paddling camps - Balf calls it an "Outward Bound-meets Bad News Bears" approach to travel, or a "Charlie Chaplin approach" to camping by the river -- a kid would be told to dig a ditch, but he wouldn't have a shovel. So he'd be directed toward a shed. But it would be locked. Next, he'd be sent to the neighbor's for wire-cutters . . . And then, after he gets back from the Tsangpo, McEwan is right back out there again, leading paddling trips in his way -- guiding clients expertly, infectiously down harrowing rivers by day, camping out with his four clients on someone's porch by night. "Why does it seem, the older I get, the more stuff I accumulate, but the older Tom gets, the less stuff he accumulates?" asks one of his clients. While most clubs are having a nice lunch, Tom's wealthy DC-area clients are being led through the noise and trubulence of a waterfall curtain, up into a secret room behind the falls, and not even thinking about lunch. And again, he's not just some insane guy. He dropped out of Yale with one semester to go, and then he lived out of his kayak for a year in a Florida swamp, training for the Olympics. I found this kind of thing fascinating, and it's much deeper and more interesting that my little summary, of course. What I took from this book was the characters -- interesting, complex guys -- brillant, highly talented men who found something in paddling that wouldn't let them go -- some challenge -- that led them to a river that everyone called insane. Certainly, what happened was tragic, but that's the nature of paddling whitewater, and right up to his last breath Doug Gordon was excercising the personal judgement that he valued so greatly. Any claims that Balf is a poor writer are unfounded. And anyone who claims that Balf doesn't get to the point is clearly looking for something different than I am. I found some of the most interesting characters I have ever come across, written about clearly, and with vigor. It's a book about brothers, friends, family, and a trip that was years in the making. Balf called it a "Celebration of Life." Dispute their judgement all you want, but this book shows you the men themselves -- and they are some of the most fascinating men I've ever read about.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: The marketing of this book was the only reason I picked it up. It claimed to be as good as Into Thin Air, all the book did for me was to make me appreciate Into Thin Air even more. I have to admit that I have never even wanted to trek to the middle of the Asian continent to go white water kayaking down a very dangerous river with no civilization near you. That is basically what these people did and of course, fell into a horrible life and death situation due to high water levels. Given this lack of drive in my own life I was hoping to live vicariously through this adventure, unfortunately the book did not live up to the excitement or drama the actually participants of this adventure experienced. The book provides all the details, many of which are very interesting, and runs down the action as it took place, but it just does not grab me the way other books in this category have. Overall it is an interesting book, and if you are involved in this sport or are interested in this part of the world then you will come away with far more then the general interest reader.
Rating:
Summary: Sweaty palms
Review: This book is a measured and gripping account of the ill-fated attempt by 4 ultra-rational guys to attempt the seemingly irrational - a run down the long and extremely remote class VI wild water gorge in a remote section of Tibet. If you're a whitewater paddler and /or know any of the participants the book is especially vivid - it gave me sweaty palms and pumped heart rate just reading about it. One big problem was the lack of a decent map, and a photo of one sort or another would have been nice, but overall it succeeds in taking you along on a wild ride, with tragic consequences.
Rating:
Summary: The Last River
Review: This book is a true story about a team that goes on an expedition to kayak the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet. The book begins out in the United States describing how the characters have grown and why they came to like kayaking so much. It tells of their families and how they met, and also if they had any influences to the sport of kayaking. After it describes the characters and their backgrounds, it goes into the team coming together and meeting one another to get the idea of planning an expedition to go to the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet. They get to the planning stage of the expedition, which was to try to kayak the gorge as long as they can. The planning goes over for them to all take a flight to the Tsangpo Gorge. Once they are there they meet many different people who are on other expeditions. They practice techniques for kayaking the river and even practice safety techniques in case of any danger on the expedition. Once it gets into the part where they're in the gorge it gets exciting and really tells in detail what happened. It contains many surprises and lots of information. I recommend this book to any adult who wants to read an exciting true story and that wants to learn about a kayaking adventure on the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet.
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