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Summary: Do all publicists live in New York, NY?
Review: In Tommy Caldwell's handwritten statement, the statement he penned for the Kyrgyz military, Tommy describes a "hill" -- not a cliff. Child's book doesn't mention this. I listened to the Dateline show which said the kidnapper was pushed, but the kidnapper did not say he was pushed down a "cliff." No wonder he lived. This book would have been better had Child addressed the little girl whose father was gunned down on a bridge as he tried to rescue the American climbers. The book is great as it describes "costs of adventure," but only as this relates to the Americans who had ignored State Department warnings not to travel to this part of the world. Nowhere does the book address the "costs of adventure" to the Kyrgyz child who now has no father as a result. Child's book pretends as though she doesn't exist. Where's the ethics in that?
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Summary: I believe them
Review: It was a great read-I support the climbers story 100%-I think it was some of the other "journalists" looking for some recognition by trying to disprove their story. The story really enables you to understand a little more that what is happening in Asia is not isolated to Afghanistan and Iraq-it is happing all over the continent and it affects the entire world.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: The book discusses the climbers involved bios, their expedition, terrorist history of the region, and other peoples' experiences in the same region. It also follows up on the aftermath of the kidnapping and the controversy that went with it.
I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it to others. At some spots I found it a little slow, but it was at the same time fascinating.
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Summary: Climbers refused all interviews
Review: The reader from California derides those who came to an opinion without first interviewing the participants themselves. The reader from California neglects to mention that the climbers refused to grant interviews in America to anyone other than Greg Child, until after Child published this book. Many journalists therefore were forced to rely on Jason Smith's interview with Agence France-Press and the Associated Press while Smith was still in Kyrgyzstan (before Child struck his book deal). Smith told these reporters that the climbers were abandoned by their captors. It is interesting to note that Jason Smith is not traveling with the Greg Child book tour, attended by all the other climbers.
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Summary: A gripping, truthful tale (and a definitive rebuttal)
Review: The reader from Ohio recycles the same tired slander that has dogged this book since its beginning as an article in Outside magazine. It is not true that the four climbers spoke only to Greg Child. Two of the climbers held a press conference upon their return to the U.S., and all of the climbers gave interviews to many publications, including Climbing. It is true, however, that the climbers gave complete access and the full story of their ordeal only to Child. As for the persistent and malicious rumors that the climbers changed their story or somehow lied about what happened, Child's book definitively establishes that poorly translated articles in the foreign press, in conjunction with a campaign of gossip and innuendo on the part of several American outdoor journalists, have kept alive the notion that something was not right with the story Greg Child and the climbers have been telling. However, a recent Dateline NBC broadcast (iwith lengthy interviews with all four climbers, including Jason Smith) confirmed that Child has been right all along -- and it featured a crucial interview with the kidnapper who was pushed off a cliff during their escape, and who confirmed that the climbers had been truthful all along. This is an excellent book about the ethics and costs of adventure.
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Summary: a 360 degree of the event, not just the rescue
Review: The story of the climbers' kidnapping and escape is exciting as it comes, but I find most of the value in the book in Greg's in-depth explanations of the terrorists and their background, the politics surrounding the rescue and the heroism of the soldiers who, by pursuing the terrorists, gave the climbers the opportunity to escape. Furthermore, his analysis of the press after the story broke reveals the downside of being caught in the public eye. If you are looking just for a thrilling story, the book may be dry, but if you want to learn about third world politics and gain a bit of insight to the terrorists and the climbers' experiences after rescue, this is a great book to read.
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Summary: Unbelievable
Review: The tale of four young rock climbers escaping from shadowy rebel captors burst into national consciousness in August of 2000, I remember thinking "Why is this the first time we've heard anything about this?". Greg Child has crafted a hard to put down answer to that as well as the heartpounding tale of the four climbers...Jason Smith, John Dickey, Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden, and their almost unbelievable tale of survival. Traveling to a remote area of Kyrgyzstan to tackle a challenging climb, the four were not aware they were entering a zone rife with political turmoil. The remote area was favored as a training ground for various factions of militant..including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Taken captive, along with others, by the rebel group the four begin a desperate journey across the inhospitable terrain, at gunpoint. They saw a fellow hostage executed before their eyes,and began to realize the grim fate that was theirs. In furtive conversation, driven by fear, hunger and an will to survive the four begin to realize that their survival will depend solely on them and they formulate a desperate escape plan. But if they do manage to escape they are faced with a treck through difficult territory, not just inhospitable form the elements and terrain, but from the unknown warring factions who may inhabit it. Even more unbelievable are the naysayers who downplay the four's peril and even try to refute the whole tale once they have reached freedom. In a theme that has become famlair in other mountain climbing books, there seems to be as much drama in the few within the mountian climbing community's attempts to tear down the climbers, once their physical ordeal is over. This is a gripping tale of survival and the ability to overcome.
Rating: 
Summary: Let the Reader Decide
Review: This book tells the controversial story of four American climbers kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan by the Islamic Movement Uzbekistan (IMU). In "Over the Edge" Greg Child spends far too much energy defending himself and the climber's credibility rather than let the reader decide for him/herself. Child fails to examine the most detrimental impact of the kidnapping, which is the severe impact the incident had on tourism in Kyrgyzstan and extensive loss of many families who were dependant on Kygyz soldier's income killed in the incident. Most disturbing in the book, is Greg Child's scathing attack on John Bouchard at the end of the book. It is out of context and a rather surpising end. Bouchard is an American writer who is writing a similiar book on the incident, from the compilation of extensive interviews with Kyrgyz soldiers, tour operators and even the kidnapper Ravshan Sharipov himself. Greg Child has belittled his great talent and crediblity by trying desparately to prove Bouchard wrong. That's for the reader to decide.
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Summary: Gripping Tale of Unexpected Adventure
Review: This is a great book about 4 climbers kidnapped in a foreign country by Afgani rebels. While in the middle of a climb, the climbers are forced down at gunshot. They live the next 10 days in a series of firefights with death all around them. To make their struggle even tougher, there is little food and the climbers are forced to bed down during hours of light in very cramped quarters. The climbers are aware they are in desparate straits as the kidnappers execute a soldier while in the middle of a gun fight. Eventually the climbers escape but that's only half the story. Their story is so unbelievable and information is so unreliable that their credibility is severely questioned. This book goes into detail about this controversy and I think does an excellent job of showing how it developed. ... Based on the controversy you're either going to believe the story or not. To me, it's very believable. The climber characters are classic young Americans and the author does a great job portraying their close relationships and this eventually cracks. I stongly recommend this book if you like climbing or stories of adventure.
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Summary: Gripping? Well, not really, but you'll finish it
Review: This is a medium speed book, not artfully written, certainly not "gripping" in the thriller sense, but a decent, interesting read nonetheless. The author's main challenge is that the central story -- the kidnapping ordeal -- was more magazine article material than book length material. There just wasn't enough to the actual kidnapping escape saga to put together a long book. The author confronts this challenge in two ways, one very interesting and one a tedious distraction. The first filler for the story is a well laid out history of islamic fundamentalism in the region. Most readers won't know a thing about the region (or at least didn't prior to 9/11), but the author adeptly fills in the background to the kidnapping. (On the other hand, the author's eye for detail is a little too general; for example, peasant's huts are visited with hardly any description of sense, sight, smells of the place -- he could have done more to take us into this undeveloped region). The second filler is the whole saga of whether it really happened like the hikers said. These tedious disputes should have been dealt with in footnotes. By devoting so much space to this the author almost starts to make you think he doth protesteth too much. Having to wade through this insiders circle of tit-for-tat charges really gives the book a bad aftertaste. Finally, the author sets out a lot of information that will probably lead many to ponder how these kids got so far in over their head in this region. The author makes it so clear that they had no idea about the political situation in the region -- they only cared about the mountains -- that he almost pushes you to ask yourself: were they simply naive or perhaps even arrogant in ignoring local developments and thinking they could walk into a country and not even bother to know what was taking place.
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