Rating: 
Summary: Unbelievably Fascinating
Review: I cannot praise this book enough for anyone who is remotely interested in survival stories. For the several days I was reading it, I had to talk about it to anyone who crossed my path, and the subjects usually included dehydration, starvation, burning skin and other intense forms of suffering. I was blown away by the amount of damage the human body and spirit can take and yet still continue on. It was truly hard to believe. What I really found interesting was how the author took the time to explain the scientific aspects of how dehydration works on the body, the stages that kick in, etc. I also learned that camels are prized for much more than just their ability to go a long time without water. Mr. King packs the book full of fascinating information, a lot of which he says still holds true for Arabs roaming the desert today.
Rating: 
Summary: Great insight into the culture of Islam
Review: I found this book to be an excellent read. The story is riveting and has all the earmarks of a true adventure. I particularly like the insight it shows in the value of individual life(or the lack of...) that is a major part of Islam. When you read this book you see a people on the verge of constant destruction and how they survive. It is interesting to see that the captors or antagonists are no better off than the sailors. Even though they are kept as slaves, they were treated about the same as they treated their own people. This was a harsh land, a harsh time, and a harsh people. Yet there was hospitality given freely and a contrasting cruelty that showed the true depths of the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly absorbing tale of survival
Review: I have read a number of true adventure and survival stories, and this one stands out as one of the most extraordinary feats of survival I've read. The deprivations and hardships of Riley's crew make for fascinating reading, and the odds of their survival -- never mind making it back to civilization -- are truly extreme. Riley is a highly intelligent, loyal, and sensitive captain, and he gambles a risky deal to save his life and his crew.
And the author has clearly done his research, determining many details of locations that Riley has visited. Between the research and the surviving first-hand accounts, many extraordinary details of the journey survive, making this a rich story indeed. The book also offers a number of interesting anthropological and social insights into Arab culture ca. 1815, much of which we are told remains unchanged today.
Weaknesses? Well, the book is not particularly well-written. It's not *poorly* written, but the author does not have the style or flair that might make this a truly outstanding book. Finally, the names of many of the Arab characters are confusingly similar. Not the author's fault, to be sure, but a minor problem for the reader.
In this election year, I did take away from this book one small insight. Perhaps the well-known "liberal" bent of the New England seacoast states stems, in part, from generations of well-traveled seaman like Riley, who experienced firsthand the cultures of the world and made contacts with people from many nations.
Rating:
Summary: An instant favorite
Review: I was first attracted to this book after reading a review in the Smithsonian magazine. The original story was apparently one of the most influential books of Abraham Lincoln's youth. I was also intrigued by the location in which the story took place, Morocco, where I had spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the border with Algeria. The story was rich with the descriptions of a sailor's life and the hardships of shifting to a struggle for survival in the desert of the Sahara. I had some experience with nomads and Touaregs in the Sahara and was amazed at how King's descriptions of nomadic lifestyles and customs of 200 years ago are still alive today. It's probably apparent by now that I am not a book reviewer, this is my first review. In fact I don't read much any more as I am usually disappointed and quit before finishing most books. This book, however, was one which I could not put down. It is a work that I must place at the top of my all time favorites.
Rating:
Summary: The lessons of suffering in the age of surviving
Review: I was with a group of friends the other evening and we started talking about these uncertain and violent times, and how people seem to be looking for examples and symbols of courage and endurance in the face of anxiety and extinction. After pondering the question of leadership and where to find it... we decided the best place to find it at the moment is in books. Namely, survival stories. Dean King tells a wild and harrowing tale of men desperately trying to keep it together as their alien surroundings swallow them alive. Running parrallel to the marooned band's epic... is King's expedition through the desert in search of his story. At its best it reads like a man clawing through the ashes of an evaporated city. More intimate and ''beautful'', and in many ways more shocking, is Peter Hillary's In The Ghost Country, about his own journey to the bottom of the world and the depths of his mind, his titanic struggle to hold on to his sanity as the ghost of his past rise up before him in living color. A brilliant evocation of the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: Real survivors
Review: In 1815 a New England merchant brig foundered in rocky seas off North Africa. Its crew survived though perhaps they later wished they hadn't. In the first days, hostile nomads drove them to escape back to the sea in a small boat with a broken oar only to suffer such dehydration and starvation that even enslavement by the dreaded nomads seemed preferable - until it happened. After a slow, thoughtful start laying out the background of the men and the voyage, Dean's story of the crew's ordeal reads like a runaway suspense thriller with torture. And it's well written and chock full of information you didn't know you needed - the camel, for instance, is an astonishing physical specimen, a creature with a face built for sandstorms; an animal that doesn't sweat or pant, but stores its heat for the cold nights when it becomes a kind of living stove. Dean's book is based largely on two firsthand accounts - one by ship's captain James Riley, and another by crewman Archibald Robbins. Dean also retraced much of Riley's trek, and his selected bibliography is lengthy. Near death, the crew puts back into shore and, unable to find water, throws themselves on the mercy of the first nomads they encounter. The men are immediately stripped naked, then parceled out as slaves - after a bloody and protracted fight among the desert dwellers. Their first guzzle of water and sour camel's milk rips through their intestines, a cycle that is to be repeated throughout their ordeal. Separated, sunburned, depleted, still naked and unable to keep up, the men are put on camels. "It is no coincidence that a camel's gait is called a 'rack'." Blood was soon dripping from chafed thighs and calves. The ordeal goes from horror to worse. The nomads themselves often have nothing to eat or drink; bloody encounters and thievery are common. The sailors are worth rather less than a lame camel. Less than a good blanket, in fact. The physical suffering is enough to make you marvel at their will to live, but Dean also conveys the helplessness of slavery. Purposely dehumanized, their lives are entirely subject to commerce or whim. Riley, a man of his time who, Dean speculates, may have planned on acquiring a slave cargo, became a fervent abolitionist on his return. Riley comes alive on the page as a man of indomitable will, who takes his responsibilities to his men to heart. Eventually he strikes a bargain with an Arab trader, a promise based on a lie and a gamble that develops into something more personal, if precarious. The denouement is a protracted drama of danger, diplomacy and daring that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Riley's book was a best selling sensation, which remained in print long after his death, so a certain amount of skepticism is necessary. But the later events of his life bear out his energy, strength and charisma. Dean's ("Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed") stirring account, fleshed out with information about the desert, the people, their history and the cultural importance of Islam, as well as the extremes the human body can endure, is as culturally informative as it is exciting.
Rating:
Summary: A Gritty Story that Will Make a Super Movie Someday
Review: In 1815 Captain James Riley and the crew of the United States merchant ship Commerce set sail from Connecticut for Gibraltar. Two months later they were shipwrecked near Cape Bojador, off the coast of Northern Africa, captured by Sahrawi Arabs, sold into slavery and dragged eight hundred miles across the hot and hostile Sahara Desert. Along the way they were fed meager rations and pressed into hard labor as the faced barbarism, murder, starvation, dehydration, scorpions, plagues of locusts, sandstorms, hostile enemies and death. Also along the way they discovered secret oases and ancient cities as Captain Riley forged a surprising bond with a Muslim trader. They were forced to become allies in order to survive, even as Riley planed on betraying the trader in order to save his men. Dean tells a disturbing, but true tale of endureance that finally came to an end when an Arab tribal leader brought the exhausted and emaciated men to the provincial trading post of Swearah where the British paid the ransom for their freedom. This read like a pulse racing thriller. I know I couldn't put it down and I can't recommend it highly enough. Sophie Cacique Gaul
Rating:
Summary: A Stunning Book
Review: In most survival epics, man's battle against nature is enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. Here, not only do shipwrecked Americans face the ultimate tests of nature's cruelty, they must also deal with man's -- as slaves on the desert. Dean King is already an established authority on maritime literature. Consider Skeletons on the Zahara his shot across the bow. King is no longer interpreting classics of the sea, he's adding to their ranks. You won't believe what these men endure. Except King's research is so thorough you DO believe it. Every word. Halfway through you'll wonder why they don't just curl up and die. By the end you'll be cheering for them, and swelling with vicarious pride at their will to live.
Rating:
Summary: Twin journeys very satisfying
Review: King follows in the desperate footsteps of Captain Riley and his marooned crew -- and in the end almost replicates as their struggle for survive and sanity. King lives out their story in his head while tracing their paths through the cruel sands. Well done. An interesting contrast is Peter Hillary's diabolical attempt to complete Captain Robert Scott's famous fatal journey -- chronicled in the beguiling and very different IN THE GHOST COUNTRY -- and nearly ended up repeating it. What makes Hillary's book both important and effective is its exploration of the inner life, of fear and guilt and loneliness, which thereby makes it a book that anyone with half a brain and a full heart can relate to. A great one.
Rating:
Summary: Starts late. Ends great.
Review: QUICK REVIEW
This is a harsh but incredible book about a shipwrecked crew's fight for survival in the African desert. The book takes a few pages to really get going, but the crew's story is made vivid and powerful by a skillful author.
FULL REVIEW
The story the reader is expecting - of the men's ordeal as slaves on the desert - doesn't begin until page 101. That doesn't mean, however, that the events in the first hundred pages aren't engaging. The story of their struggle for survival starts much earlier. When their ship crashes, on page 46, the sailors are thrown into a desperate situation that only gets worse. From that point on things become so critical that they eventually have to choose whether it is worse to starve in the ocean on their own or risk death in the desert with the natives. Obviously we know which one they chose, but after living the harsh new life in the desert for a while, they honestly begin to wonder if they made the right decision. The beginning pages of the book, before the shipwreck, set up the story by giving us some of the history of the characters and the time period, and tells of their boat journey from Connecticut to Africa. Though not as enthralling as the later events, which are most definitely worth the wait, this background is helpful, especially in appreciating the ending. This is a well-crafted, well-written story that, by the end, leaves the reader amazed that anyone even survived to tell it. The sailors almost starve on the ocean, were forced to be slaves, often lived off of virtually only camel's milk and water (and even those in limited quantities), were forced to trek long distances on these meager provisions, and endured grueling heat by day and shivering cold at night. The author also did an incredible amount of research, yet this does not result in a dry or dull telling. On the contrary, once the story gets underway the pace never slows and the events are vividly told, keeping you turning the pages and never failing to hold your interest. Highly recommended.
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