All the White Spaces (Unabridged)
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2.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A Bram Stoker Award nominee
“Some of the best survival horror we’ve read in years, with a uniquely menacing adversary at its heart.” —Vulture, The Best Horror Novels of 2022
“Epic.” —Esquire, The 22 Best Horror Books of 2022
Something deadly and mysterious stalks the members of an isolated polar expedition in this haunting and spellbinding historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Dan Simmons’s The Terror and Alma Katsu’s The Hunger.
In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the expeditionary ship of his hero, the world-famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, Jonathan may live as his true self—and true gender—and have the adventures he has always been denied. But not all is smooth sailing: the war casts its long shadow over them all, and grief, guilt, and mistrust skulk among the explorers.
When disaster strikes in Antarctica’s frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Now completely isolated, Randall’s expedition has no ability to contact the outside world. And no one is coming to rescue them.
In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape…
As the harsh Antarctic winter descends, this supernatural force will prey on their deepest desires and deepest fears to pick them off one by one. It is up to Jonathan to overcome his own ghosts before he and the expedition are utterly destroyed.
Customer Reviews
3/5
Glad I read it, but highly unlikely to read it again. Would read another book by this author.
Very disappointing, and not “The Terror” by any stretch.
Ugh. For starters, the narrative is ponderous with too many tiresome, self absorbed inner monologues by the main character and little real action. In many of the synopses you are told the MC is a young boy, so you start reading only to learn it is actually a girl disguised as a boy. Well, okay. But rather than being a likeable, relatable spunky tomboy with normal strengths and weaknesses to overcome she is a “boy” who, of course, is smarter and braver than all the seasoned adventurers around her, including her friend Harry who is weak, fearful and unsure by contrast and whom she disdains and treats rather badly. THEN you realize-surprise!-she is a transgender person stifled by an “unenlightened” age who is finding her “true self” as a man. Enough already. The only real “horror” in the book to me was the abysmal narration. Is it too much to expect an English narrator for an English character?! The American who read it alternated between an American accent and a very bad attempt at an English one. Her voice was pretty expressionless and lacked dynamics, which only made things worse. It was difficult to engage emotionally with it from the very start. As far as something positive…well, some of the descriptive language of setting and characters is quite nice. I probably would not buy another book by this author though.