BEYOND FEAR: Across New Guinea Through Rivers, Swamps, Jungle, and the Most Remote Mountains in the World

Like many outdoor-adventure writers, Kramer wants to hang his hiking/kayak expeditionary tale on raw hyperbole. He and his trekking partner Aaron Lippard may still claim that their 100-day-plus trek across Papua New Guinea was the "first to cross the main part of the island... without the use of motors." But they can't claim much of a reporting style, a continuous narrative or an intelligent interest in the extraordinary natural and human worlds that appear during their expedition. Certainly Kramer's extended journal is an earnest, determined achievement and an often harrowing physical experience—and for Kramer it's a spiritual challenge as well, since he often resolves moments of peak danger and exertion as affirmations of his personal expedition as a Christian. Though Kramer often describes the strains on the expedition's two-man brotherhood, the interaction between them and their guides and frequent rescuers seems never deeper than Hardy Boys adventures. Kramer would have made a great Victorian expeditionary, but he is outwritten in our era. (Oct.)