Underwood (On Dangerous Ground), a noted outdoorsman and the editorial director of the Outdoor Magazine Group of Harris Publications, has compiled 17 adventure pieces that pit humans against nature. The collection mixes fiction and nonfiction, and features excerpts from well-known works as well as reprints of magazine articles. All the tales are wonderfully written by such well-known authors as Rudyard Kipling, Jon Krakauer, Jack London, Farley Mowat and Sir Ernest Shackleton. While the fiction chosen by Underwood is imaginative and entertaining, the most compelling selections are among the nonfiction, for in these true stories, the choices and chances that determine life and death occur. Three excerpts in particular stand out as graphic, moving testimony to the human will to survive: an account from Piers Paul Read's book Alive, about the famous Andes plane crash; a section from Slavomir Rawicz's The Long Walk, which describes Soviet labor camp escapees' first few days traversing the Gobi Desert, having already walked across Siberia and China during WWII; and a couple of chapters from Shackleton's South, concerning his 800-mile trip in a lifeboat to get help for his stranded crew. Whether these are the greatest survival stories ever told, Underwood's collection makes for a brisk read and a great introduction to adventure writing. Most readers will be anxious to move on to the original materials. (July)
