Buddy Levy
St. Martin’s Press: 2024
Arctic exploration takes to the sky in Buddy Levy’s latest look at polar expeditions in the early twentieth century, when airship aviation was all the rage. Rather than telling one thrilling narrative of the dangerous quest to be the first to navigate the way to the North Pole, Realm of Ice and Sky shares three epic, icy sagas, each a meticulously researched work of historical nonfiction by the Washington State University professor of English.
Wealthy American journalist Walter Wellman paves the way to the milestone with a harrowing 1907 attempt, in which—after nearly two hours of smooth flying—he notices the “blur of something falling away from” his airship. “Just as he realized it was the twelve-hundred-pound equilibrator plunging to the sea and ice cakes below, he felt a jolt, and the America shot upward, rising at terrifying speed into the clouds.” He takes his final flight in 1910, setting off around 8 a.m. on a Saturday in October—and flashing a Morse code distress signal just before sunrise on the next Tuesday.
Meantime, in 1908, Frederick Cook claims he made it to the North Pole. A year after that, so does Robert Peary. And in 1926, Richard E. Byrd makes the same declaration. But those assertions are seriously questioned. In part two, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, and Italian explorer Umberto Nobile complete the first verified attainment in the race to the top of the world, not by foot or surface travel, but by airship—the 350-foot Norge—on May 12, 1926.
Two years later, Nobile returns to the skies in the Italia, hoping to right his reputation, which he feels has been severely damaged by Amundsen in the aftermath of their history-making flight. The disastrous journey launches one of the world’s greatest rescue operations. How long could the remaining crew survive in the unyielding, alien icescape?
Levy’s compelling prose, coupled with a selection of captivating black-and-white images, makes the past come alive in a most vivid and engaging of reads. Levy is a master of the art and craft of historical adventure writing. His new trio of jaw-dropping Arctic adventure stories gifts contemporary readers riveting accounts of polar explorations that they might never otherwise have known.