Into Greenland, with Killers on loose!. Review on Night Without End - Alistair MacLean

One fine day I was searching for a book to order, and I thought to buy another book from one of my fav author “Matthew Reilly” (I have already read one trilogy from him), but I was also comparing prices on 3 different websites. I searched for ‘Ice Station’, and I also get another entry in result ‘Ice Station Zebra’. Just by curiosity I opened the 2nd entry and read the synopsis, which look good, and I came to know about one more author ‘Alistair Maclean’. I decided to give him a try, and after much comparison between the above mentioned and ‘Night Without End’, I settled on the later one, and hence now I present you the review of same.

‘Night Without End’ is written by Alistair MacLean. He was a Scottish novelist from Glasgow (Born: Apr 21, 1922 – Died: Feb 2, 1987), and also worked for ‘Royal Navy’, and is famous for chilling thrillers related with services and with timeframe of world wars. His best known novels are ‘The Guns of Navarone’, ‘Ice Station Zebra’, and ‘Where Eagles Dare’. He wrote his first novel ‘HMS Ulysses’ in 1955 that was also a hit too, and last in 1986 named ‘Santorini’. Many of his novels were also adapted into films. This was his 5th novel, published first in 1959 (I owned the one published by Harper Collins, and which cost me Rs.159 at Indiaplaza.com). This book goes on for 373 pages, divided over 12 chapters (title depicting the timeframe of events), for which I tool 8 days.

It is a story of Arctic environment – basically of Greenland, where an airplane crashed on one cold night. The crash site is near an ice research station, where the team is led by Dr.Mason, he alongwith his two supportees, Jackstraw and Joss, ran to the crash site, and found 10 survived passengers, but they were not able to save the pilot crew. Everybody amazed when they come to know that they have come too far from the plane’s scheduled route. Now they’re in a hostile environment where temperatures goes as below as -70 degrees, how will they survive with minimal of clothing, and what will happen to them, when they come to know that plane is not crashed by mistake, but the pilots are being shot at point-blank range. And among them are 2 killers, who can kill anybody for the thing they’re looking for. All of this forms the crux of this thrilling-adventure story.

I was always amazed by arctic environment (especially feel attracted to Alaska) and the books related to it, that’s why I owned and read other books dedicated to it, like ‘Into the Wild’, ‘Alaska’, so did tried this one too. So, looking at the plot, it looks quite interesting, and yes, it has been presented quite well. The author successfully presented the arctic environment in the way it is, the total harsh environment he explained point-by-point, detail-by-detail, each and every minute detail about surviving of the novel’s character is mentioned, and yes since it’s a thriller, he is successful in maintaining one, but the major drawback was that since explanation was at its full, this makes the novel a slow one. It took 373 pages to find out the killers, when at the end, we come to know that the basic idea about why the killers are there is not that much exciting, we have seen that reason so many times in other thriller movies, so after reading and waiting for so many pages, climax looks less interesting. So, the pace is slow. Writing is a bit hard, not the easy English, supported by long sentences, sometime which goes up to a length of 1 para.

The survival details are shared full, had it been a bit fast paced, I will give it more points, but nevertheless, it’s a good read, and you can pass your time going slowly and enjoying the description of arctic weather, and if you yourself are reading it during chilled winters, then you’ll have double effect of it, that I can guarantee. You want to try Alistair MacLean; you can surely buy this book, which Is written in first person, my rating 3/5 for the content and description.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki :)