" The book is fascinating in that it delves deeply into what draws any of us to move toward the unknown, what makes us want or need to explore uncharted territory. Sometimes it's simple vanity, sometimes it's curiosity and intellect, and sometimes it's the need to prove something to oneself. The book uses S. A. Andree's tragic attempt to reach the North Pole in a balloon as a frame, and within that frame packs a number of other narratives related to arctic exploration. What I wanted, in the end, was a better sense of Andree, but ultimately, that would have been impossible - once he and his companions launched, there was little record of them, save for the diaries each of the three kept, and the few photographs they took, which were discovered with their bodies sometime in the 1930's. "
— William, 1/31/2014