Michelle Paver climbs the heights with a tale of horrors… stark and gnawing tale of horrors lurking at the limits of human endurance and beyond. If you enjoyed Dark Matter, you won’t be disappointed this follow-up” Thin Air is an interesting book about a group that decides to climb Kangchenjunga in India. I was quite fascinated with the books premise. Horror stories that take place in isolated places are great and I was quite looking forward to being swept off my feet. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I liked the story, but I didn't love it. There were interesting moments, but I just felt that I never really connected with either Stephen Pearce or his fellow travelers. I liked the idea that one of the men from the previous expedition was left behind and that Stephen Pearce felt haunted. But, it just never got really interesting. It is rich in atmosphere, the environment stunningly described. Kangchenjunga is a formidable character in its own right and it is a deadly one. But it is also such a satisfying ghost story, so perfect for these darker evenings, and it is wrapped within a beautifully told and sad tale. Thin Air succeeds as an excellent ghost story and horror novel but it is also a wonderful piece of historical fiction and I thoroughly recommend it.” Once more we are in a cold, secluded, location, the Hilamayas instead of the Arctic. At first glance, this is quite similar to her previous story but the feel is quite different. I would guess that this kind of tale requires a remote and dangerous setting, somewhere secluded and cut off the real world. Kangchenjunga, as well as other mountains, are places of wonder, where the immense scale becomes alien, and where euphoria morphs with desolation. Additionally, opting for the 1930s golden era of mountain climbing adds somehow that fashionable 'old' feel to it.

No moral relativism here, but lots of action, great characters and a nice big mountainous metaphor rearing above it all. Just fantastic.” I cannot recommend this book enough. If you enjoyed Michelle's previous ghost story, Dark Matter, you'll love this one. If you love anything supernatural, a bit scary, ghostly, then you'll enjoy it too. It's a fantastic read thats absorbing and totally paralysing. Beautifully, lyrically written. A five star read if ever there was one! * EMPIRE OF BOOKS * Impeccably researched, carefully controlled and terrifically told, Thin Air is a brief but brilliant exploration of the extent of human endeavour. It’s about the incredible things people, when pushed, can do… and the terrible things, too.” I was especially impressed with Paver's ability to describe different aspects of the mountain's structure without making me yawn with boredom. Ghosts - or fictional ones, at least - tend to haunt inhabited places, whether houses, churches, castles or hospital wards. So used are we to the traditions of the genre that a description of a decrepit mansion full of dark corners and unexplained creaks is enough to raise in us readers expectations of phantoms and ghouls. In this regard, Michelle Paver's "Thin Air" - much like its predecessor Dark Matter - is not your typical ghostly tale since it is the very remoteness of the haunted spaces which makes the setting particularly eerie. The context of "Thin Air" is a 1935 expedition to the summit of the Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas, the third highest peak in the world. A team of five Englishmen, including narrator Stephen Pearce and his brother "Kits", set off in the footsteps of a disastrous 1907 expedition, made famous through the memoirs of its leader Edmund Lyell. It turns out, however, that Lyell's memoirs might have left out some of the more unsavoury details of that doomed attempt, as our intrepid protagonists will discover to their dismay. Indeed, memories and relics of the Lyell expedition seem to cast a pall over the new climb.Paver's descriptions of the isolated and intimidating landscape create an eerie, unsettling atmosphere that gets under your skin * DAILY EXPRESS * Apart from the Lovecraft story alluded to in the review title, I cannot think of another mountain story in the supernatural/horror genre. It should be noted that there are virtually no similarities between the two. Michelle Paver’s descriptions of Himalayan mountain-climbing are terrifyingly lifelike — the lashing winds, glittering ice: you can see it all. But there is something else beyond the genius loci. The real horror in Thin Air lies in the sheer scale of things: the height of the pinnacles, the depth of the crevasses, the cold and the silence, the distance from anything familiar, the huge otherness.

Looking for a proper ghost story? Thin Air is a creepy, compelling tale of a Himalayan climbing expedition, where strange events on the mountain stir dread and panic.”Thin Air is a wonderfully evocative and creepy story but it's more than that - it's a capturing of the awe of nature, the exhilaration of climbing and of a time during British colonialism which combined some noble endeavours but also an awful lot of ignoble behaviour. Of course, of course, of course, I recommend Thin Air to you. * THE BOOK BAG * Set in the Himalayas, 1935. Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling determined to conquer the sacred summit of Kangchenjunga.