My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this new history that looks at the exploration of the Arctic regions from the air, the success, the tragedies, and the brave men who dared, and those that paid the ultimate cost.

The polar regions have cast a siren's song on many men, leading some to glory, some to death, and some for a lot of miserable experiences. Women of course were excluded from this as they were women, though one enterprising woman paid for her own boat and expedition, and quite a few native women were dragged along to cook and clean as camp people. Men for some reason are drawn to the poles, both North and South and both full of extremes. Extreme cold, extreme desolation, and extreme danger. Though as one famed explorer once said, it is cold, it is barren, it is deadly, and I love it so. Few things have brought so many nations together in competition than reaching the poles, few happenings have drawn so many newsman to share one telegraph on the ice, and few events have captured the attention of the world, as each step brings polar conquest closer and closer. Or more deaths and disasters. At the turn of the twentieth century, the main transportation of exploration began to shift from dog sled and ski to aircraft, both heavier than air aeroplanes, and lighter than air air ships. One could avoid the snow, the polar bears, the ice breaking up. Yet flying brought it's own problems, one for this pioneers they would discover the hard way, ending sometimes in success, a learning experience or plain disaster. Realm of Ice and Sky. Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue by Buddy Levy is a history of flying in the north, the want to discovery, the egos, the politics and the heroism of these men in the flying machines.

The book covers a lot of events but is focused on the efforts of three men, all who with varying degrees of success used air ships on their flights of discovery. Walter Wellman was a self-made man a reporter known for his writing, his ability to get things done, and for his numerous families. Wellman was the first to think of using an air ship to travel across the North and reach the poles and raised money for two different attempts, that had problems both from the cold, but from the technology of the time. Wellman also attempted the first crossing of the Atlantic with an air ship, that also had problems. Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer, known as the Last Viking for his numerous expeditions and successes in polar exploration, even reaching the Southern Pole by dog sled. Amundsen raised money for an Italian air ship built by Umberto Nobile, and backed by the newly Fascist Italian leader Mussolini. Amundsen was successful flying over the North Pole and using radio to share his success with the world, buy Nobile, who was on the flight felt slighted by not being considered important, or a part of the expedition. Nobile soon planned his own flight over the frozen North, one that would end in tragedy for many.

Buddy Levy is a true chronicler of northern exploration. I have read most of his books, and I have to say I found this one to be among his best. There is such a mix of characters, a huckster American, a stoic heroic Norseman, and a Man who meant well, but allowed things to get out of control. Levy is very good at setting the scene, explaining why things are important, and why people cared, and letting the people involved tell the story. Levy is good at getting to the motivations, and not only of the big players, but the small players. A man who wintered on the ice who lost his companions on two different occasions. Levy captures the people, and gives them lives outside of stereotypes, though it is hard with a man like Roald Amundsen, who really seems like a fictional character in life an death.

A really great book, one that stays with you, especially when watching the snow fall. People interested in the north, or exploration even aviation will enjoy this one quite a bit. A good place to start reading Buddy Levy if one has not before, and become a fan.

An airship in the Arctic? What could go wrong? The answer is so, so much. Quite frankly, not nearly as much as I expected, though. As an avid reader of anything about the Arctic, I knew I would enjoy Buddy Levy's latest, Realm of Ice and Sky. Adventure and survival stories are Levy's sweet spot and I was not disappointed.

Levy tells the story of three different Arctic campaigns aimed at the North Pole. My only wish is that I knew nothing about all three before I started reading. I was aware of the Italia disaster and Roald Amundsen's trip to the pole. However, I knew nothing about their predecessor, Walter Wellman. The three stories are captivating and they work best when sitting in front of a fire otherwise you may catch a chill.

Levy is one of those authors I can recommend to anyone. Yes, this is non-fiction and history, but Levy is the master of just telling the dang story and getting on with it. While I would have loved a book twice the size, Levy knows not everyone needs to know the listing of the stores taken on each expedition. The people and their survival is all that matters. The story tells itself. Levy is just the (very well qualified) tour guide.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and St. Martin's Press.)

I've heard of Roald Amundsen before, but not William Wellman or Nobile. This one statement from the book sums it all up: "What everyone knew for certain, however—including the three men aboard the America—was that their chances of dying on the journey were likely greater than their chances of surviving it." Those men were courageous, or crazy, pitting themselves against nature at the North Pole.

Buddy does it again. A wonderful book on three stories of airships and the men who explored the North pole in the early 1900s. This book has it all, very well written, fascinating story telling and a page turn from the start. I really enjoyed how these three explorations are so connected. It just shows that these huge events in history are tied together and the few men all understood what they where trying to accomplish and the danger involved.

This is one of those rare books where you can, and should, judge a book by its cover. Certainly not by the title; REALM OF ICE AND SKY makes it sound like one of those copycat YA paranormal fantasy thingies. (I joke with my children, who read such books, that they're going to run out of nouns eventually, and you are going to get books like A COURT OF OLIVE LOAF AND MAYO.) But the cover! The cover has a huge ginormous blimp on it, sailing quietly over an ice floe.

You see (or maybe you don't), in the first years of the twentieth century, it was a normal thing to do for eccentrics and vainglorious explorers to fly lighter-than-air craft over the North Pole. You read that right. Buddy Levy has given us in this book three -- three! -- different stories of people, who I am sure looked normal enough, and were not visibly drooling from the mouth, and had the bright idea to build hydrogen airships, equipped with gasoline engines, and take them to Svalbard, a teensy island deep in the Arctic Ocean, and from there fly to the North Pole.

So before you ridicule this idea--I mean, of course you're going to ridicule this idea, it involves flying a blimp to the North Pole--consider these considerations. First, at this point, the connection between flying ginormous hydrogen gasbags and burning people falling to earth, screaming their last scream, had not yet been cemented into the public imagination. Not to say that these early blimps were safe; they were not. A minor character in the narrative eventually dies in a separate airship crash over New Jersey in a craft called AKRON; if you go to look this up on Wikipedia you will find that this was not the deadliest crash of a blimp <i>with that same exact name</i>, USS AKRON crashed in (again) New Jersey in 1933, killing 73 souls. (Both ships were named after the home of Goodyear Rubber, you see, although that doesn't explain why New Jersey is hell on airships.) The people in these stories didn't know that airships were more dangerous than airplanes, because airplanes in that era were plenty dangerous as well.

And then second--well, read any polar explorer story. If you're going to the North Pole--if you just have to--and you do it by ship, and then by dogsled--you are just asking to get yourself killed in the most horrible, long, drawn-out way possible. Ask the unquiet ghost of Robert Falcon Scott, if you like. Even today, the Poles are, well, kind of a schlep. Is it any wonder that relatively bright, curious people--including Roald Amundsen his own bad self--took a look at the new airships and thought to themselves, "Hell with it, there's got to be an easier way."

If polar exploration does anything, it reveals character, and Levy has three to work with. Walter Wellman, who unfortunately in his photo looks somewhat like a dissipated Buddy Ebsen, comes across as having the sort of panache that is just begging for George Clooney to play him in a Coen Brothers movie. Wellman was a journalist, and a self-promoter par excellence, and was the first to try to take an airship that far north. Although he wasn't successful, Amundsen, a stoic, hawk-nosed figure, took a crack at it, with much better success. That ship was piloted by one Umberto Nobile, something of a comic-opera figure and erstwhile Fascist. Nobile would go on to try his luck again, which was a mistake.

It's a cracking story, and Levy tells it well. Highly recommended.

I am a huge geek about all things related to explorers and exploration–reading about Shackleton's Endurance was my gateway, and since then I devour any book I can about various explorers–and happily stumbled upon Buddy Levy's Empire of Ice and Stone when it came out, which I loved. I've been meaning to read more from Buddy Levy and was ecstatic when I saw Realm of Ice and Sky on NetGalley! This was another absolutely fascinating dive into something that I knew very little about. I love the way that Levy is able to make nonfiction accounts completely thrilling, and can manage to convey so much information in ways that are page-turning. I've read a bit about Amundsen and Cook in the past, but Wellman is a newer name to me so I was really keen to learn about his adventures, and I also liked getting to learn even more about Amundsen's experiences. This is a perfect read for any nonfiction fan who enjoys reading about exploration and adventures, and I'd highly recommend it (along with Buddy Levy's other work!).

Realm of Ice and Sky is a complete history of the polar air expeditions set forth during the early 1900’s. This period of relatively recent history has been forgotten and the many brave men who suffered and perished in their attempt to reach the North Pole have faded from recognition. Mr. Levy focuses his book on the expeditions that used the very new mode of transportation, the aircraft, to get to the North Pole. I was amazed at many of the historical facts, the number of lives lost, the staggering cost of the expeditions and the single mindedness of the men involved. This is a very complex non-fiction book with meticulous research. It would be interesting to any reader who enjoys learning about the history of adventurers, especially obscure figures of history.

Realm of Ice and Sky by Buddy Levy

This four star Buddy Levy account of the first crossings of the North Pole by dirigibles and aeroplanes in the early 1900s is long in details to start and with adventurous stories to finish. It is perfect for non-fiction readers interested in science, engineering and polar exploration.

The dirigibles, powered by motors, were also at the mercy of the wind and weather. Some scary scenes are ones where these floating behemoths narrow miss mountain peaks hidden by fog, disasters and recoveries. There’s no doubt polar explorers like Walter Wellman, Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile were brave, driven men. We have them and their crews to thank for their early explorations of Earth’s last unexplored frontier.

As a footnote, Lighter Than Air crafts are once again being built to use for humanitarian deliveries of food, water and medicine to remote or devastated areas in need, as well as for luxury travel to…yes, the North Pole, where passengers can get out and walk around on the polar ice!

This book is about the three explorations of the North Pole using air ships. The first trip was led by William Wellman, the second by Roald Amundsen and the last by Umberto Nobile. Each accomplished different achievements. The first that it could be done, the second that the Arctic was an ocean and could be flown across and the last involved scientific studies. The last one resulted in a crash that necessitated at rescue of those that survived. Overall a well written and researched book that read move like a novel than history.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.

A well researched story about a little known chapter of Arctic exploration. That said, I have to admit that Buddy Levy’s style is not to my liking – I read two or three of his books, and while I am fascinated by subjects, the writing is too dry for me to be engaging. But I know that this author has a lot of fans, so if you liked his previous books, you definitely will like this one as well.

Thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

I am fascinated by artic explorations so I was very intrigued by this book. Overall I enjoyed it and reading about adventure. The writing was descriptive and made the setting come to life.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC for an honest opinion.

This book was a great narrative into polar exploration by three different groups of men determined to reach the true pole. This book would interest people who are into history. It is a great book and I would recommend it.

I never thought much about airships or arctic exploration. I certainly never thought that I would use phrases like ‘gripping’ or ‘edge of your seat’ to describe a book about either… the writing style of this book was riveting. I never knew just how important airships were or how involved they were in the history of exploration. Very interesting book!

2.5⭐
It’s not a fault of the book or the author, but I gotta say, spending basically 2/3rds of the book on expeditions meant to bolster the image and standing of a fascist government wasn’t really what I wanted to be reading in November 2024. So there’s no way that didn’t impact my feelings on this, which again, isn’t /Levy’s/ fault, but still.

I went into this knowing about Amundsen already, having read The Last Viking several years ago (and Nobile is in that book a lot as well but I did not remember him at all so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). First time hearing about Wellman, though.

Unfortunately, I struggled to click with the overall style. There are a lot of (presumably) firsthand recollections that aren’t direct quotes like “Riesenberg instinctively grabbed onto a rope and was thrown somersaulting from the car” and that sort of thing just irks me in this type of non-fiction. In this case that omnipresent knowledge that it was “instinctive” is obviously from Riesenberg’s autobiography, but it happened so often, and it was jarring each time.

Overall, there were some interesting parts (I had never really given a lot of consideration to how get the hydrogen to fill in a blimp in a remote area before pressurized tanks for transport existed), but it did feel like the story of the /Italia/ crash was the heart of the story, but on it’s own there isn’t enough there for a whole book, so the sections on the /America/ and the /Norge/ feel a bit like page fillers.

If you enjoy learning about early Polar exploration, this will be a good one to pick up. I have read several other books concerning this topic via dogsled or ship travel and then walking in, but this is the first one with air flight via a dirigible.
The writing is matter of fact with excellent research and I truly enjoyed it. I even finished it, and then started it over at the 50% mark just to read it again slower. I tried to get the correct names of the men in relation to what jobs they carried out and what fate beheld them.
This is one of those books that grows on you, getting more invested as you read. The author covers multiple daring vivacious dedicated brave explorers such as Walter Wellman, Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen. They truly were adventurers, a sextant for location and a wireless for communication, no GPS or satellite phones. None of our fancy warm outdoor clothing that we have now. Deer hide was the go-to warm fur. Mr. Levy, job well done.
I thank St. Martin’s Press along with NetGalley for providing this Galley edition for no requirement other than my offer to provide an unbiased review. High 5 stars.

This is a book for people with very niche interests, or those who want to expand their knowledge into areas they know little about. For me, as someone who is mostly interested in actual exploration, I was often bored since a large portion of the book is more about the invention of dirigibles and early planes than it is about true exploration, though the two subjects collided often. There just were too many instances of detailed information about flight and flying to keep me interested, too many stories about people flying places other than the North Pole. There also was, in my opinion, way too much time spent on the background of the main characters. It often felt like the author had a decent idea for a book but couldn't figure out how to make it long enough, so he shoved in as much background data and many things only tangentially related to the main story to reach a certain word count. It made the book really drag on and on for me. However, between some of this fluff, there were really interesting sections that shocked me, made me laugh out loud, and kept me eagerly turning the pages. Looking back from this point in time, it seems ridiculous what some of these people tried to do, but they didn't know then what we know now and it added a cool layer to the book.

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting book of men ad machines pushed beyond their limits. A race to see who gets there first and how

This book is a fascinating journey into a time when the age of exploration overlaps with the age of flight. Levy profiles three explorers attempting to use airships to reach the North Pole at the start of the 20th century. I had only heard of one before, Roald Amundsen, but didn’t know the incredible story of his last exploits and the end of his life.

The risks inherent in the arctic seem almost tame compared with the risks of little-tested airship in extreme weather. Levy turns extensive research into fascinating character portraits and page-turning tales.

I never gave much thought to the different ways explorers tried to reach the North Pole, especially not considering exploration by air. This was a historical account of the many attempts, challenges, the successes and the failures. This account strips away all the political biases and the misrepresentations - we learn of them, but they do not sway the narrative. You learn what drives the early explorers, feel the rivalry, and fear for these brave men despite their fates being sealed in the past. The author not only did a great job of narrating the travels in linear time and in an impartial manner, but the included supporting information was just as interesting. This may be a historical account, but it is still edge-of-your-seat excitement/anxiety. I have a new interest in history thanks to Levy!

I wasn't sure this was going to be my kind of book, but it sounded interesting so gave it a try. I was so glad I did!

Levy tells of the attempts of three men who want to reach the North Pole by dirigible. We first learn of Walter Wellman, an American in 1906 who has his balloon outfitted in Europe and leaves for Norway to accomplish dream.

Then Roald Amundsen gives it a try with a larger crew including an Italian Umberto Nobile. At the end of their trip, the two men are at odds and are enemies.

Umberto Nobile decides he wants to do the trip for Italy after being on the Norge. He thinks he has everything handled to win a victory for Italy.

From the time these men were getting their equipment and teams together until the ending was an experience. You felt as if you were in the air or on the ice with these people and their triumphs as well as their failures were felt. You are introduced to their families and what drives these men.
Very good read about a history that I was not aware of and feel better for having read it.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.