In reply to Offwidth: To get back to the point...
I disagree with Mr K on a couple of points;
"Gordon's writing can sometimes seem a little clumsy".
To those who like the basic/simplistic styles of Jeffrey Archer, to those who like to scan read books in two days, to those who just want to read the gory bits, to those who just want to read about the climbing, to those who just want to look at the pictures, to those who just don't care; then perhaps this book may intimidate you into thinking it's clumsy.
BUT NO, DAM IT! Let me stand up and be counted. This book hasn't been written, it's been crafted. Each passage, each sentence even has been written with a meaning. There's no filler in this book. This book has feeling. The tempo moves the reader along as the climber moves. Steady as the climbing gets reserved yet suddenly explosive as the climbers adrenalin rises.
You know that something bad is going to happen, you don't know when and you don't know how. But when it does happen the author has brought you along. the tempo and style change as panic kicks in, the writing goes all over the place. This isn't by accident, you're in the mind of the leader and things are not clinical when the s#it hits the fan.
"Gordon chose to write his story 40 years after the event in the first-person which I felt detracted from the story a little at first, giving it less of a contemporary feel".
I feel that this would be the ONLY way to write this book. It would be wrong to put a modern twist on the story and I as the reader would be a little confused by it. It is a story of a moment and as such should be written in that moment.
"without the extra burden of a review"
Mr K, I don't think you were able to give this book the time it deserved. Please go back and read it, savor it. Bring out the whisky and take many evenings to re-discover what I think will become known one of the best pieces of climbing literature written for many years.