Drawing on his own experience, Mr. Fiennes offers a rare perspective ... Of the inner man the reader learns little, except refrains about dreams of fame and discontent with domesticity ... Mr. Fiennes hasn’t discovered fresh material, but he brings the promised perspective of one who has been there, illuminating Shackleton’s actions by comparing them with his own ... The author reveres his subject, but this is no hagiography. Mr. Fiennes acknowledges that Shackleton is 'a man of many faults.' The prose style is clear, notwithstanding a proliferation of clichés that slow an otherwise brisk narrative. Anachronistic language at times strikes the wrong tone ... Readers of Mr. Fiennes’s pages will imagine the mental anguish of those days and nights for themselves. Beginners to the Heroic Age will enjoy this volume, as will serious polar adventurers seeking advice. For all readers, it’s a tremendous story.

Ernest Shackleton knew how to tell a good story. So does Ranulph Fiennes ... His biography of Shackleton, however, is less about derring-do and more about the many facets that make up an explorer ... What makes this book so engaging is the author’s own storytelling skills. His text is peppered with interludes on everything from food to psychology and why three can 'be a crowd.'

Fiennes...uses this personal history to inform our understanding of Shackleton’s triumphs and ordeals ... He is familiar with the Shackleton literature and the many controversies, but his book is not a 'last word' biography, dense with scholarly apparatus. Think of Fiennes, rather, as an Edwardian raconteur with veiny cheeks and a plummy growl who pours you a dram and pulls you close to the fire. He displays a hearty faith in Burberry and blubber and a schoolboy’s delight ... If the listener by the fire were to indulge an occasional rolling of the eyes, the movement would be arrested by the sight of the speaker’s fingertips, several of which happen to be missing. Fiennes did the amputation himself after frostbite turned them gangrenous.

... an insider’s look into a very select club. In a sense, that creates a problem. It is easy to set expectations too high, though Fiennes himself is complicit in this ... The comparison between the author’s feats and those of Shackleton will prove to be the book’s chief charm. However, the tension of a book that seeks to draw these comparisons while also serving as a biography is apparent from the outset: The preface is, unexpectedly, largely about Fiennes, not Shackleton ... Little of Shackleton’s dark side makes it into this book. While Fiennes dwells on the explorer’s financial woes and hints at his dalliances with women, for the most part Fiennes views Shackleton (and, it has to be said, Scott too) through rose-tinted snow goggles. Initially, Shackleton emerges from a whiteout of clichés as a largely one-dimensional character ... To approach this book, then, expecting it to be the definitive account of the explorer is likely to be an exercise in frustration. Its lack of depth, nuance and referencing is a problem in this regard. And yet, Fiennes moves the narrative along at a good pace and his storytelling becomes particularly animated when he is describing the actual grind of slogging through the snow and ice. The clichés melt away and are replaced by the hard-won descriptions of struggle, perseverance and initiative that only someone who has experienced such hostile conditions can know ... this book by Fiennes sets no records—straight or otherwise. Its appeal lies in its perspective: reading about an extreme polar superstar from the viewpoint of another.

... satisfying ... Having literally walked in Shackleton’s footsteps, Fiennes is uniquely qualified to describe his experiences, analyze his mistakes, and contradict other biographers. While scholars almost universally condemn Shackleton (and Scott) for eschewing skis, Fiennes explains that skis are a hindrance when dragging a heavy sledge. For those inclined to disagree, he points out that he came to this conclusion dragging his own sledge across Antarctica in 1993. The definitive biography of a legendary adventurer.

... [a] sympathetic if somewhat dry biography ... Though Fiennes's admiration shines through, frequent asides about his own expeditions are more distracting than insightful, and the prose doesn't quite capture the drama of polar exploration. Still, this is a thorough record of Shackleton's successes and failures.