By the time I realized that the underlying premise behind the mysterious goings-on is unbelievable bullshit, I was hooked and just had to finish. ( )

A good page turner

I enjoyed imaging life on the South Pole. This made for a fun, quick read! I would certainly recommend it. ( )

Predictable, dull, and unwieldy

The author tries to cover too many characters at once, which only accomplishes 3 things.
1) Less emotional connection to the characters because the POV is so spread out and there's so many characters to keep track of.
2) A generic, formulaic tragic back story for every character, which gets old.
3) Making it clear who the Observer is because it's the only damn character focused on in detail that doesn't get a POV.

Besides that, there was way too much exposition and lackluster description. One can only describe the snow and cold in so many ways. But still, I trudged on because I thought it might be worth it.

Nope. Just a disappointing climax and a rushed ending that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. We follow the main protagonist and we hope she will do something but in the end deus ex machina happens and she closes her eyes and all of a sudden everything is OK.

I'd rather freeze in the snow than recommend this book to anyone. ( )

This was gripping and fun, with a decent mystery and good use of the Antarctic locale. It loses a star for a lack of originality and some clumsy writing at times, but overall it's a solid and enjoyable thriller. The characters are a mixed bag, some more convincing than other, but I did really enjoy the portrayal of the heroine.

This is the first book where I've read and listened to it using Whispersync of the Audible and Kindle versions, have to say it worked really well and I'll definitely be doing more of it. ( )

"The Winter Over" is a thriller following the descent into chaos of the skeleton crew of forty or so scientsts and support staff who are covering the nine month "Winter Over" shift at the Shackleton research station at the South Pole during the continuous darkness of an Antarctic winter.

The strength of the novel comes from two things: a vivid evocation of the claustrophobia of the station and the murderous menace of the outdoors and from the originality of the idea the plot pivots on.

I felt I got to know the station and completely to believe that "Antarctica wants to kill you" so badly that a short walk following a guide rope from one building to the next is a deeply hazardous enterprise.

The plot unfolded at a pace that meant that my suspicions were confirmed quickly enough for me to feel smart but not so quickly that the plot felt dumb. There were lots of twists and turns and a wealth of possible and actual bad guys upon whom the whole thing going to hell could be blamed.

The weakness of the book came from the over-extension of the central idea and the limited character development.

Things stopped going to hell and started to implode like the evil villain's base in a James Bond movie. The body count was so high and the killing so remorseless that I felt I was in a rebooted version of "Resident Evil".

The main characters had tragic backstories that they dragged behind them like broken limbs but there was no sense of progress or prospect of redemption, so I ended up feeling like a voyeur iat a freak show.

"The Winter Over" struck me as a Twenty First Century version of Alistair Maclean's "Ice Station Zebra": with violent action wrapped around a puzzle but this time with many of the characters being women and with scary FFI/OCEAN psychometrics driving the action. ( )