its like long way around, but without ewan!

Would you listen to Extreme Frontiers again? Why?

no, not because there was anything wrong with it, i am just a 'read it once' guy

What was one of the most memorable moments of Extreme Frontiers?

i loved the experience where then went iceberg hunting, exciting and intreaguing... i fancy a go!

What three words best describe David John’s performance?

average for an audiobook

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

newfoundland- one of my closest friends lived there as a child, but i have never been ( i want to), there were a lot of things and places in it that i have added to my bucket list too

Any additional comments?

pleasant listen, but is not a substitute for the much more hyped long way books

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Just Brilliant

Very highly recommended. More like this required please. Boorman at his very best again. Excellent.

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A Missed Opportunity

I read somewhere that, should you ever be in a social situation where you meet the former model Jerry Hall, the game is to see how many sentences it takes before she mentions Mick Jagger. Apparently the average is three. I mention this only because my wife (a Canadian I should add) questioned my buying this title as, in her opinion, "You only watched that TV show because Ewan McGregor was in it. The other guy was just filler. I betcha he mentions McGregor in the opening chapter, just to remind the reader who he is." I said this was a tad cruel and having been a regular visitor to Canada over the past 30 years I was looking forward to this title.

Sadly my dear wife is being proven right (yet again) as this title is proving very hard going;

I appreciate that Canada isn't Vegas and that it consists of many, many miles of basically nothing at all, so you have to dig a bit deeper for stories of interest, but all the same you'd think the researchers for the show might've unearthed a few new points of interest.

But so far that's not been the case; I'm only up to chapter 6 and so far nothing has happened. Honestly, nothing at all. Charley has been fishing, where the height of excitement was taking a boat out to hack a chunk off of a passing iceberg to provide ice for their evening drinks. I guess the concept of filling a glass with water and leaving it outside for an hour wasn't broached, but I'd suggest it wouldve made more interesting listening. In Chapter 3 Charley really rolls out the big guns and....goes fishing again.

All of this edge-of-the-seat mundanity is not, I fear, aided by the narrator David John, who himself sounds bored and unengaging, and his attempts to inject some kind of energy into Charley's dull itinerary just fall flat. The end effect is akin to being cornered in a crowded bar by the town bore.

Canada is an amazing country with unique vistas, wildlife and experiences found nowhere else. Her people are warm and welcoming, who have adapted to an often harsh environment in amazing ways. How the first settlers ever got a foot-hold in this vast land still astounds me. Anyone paying their first visit will be amazed at the sights and breadth of experiences available. Sadly, Charley Boorman has so far managed to miss all of this.

And yes, he does mention Ewan McGregor by name in the opening chapter; in the third sentence actually.

I can feel a big "I told you so" coming on this one...

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5 people found this helpful

Poor choice of narrator

Love Charlie and what he’s achieved. Couldn’t listen to this for long however, as the narrator was unable to catch any of Charlie’s character or sense of adventure. It was like listening to boy trying to tell a man’s story.

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