June 9, 2014
A new tribe of aerial daredevils write their deeds in blood and glory in this bracing if windy extreme sports saga. Journalist Higgins sings the exploits and charisma of “wing-suit” pilots, who leap from airplanes and high places and glide through the air in a nylon getup that gives them the shape and aerodynamic advantages of a flying squirrel. His loose narrative follows two wing suiters in their quest to become the first to land (safely) without a parachute: mediagenic superstar Jeb Corliss, bald and resplendent in an all-black outfit with silver skull buttons, wants to build a million-dollar landing slope; meanwhile, his rival, Gary Connery, an unknown stuntman, conceives a bargain-basement scheme to land in a pile of cardboard boxes. The book is mainly a chronicle of death-defying stunts: mishaps are plenty grisly when wing suiters traveling at 100 mph encounter anything denser than air, and the body count is high. It’s also an inchoate tribute to the exaltation of defying death; one extreme parachutist “felt somehow reborn into the world” on his first outing, “as if scales had been stripped from his eyes.” These effusions won’t move everyone to a conversion experience, but Higgins’s account is hair-raising enough to hold the reader’s interest.
Starred review from July 1, 2014
The breathtaking highs and life-threatening plunges of the most extreme stuntmen on Earth.Keep your mixed martial arts, parcours and BMX bikes; you haven't seen anything until you've seen the point-of-view video of these free-flying pilots soaring in their homemade wingsuits over some of the most extreme terrain on the planet. In this riveting journalistic account, freelance writer Higgins chronicles the evolution of the sport from simple parachuting to BASE jumping (the acronym stands for building, antennae, span and Earth, which serve as launch points) to the development of these soaring, superherolike armored flight suits. The book is full of colorful characters but largely focuses on the contrasts between two of the most charismatic pilots, both of whom seek the holy grail of the sport: to land without using a parachute. The most famous is Jeb Corliss Jr., an adrenaline junkie who is most famous for a spectacular 2013 jump off China's Mount Jianglang, popularized in a startling online video called "Grinding the Crack." Despite being backed by multimillion-dollar sponsors, Corliss can't seem to avoid trouble-e.g., being imprisoned for a spoiled jump off the Empire State Building in 2006 or carving a good chunk of his leg off during a 2012 flight in South Africa. Corliss' counterpart is Gary Connery, the do-it-yourself British stuntman who famously doubled for the queen during the James Bond stunt at the 2012 Olympics. This is thrilling reporting, but Higgins responsibly never avoids the fatal risks involved, and neither do the pilots. A graphic account of the death of Corliss' best friend, Dwain Weston, who slammed into Colorado's Royal Gorge Bridge at 120 mph, punctuates the inherent danger. For anyone who finds these kinds of emotional and precise accounts of risk, ambition and victory irresistible, this is a must-read.A highflying, electrifying story of a treacherous sport in which every triumph is an eye blink away from becoming a disaster.
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Starred review from June 1, 2014
Journalist Higgins's (Sports Illustrated for Kids) action-packed book introduces a global coterie of remarkable characters who have dared life and limb. He describes escapades from Sixties stunt parachuting to more contemporary BASE jumping, in which one takes flight off of selected worldwide buildings and geographical points to the experience of wingsuit flying--the maximum challenge. The author recounts the huge preparations, financial investments, psychological motivations, personal setbacks, and extraordinary aerial accomplishments that have gone into these extreme sports. Readers will learn that a number of international wingsuit clubs have informally coalesced into the Wingsuit Landing Project, brainchild of L.A. native Jeb Corliss Jr., whose members plan to leap from aircraft or fixed positions into space, glide miles through the air in the attitude of a flying squirrel, and land safely on contrived apparatuses without the use of parachutes. Corliss's primary competitor, Englishman Gary Connery, along with supporters of the race from Finland, Brazil, South Africa, France, Australia, and Hollywood, round out Higgins's cast of international enthusiasts. VERDICT An engrossing and exhaustively researched account of extremists who challenge failure and death on a regular basis. Highly recommended for ultimate jumpers in particular, sports enthusiasts in general, and all public libraries.--John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Cleveland
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2014
Journalist Higgins investigates BASE jumping and beyond to the cutting edge of human flight. Make no mistakethese are sports that provide epic amounts of adrenaline while requiring no small degree of guts and even, it could be argued, a dose of crazy. Higgins' main focus is Jeff Corliss, a superstar in a group of men and women who excel at attention-getting stunts. By way of exploring the evolution of skydiving to BASE jumping to the development of the Wingsuit Landing Project (with its great distance potential), Higgins digs deeply into the motivations of Corliss, UK stuntman Gary Connery, and their aerial contemporaries. There are a lot of accidents and a lot of deathsHiggins doesn't sugarcoat the price paid in the quest for ultimate speed and altitude. Deftly covering both the pursuit of glory and the technological details, Higgins also discusses Icarus and Lindbergh, Point Break and the X Games. He frames his dramatic characters within a larger, even more compelling story and does not skimp on the extreme aspects, making for exciting reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)