A review by audreyapproved
Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike by Brian Castner
3.0
I have a lot of thoughts, but firstly, I love this cover! It is something I'd totally pick up in a bookstore. Stampede is my first introduction into Alaska's Klondike gold rush, and I picked up quite a few tidbits of information - namely how going to Alaska was really lucrative for the first people on the river, and not worth it for literally everybody else.
Castner has a unique way to tell this story. While the chapters are chronological and named by the year in which events occurred, each chapter typically focuses on one person and talks about their experience in the Klondike. He covers law men, party leaders that ended in death/disaster, conmen, traders and bar-owners, "good time girls", and regular people tryin' to make it big in the north (including the author [a:Jack London|1240|Jack London|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1508674808p2/1240.jpg], before he got famous). It's a bit of an awkward structure since we sometimes return to these people in later chapters, but frequently do not.
While much of this seems well researched (I listened to this on audiobook but downloaded the ebook to browse through the bibliography), Castner isn't my favorite writer. It almost feels like he's trying to be conversational, but I'd have preferred it more if he did not. In narration voice and cadence, this kind of reminded me of [b:The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses|49947205|The End is Always Near Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses|Dan Carlin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1564561209l/49947205._SX50_SY75_.jpg|72579137] (narrated by the author) - this is not a compliment. Castner also uses the phrase "thought to himself/herself" a lot, and then quotes something that an individual wrote. This seems minor, but I really don't like this attempt to bring the readers into the storyline. I'd prefer if Castner had just said "wrote". I'm very picky when it comes to historical nonfiction authors writing things like "thought to themselves" because there's no way for an author to validate this with hard data.
Overall, I felt this was big on retelling stories of different people that participated in the Klondike Stampede (some were quite entertaining - I liked the conman the best), but light on an overarching theme and cohesion. Because of this, the author's use of racial slang (which he says in the introduction he kept as a way to accurately depict the times) felt kind of pointless.
I wouldn't recommend, and I wouldn't be eager to pick something else up by Castner, but I learned about a historical event I knew nothing about and I'd definitely read something else on this subject matter.
Castner has a unique way to tell this story. While the chapters are chronological and named by the year in which events occurred, each chapter typically focuses on one person and talks about their experience in the Klondike. He covers law men, party leaders that ended in death/disaster, conmen, traders and bar-owners, "good time girls", and regular people tryin' to make it big in the north (including the author [a:Jack London|1240|Jack London|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1508674808p2/1240.jpg], before he got famous). It's a bit of an awkward structure since we sometimes return to these people in later chapters, but frequently do not.
While much of this seems well researched (I listened to this on audiobook but downloaded the ebook to browse through the bibliography), Castner isn't my favorite writer. It almost feels like he's trying to be conversational, but I'd have preferred it more if he did not. In narration voice and cadence, this kind of reminded me of [b:The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses|49947205|The End is Always Near Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses|Dan Carlin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1564561209l/49947205._SX50_SY75_.jpg|72579137] (narrated by the author) - this is not a compliment. Castner also uses the phrase "thought to himself/herself" a lot, and then quotes something that an individual wrote. This seems minor, but I really don't like this attempt to bring the readers into the storyline. I'd prefer if Castner had just said "wrote". I'm very picky when it comes to historical nonfiction authors writing things like "thought to themselves" because there's no way for an author to validate this with hard data.
Overall, I felt this was big on retelling stories of different people that participated in the Klondike Stampede (some were quite entertaining - I liked the conman the best), but light on an overarching theme and cohesion. Because of this, the author's use of racial slang (which he says in the introduction he kept as a way to accurately depict the times) felt kind of pointless.
I wouldn't recommend, and I wouldn't be eager to pick something else up by Castner, but I learned about a historical event I knew nothing about and I'd definitely read something else on this subject matter.