'In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the expeditionary ship of his hero, the world-famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, Jonathan may live as his true self—and true gender—and have the adventures he has always been denied. But not all is smooth sailing: the war casts its long shadow over them all, and grief, guilt, and mistrust skulk among the explorers.
'When disaster strikes in Antarctica’s frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Now completely isolated, Randall’s expedition has no ability to contact the outside world. And no one is coming to rescue them.
'In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape…
'As the harsh Antarctic winter descends, this supernatural force will prey on their deepest desires and deepest fears to pick them off one by one. It is up to Jonathan to overcome his own ghosts before he and the expedition are utterly destroyed.'
There are certain places that get used as settings for horror a lot that feel overused, the old abandoned house, the spooky cemetery, the lifeless asylum. Whilst these kinds of places have become a staple of the genre they can often feel difficult to use as there's often a very obvious solution to getting away from the horrors found within; just run away somewhere safe. This is why the places where you can't just run away, for me at least, make for the scarier stories. The depths of the ocean, the vastness of the jungle, and the cold isolation of the Antarctica. When there's nowhere for you to go to get away from the horror, the story becomes so much scarier.
All The White Spaces seems to understand this, as it has all but a handful of scenes at the beginning of the book set in the cold, desolate frozen south, isolating our cast of characters in a place where even the weather is out to kill them.
The story follows Jonathan Morgan, a young trans man whose life is forever changed when he and his parents get the news that his two older brothers, currently away fighting in World War One, aren't coming home ever again. Still forced to hide who he really is, and facing the prospect of being sent to a finishing school to teach him to become a 'proper' young lady, Jonathan reaches out to his friend, and friend of his lost brothers, Harry Cooper to help him.
Together Jonathan and Harry make their way across the world, aiming to meet up with and join the latest Antarctic expedition of the legendary explorer James 'Australis' Randall. Jonathan grew up watching his brothers idolise Randall, always dreaming of joining him on one of his journeys south. Feeling lost in the world, desperate to become his true self, and wanting to feel closer to his brothers, Jonathan decides that sneaking onto the expedition will help him.
Several days into the journey Jonathan is discovered hiding on the ship, and thanks to an impassioned defence, gets the chance to prove himself to the crew. Now he has to show them that he's a capable young man, ready to face the harsh reality of a trip into the darkness of an Antarctic winter. And whilst he does well, winning over the crew and feeling like he's who he's always meant to be, strange things begin to happen on the ship as they journey ever southward. When disaster strikes and the crew is forced to abandon their ship, heading out into the frozen wilderness, things get even worse.
Finding shelter from the oncoming darkness and the bitter cold, the men of the expedition begin to experience strange things; seeing odd figures in the darkness, and hearing the whispers of the dead. Now it's not just the cold and dark of Antarctica that they have to worry about as they desperately try to last out the months of blackness ahead of them.
I'm going to say this straight away, as it's pretty relevant to the review; All The White Spaces is creepy as hell. The atmosphere and slow burn building of tension really make this a scary read. Ally Wilkes does and amazing job at making everything feel like it could be leading to something horrific and haunting; even the most mundane scenes take on a sinister edge. I don't know how they do it, but their ability to make me afraid even when nothing is happening is wonderful. This is a book that's just shy of 600 pages long, one that I thought was going to take me several days to read; but because of how frightening it was, because of how I desperately wanted to find out what was coming next, I ended up devouring in two days.
I think one of the things that kept me reading long after I should have gone to bed was just how well Wilkes crafted their characters. Jonathan is our lead, and the person we spend the most time with, and I very quickly felt that I understood who he was and what was driving him. When we first meet him he's a young man having to hide who he is because he knows that his family wouldn't approve or understand. He hates the way people treat him, the life that's expected of him, and how his entire future is out of his control.
His plan to travel across the world and join a dangerous expedition into the harshness of the Antarctic might seem like a bold, even dangerous decision, but I get it. I completely understand it. He wants to prove to himself, and the world, that he really does know who he is. He's witnessed young men going off to war, proving themselves in the harshest and most awful circumstances; yet he's been unable to do so. So when he finally gets the chance to be himself of course he'd feel like he needs to prove he's just as strong, brave, and capable as everyone else; and this expedition is just the way to do so. The fact that he also feels like it'll help him get closer to his dead brothers is a bonus for him; and whilst he might tell people it's the main reason for his decision I don't think it's the only one.
Harry, Jonathan's only real friend when the book begins, is a complex figure. He lied about his age to go off to war, and has come back a very different person. He wrote to Jonathan whilst he was away, sharing the true horrors and the awful reality of what happened. Whilst Jonathan has still to some degree romanticised what it must have been like Harry has definitely had his life changed by it; having seen some of the worst humanity has to offer. He's been through hell once before, he doesn't really want to have to do so again; yet is willing to do so in order to help and protect Jonathan. Because of this, their friendship is really put to the test, and Harry's sanity is sorely tested when horrors begin to surround them.
Another character who's given a great deal of focus is James Tarlington, the chief science officer on the expedition. For someone with such a lofty title, Tarlington is not the kind of person you'd expect to find in that position. Not only is he fairly young and inexperienced, he's also fresh out of prison for being a conscientious observer. Being on a ship filled with people who fought in the war makes Tarlington a figure fit for derision, hatred, and open hostility. He's bullied by many on the expedition, and made to feel like less of a man. Because of this, and thanks to people automatically blaming him whenever stuff starts to go wrong for the journey, he becomes a character who you're never quite sure if you should trust or not. You begin to wonder if he might actually be out to ruin the expedition, to harm the crew, or perhaps because of the way everyone sees him you've begun to buy into the same hostility and irrational hatred that the crew are spreading. Over the course of the book I found my opinion of Tarlington shifting a lot, and he quickly became one of my favourite characters because of how much he challenged me, and because of the complex nature of my feelings towards him.
Whilst the rest of the expedition don't get the same degree of focus as these characters there is a lot of time to get to know a lot of them, and several characters have moments where they really get to shine. Randall is quickly established as something of a force of nature, a man who's become something of a myth. he uses this status, as well as his years of experience to command respect amongst his men; something that begins to fall apart once the horrors waiting for them begin their manipulations. Liam Clarke, Randall's second in command, is a more level headed man than Randall, one who's been out on the ice countless times before and knows how to keep things together. But his relationship with Randall, and his position within the expedition get pushed to breaking point over the course of the book. I also really liked Robert Macready, the cook, who proved to be a warmhearted man with a lot of wisdom and care to give out. I was also left wondering if his name was a nod to the character from The Thing, one of the best Antarctic horror stories.
With a strong and interesting cast of characters to play with Wilkes could have easily crafted a compelling story or survival and adversity with them. They could have told the story of these people and their struggle to survive the winter and it would have been engrossing enough. However, they also decided to add horror into the mix, and the quiet way that they did this was so much better than what I was expecting. In other horror stories set in frozen locations there tend to be physical threats for the heroes to contend with. There's the titular creature in The Thing, Tuunbaq the spirit bear in The Terror, and In The Mountains of Madness have the Elder Things. As such, I was waiting for some kind of creature to turn up in All The White Spaces.
Whilst I can't for certain tell you what is behind the horrific events that take place in this book (something that I love) I'm pretty sure I can say that it's not a monster. Ghosts, a force of evil, the spirit of Antarctica itself? I don't know what it is, but it's not something that our heroes can physically fight, and that, along with how it haunts and torments people, make it all the more frightening.
There are some moments of overt horror, shadowy figures standing watch, as well as some truly awful moments of body horror thanks to the harsh reality of surviving in such an environment, but for the most part the real terror of All The White Spaces is built up in nothing happening. It's the slow accumulation of unease, of the mounting tension of waiting for something terrible to appear that makes the book so effecting. It gets under your skin and keeps you on edge as Jonathan and the others keep a wary watch on the darkness around them, knowing that something's out there, watching them, but that they're unable to do anything about that makes this such a scary read.
There's one thing I want to talk about, but as it's something of a spoiler I'm going to give a warning here. So, if you've not read the book yet and don't want to know please skip on to the next paragraph. One of the things that I was expecting to happen in this story was for Jonathan's status as a trans man to come up at some point. I was waiting for some scene to happen where someone on the expedition discovered the truth of who Jonathan is and for things to suddenly go wrong for him. I thought that he'd be challenged in his identity, for all of the hard work he'd done to prove himself would go out the window, and he'd suddenly be having to defend himself from a group of desperate men who suddenly see him as a woman. But this never happened. Ally Wilkes didn't craft a story around Jonathan's trans status, and I absolutely loved that. I loved that he never had to face the awfulness of being outed, that he never had his validity of a man denied to him. It would have been easy to go down that route, to use the horror of that situation to make things even worse for him, but it would have felt too awful. As such, the scene where Jonathan does try to explain who he is to one of the members of the expedition that person doesn't seem to care. He doesn't want to know more, and doesn't want Jonathan to tell him anything he's not comfortable revealing. And most importantly, he doesn't see Jonathan as any less of a man after it. For me, that's the perfect way to tell a trans story in this kind of scenario.
All The White Spaces is a huge book, filled with tension, adventure, and horror. It conveys both the wonder and the terror that come with a place as isolated and dangerous as Antarctica. It has a wonderful cast of engaging and interesting characters who you come to care for and want to see make it to the end. This is the kind of smart and frightening story that I want to see more of. It deserves to be given the same kind of praise and adoration as the other big horror stories I've mentioned in this article. It should be a book that gets adapted to screens. Hopefully one day, when people are talking about their favourite horror stories set in cold, frozen environments it'll be included alongside the greats like The Thing, The Terror, and In The Mountains of Madness.
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