All the White Spaces

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A journey into winter, a growing sense of isolation, a battle with the elements and facing down the ghosts of the past – Ally Wilkes has taken some of my very favourite ingredients and bound them into a deliciously spooky and compulsive tale. Ideal for a dark evening, though you might want to draw a little closer to the fire . . ." - Alison Littlewood/A.J. Elwood Hang onto your seats, All The White Spaces is one wild ride! Full of unexpected twists and turns, this book is full of entertainment. Mixed with equal parts of historical fiction, coming of age, thriller, mystery, and even horror this genre-bending novel is filled with so many elements that it's impossible to nail it down to just one. 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. At some point on the voyage the men need to disembark the ship. They land on a place that is creepy and strange and not marked on their maps. With no ability to call for help the crew is stranded in this isolated winter wasteland.

The blurb I saw for All The White Spaces suggested that it was a mystery thriller set on an Antarctic expedition. That blurb was wrong; this book is so, so much more than that. All The White Spaces follows Jonathan Morgan, a trans man in his late teens who stows away on an expedition to the South Pole as a tribute to his brothers who were killed in WWI and had always aspired to explore the world. He meets the famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, captain of the expedition (and the Fortitude, the ship they’ll take on the voyage) and finds his place among the crew. Throughout the journey, we see Jonathan come into his own personality and sense of self, dealing with the stresses of sea life and, eventually, the challenges of survival in Antarctica. 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. I think this needed some rather savage editing – there was too much of the same thing happening over and over and over again, with each repetition of ghostly visitation, aurora borealis events, howling and escaping dogs and the like, losing intensity, for me. Great God, this is an awful place,” said British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his disastrous 1912 expedition to the South Pole, and Ally Wilkes has one of her characters say something almost identical in her absorbing alt-history horror debut All the White Spaces. If you’re going to write a horror story set in Antarctica, you pretty much have me at hello. And this isn’t just because, like anyone of taste and refinement, I have an enduring love of John Carpenter’s The Thing.Once the men are in the abandoned huts, wondering what happened to the German party that passed this way a year earlier, I found myself more invested in the story. The underlying tensions within the party are exacerbated by the events surrounding them. Voices are heard. People find themselves lured into the open, following something they believe. Strange things start happening. Who, or what, is behind this soon becomes our focus. Is it a cliché to say 'this book is creepy as hell and kept me up all night?' Yes, Does that make it any less true of Ally Wilkes' stunningly atmospheric, creeping-dread-filled debut All The White Spaces? Absolutely not! It's almost 2am here and I am exhausted, having spent night after night telling myself I'd read 'just a chapter or two' before bed, only to look up and discover it's almost 3am. Beautifully crafted horror with a compelling cast of characters, a chillingly vivid setting and a plot that grips you, vice-like, and pulls your mind on a terrifying journey will do that, though, won't it? At the start of WW1, Jonathan Morgan is a determined to prove himself as a man. He decides to stow away in a ship bound on an expedition to Antarctica. Led by his hero James Randall, Jonathan is excited that he has the freedom to be himself. The horror is a clever combination of the mind and some kind of supernatural force, with ambiguity around what exactly is going on, and it really captures a terrifying sense of whether people are being driven mad by the situation or whether something is out there after them. There's also a lot about masculinity in the book, not only through Jonathan getting to live as the gender he is, but in the ways all of the characters deal with different things, like reputation and betrayal, as well as emotion. Set just after World War II, All the White Spaces follows Jonathan Morgan - a young trans man still reeling from the loss of his two beloved older brothers, In an attempt to honour his brothers' memory - and to find his own way outside of his parents' expectations -, Jonathan convinces family friend Harry to help him stows away on an Antarctic expedition, led by his brothers' hero Lord Randall. But, of course, disaster strikes and the crew find themselves stranded in the vast, frozen no man's land, with no hope of rescue, dwindling supplies and - soon enough - a very dwindling number of men. Because there's something ghost-like lurking beneath the Aurora Borealis and, under its influence, there's no telling who Jonathan can trust. Not even himself...

I don't know why I am intrigued by books set in the cold, there is a certain thrill and danger to it, I suppose that I enjoy. Being without help, left to your devices, with the sheer painful cold that chills down to your bones. The atmosphere of a cold environment - ice and snow for as far as the eye can see. I'm in every single time. Unfortunately, I could never quite believe in Wilkes’ central character, and so never got taken into their experience of a post First World War doomed exploration of the Antarctic Set right after the end of World War I, All The White Spaces centers around 19-year-old transgender Jonathan Morgan(yay for representation!). Jonathan’s two older brothers were killed during the war but they always dreamed of visiting the artic. In tribute to fulfilling his deceased brother's dream, Jonathan hides as a stowaway on the Fortitude a ship set to sail for Antarctica. While on the Fortitude he meets his idol, the world-famous explorer James ‘Australis’ Randall who is the captain of the expedition. As the voyage progresses everything starts to go very wrong.All The White Spaces delivers on all of these points: it’s highly atmospheric, claustrophobic and genuinely nightmarish at times. The combination of a supernatural threat, with the very real horrors of survival, isolation and war trauma, make for a powerful contrast that drives home both sides. Although the plot was slow to get started, and I have to admit that I was bored during the first 20% or so, the characters and their faiths really began to grow on my throughout. With a story that is, in its purest form quite reminiscent of the likes of The Terror and Who Goes There?, it’s the characters and especially the inclusion of a trans protagonist against a historical setting, that set this book apart from the crowd. It's good to know a little bit of the story before going into this one but I'm still going to be vague with the synopsis: This book strongly remined me of The Terror and it was difficult not to compare this book with that book. There are differences of course, but at its core it about men on a ship, fighting the cold, stranded, up against danger, up against the odds. The whole angle of a trans character felt performative in this case, and if you want a story that's Actually Really Good and goes into all the above details of a FtM trans MC in historical fiction, read the Leo Stanhope series by Alex Reeve. At times reminiscent of The Terror by Dan Simmons for its polar landscape and cruel icy conditions, we are plunged into Jonathan’s perilous life on board the Fortitude as he joins the crew’s Antarctic expedition.

Jonathan is a well rounded and brave character and we find ourselves rooting for him to make it to the Antarctic and also to finally be able to embrace his identity as a man. The dynamic between the wider group is tense and we get a real sense of them all as people and of their secrets and fears. All The White Spaces is a historical horror story about isolation, selfhood, and the impacts of the First World War, as a young man sneaks onto an Antarctic adventure. Jonathan Morgan stows away on the ship of famous adventurer James 'Australis' Randall, hoping to chase the Antarctic dreams of his two older brothers who died in the war. With the support of family friend Harry, he has to prove himself amongst the ship's men, but as they reach their destination and disaster strikes, the crew find themselves fighting to survive the Antarctic winter in a place that seems beyond all maps, and fighting against a force that wants them dead. Mourning the loss of his two brothers in the First World War, Jonathan fulfills their dream of going South by stowing away on an Antarctic expedition with his brothers' hero. Finally able to live in his true form - rather than the woman he was born as - Jonathan must earn his place amongst Randall's crew. This book strongly remined me of The Terror and it was difficult not to compare this book with that book. There are differences of course, but at its core it about men on a ship, fighting the cold, stranded, up against danger, up It’s called pre because the behavior is that as if you had wrapped the text in

tags (which by default handle white space and line breaks that way). White space is honored exactly as it is in the HTML and the text does not wrap until a line break is present in the code. This is particularly useful when literally displaying code, which benefits aesthetically from some formatting (and sometimes is absolutely crucial, as in white-space-dependent languages!)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.