The extraordinary thing about the Wesley Autrey story, he says, is that he was a black American in his 50s from a working class background, who rescued a white movie film student who he’d never encountered before. He then went on to have these kangaroo courts, execute enemies of the state, and it got more and more out of control. In 2059, two vastly different groups of people portrayed by the compelling trio of Brendan Fraser (Academy Award winner), Luke Kirby (Emmy Award winner), and Vanessa Sears (Dora Award winner) undergo cryonic suspension. The overall premise of the book, however, is difficult to argue with, that "History, much like modern life, is in short full of bullies, self-promoting charlatans, bigots, bastards, and liars. Shackleton went especially to meet Scott when he arrived back from the expedition, and Scott chaired a dinner for Shackleton when he arrived home from his Nimrod expedition in 1909.

If furs were worn for manhauling, the wearer would overheat and sweat, the sweat would freeze and the wearer would be at risk of hypothermia and death.Now I see things from an holistic point of view and am not so easily led by what many want us to believe in a simplistic overly positive view of our history. I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but when I hear my wife talking to the police, accusing me of the murder of an innocent woman, a cold fear grips me. In pursuit of fame and glory, he blithely led a team of men to miserable deaths because he simply didn't have the practical knowledge that Norwegians involved in exploration had at the time. The idea that Scott was "utterly humourless" might be an easy dig at his character but is not supported by facts. Scrutinising figures from the worlds of art, politics, business, religion and royalty, he brings to light the murkier truths they would rather have kept buried away, at the same time as celebrating the unsung heroes lost to time.

Otto’s writing style is accessible and as another reviewer has said, this and Fake History ought to be required reading in school. None of those comical stories people tell about Churchill, like when he was talking to a woman, supposedly and she said, ‘You're drunk, and he said, You're ugly, but in the morning, I'll be sober. A little way into the chapter on Scott we are told: "In the Heroic Age, leading a grand polar expedition was a surefire path to swift promotion, medals and glory, and Scott was a hugely, hugely ambitious individual who chased after it all. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. A great read but you will have to make up your own mind as to whether the people described in this book are hero or zero.He never managed to do this himself, and no other edition exists which has such a broad range, drawing from first to last of his prize-winning collections. Fake Heroes’ is a must for anyone interested in history; mostly 20th Century with just one trip back to Tudor England for a dispassionate look at Henry V. I’m still not sure about “Otto English” for a pseudonym, but I doubt I will listen to a better audiobook this year.