'Shangri-La,' 'Game of Thrones' on audio

After listening to "Unbroken," Laura Hillenbrand's riveting account of Louis Zamperini's experiences as a Japanese POW during World War II, I wanted to stay in the Pacific Theater of Operations. That's what led me to Mitchell Zuckoff's "Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II" (Harper Audio download; $20.78), set in Dutch New Guinea in 1945. The American players in the drama are Army soldiers, but they are not involved in combat. The U.S. base at Hollandia, the island's capital, is an "unglamorous supply, logistics and maintenance outfit" serving the rest of the Pacific from its central location.

Life in Hollandia is frankly boring, and so the servicemen and members of the Women's Army Corps (WACs) are treated to the occasional sightseeing "mission" in which military transport planes fly over the lush and unexplored interior of New Guinea. The most popular destination is the so-called Shangri-La valley, reportedly inhabited by aboriginal people who have had no contact with the outside world, and may even be cannibals.

On May 13, 1945, a C-47 called the Gremlin Special takes off for Shangri-La with two dozen passengers. The plane crashes into a mountainside, and only three survive: Cpl. Margaret Hastings, Sgt. Kenneth Decker and Lt. John McCollom. Soon they are approached by aborigines who wonder if the three white people are fulfilling a traditional prophecy that gods will descend from the sky and bring about a great change.

Retrieving the Americans is a huge challenge: the altitude is too high for helicopters; there is not enough flat land for an airplane landing strip. Under the direction of Capt. C. Earl Walter Jr., the Army concocts a truly amazing rescue plan -- but the less I reveal, the better for you.

While the Army is testing its various rescue schemes, the three survivors are having a not-so-brief encounter with a true Stone Age civilization. Combine "MacGyver" with "Clan of the Cave Bear" and you get some idea of the scope of Zuckoff's engrossing book. The author himself does the narration and what he lacks in polish, he makes up for in enthusiasm.

I initially encountered "Game of Thrones" on HBO, where the first of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy novels was adapted for TV in April. I don't remember who described it as "Lord of the Rings" meets "The Sopranos," but that's a fair assessment. Quasi-medieval fantasy is a genre I have never cottoned to, but I was thoroughly enthralled, and so, after the season ended, I decided to give Martin an unabridged listen.

"A Game of Thrones" (Random House Audio, 28 CDs, $45) is set in a continent called Westeros, whose King Robert rules, barely, a tenuous federation of seven kingdoms. Our hero is Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, the northernmost kingdom. In sharp contrast to most of Westeros' leading citizens, Ned is just, compassionate, even-keeled and, for a lord, rather power-averse. He has six children and an equally admirable wife. The plot gets going when Ned reluctantly leaves Winterfell for the capital to take on the role of Hand of the King (essentially prime minister), the last Hand having died under mysterious circumstances.

Meanwhile, the climate is getting alarmingly colder, and in the frozen North there are encounters with strange, seemingly undead humans. Across the Narrow Sea from Westeros, the children of the king deposed by Robert are plotting to reclaim the throne. Dragons are involved. As the book progresses, all hell breaks loose in virtually every direction.

Now that I've seen the television series, listened to the audiobook and tackled Book 2, "A Clash of Kings," on my Kindle, I can say that Martin's work succeeds in every medium. Don't be fooled by the questing knights and the odd supernatural villain: He is a writer of real substance whose beautifully wrought characters and weighty themes approach Shakespearean heights.

I recommend the audiobook with two reservations. First, Roy Dotrice is a lively and accomplished narrator, but his gruff, raspy voice has a lot of age on it; all the characters -- even the children and teenagers -- sound like old men.

Then, too, there is the challenge of keeping track of the characters, the plot and millennia of back story. The printed books contain extensive appendixes and maps. It would be helpful if the audiobooks included a disc with this information or, at the very least, a link to a website. But since they don't, I'll recommend three with plenty of resources: westeros.org, awoiaf.westeros.org and gameof thrones.net.