River of Darkness - by Buddy Levy (Paperback)

About the Book

The acclaimed author of Conquistador and Labyrinth of Ice charts one of history's greatest expeditions, a legendary 16th-century adventurer's death-defying navigation of the Amazon River.

Book Synopsis

The acclaimed author of Conquistador and Labyrinth of Ice charts one of history's greatest expeditions, a legendary 16th-century adventurer's death-defying navigation of the Amazon River.

Review Quotes

Praise for Buddy Levy and River of Darkness

"In River of Darkness, Buddy Levy recounts Orellana's headlong dash down the Amazon. Like Mr. Levy's last book, Conquistador, about the conquest of Mexico, River of Darkness
presents a fast-moving tale of triumph over seemingly insurmountable
odds. . . . Though impromptu, the expedition was one of the most amazing
adventures of all time."

-Wall Street Journal

"River of Darkness immediately takes its place as the definitive
book on one of the great voyages into the unknown of all time,
Orellana's accidental first descent of the Amazon. Not only is it a
solid contribution to the scholarly literature on Amazonia, but it is a
riveting and irresistible read, narrative history of a literary quality
rarely encountered that compares with Alan Moorehead's great books on
the Nile. Bravissimo!"

--Alex Shoumatoff, contributing editor, Vanity Fair; publisher, DispatchesFromTheVanishingworld.com, and author of In Southern Light, The Rivers Amazon, and The World is Burning

"In River of Darkness, Buddy Levy proves that the scariest
stories are the true ones. Filled with fascinating details and the
terror that comes with exploring something for the very first time, this
is history coming back to life."

--Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The Book of Fate and The Inner Circle

"Buddy Levy's compulsively readable book about the first European
descent through the Amazon puts us right next to the
vampire-bat-and-mosquito-bitten conquistadors and on a wild ride through the mighty
river and a force of nature down to the Atlantic Ocean."

--Andréeacute;s Reséndez,
author of National Book Award Finalist The Other Slavery and Conquering
the Pacific

"Buddy Levy is one of those rare and gifted authors whose books are
virtual time machines that effortlessly transport us back through
centuries. In River of Darkness, we participate in one of
history's signal explorations, Francisco Orellana's descent of the
Amazon River. We see blood, smell smoke, hear screams of joy and agony.
Levy's impeccably researched book is at once harrowing adventure and
revealing history. Better than any in recent memory, River of Darkness sheds new light--and reveals the darkest aspects--of the Conquistadors' brave and bloody New World forays."

--James M. Tabor, Author of Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth

"In this fluid account, Levy narrates the story of the conquistadors who
become the first Europeans to navigate the length of the Amazon River.
After plundering the Inca empire, Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco Orellana
set out from Quito with an expedition of soldiers and Indian slaves in
search of El Dorado. The two explorers became separated and the
expedition quickly became lost in the jungle, then decimated by disease,
starvation, and native attacks. Desperate, Orellana and the remaining
conquistadors built a large boat and sailed downriver. Realizing that he
would be unable to wait for Pizarro, Orellana set his sights on the
Atlantic Ocean thousands of miles away. Levy does a fine job of
organizing an enormous amount of historical material and balancing the
accounts of Orellana and Pizarro after they separated. As one conflict
follows another in rapid succession, they tend to blur into each other,
though Levy provides enoug

About the Author

Buddy Levy is the author of seven books, and his work has been featured or reviewed in The New York Times, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Daily Beast, and The A.V. Club. He was the co-star, for 25 episodes from 2010-2012, on HISTORY Channel's hit docuseries Brad Meltzer's Decoded, which aired to an average of 1.7 million weekly viewers and is still airing as reruns today. In 2018 he was an on-camera expert on the 4-part TV Series The Frontiersmen: The Men Who Built America (HISTORY, Executive Producer Leonardo DiCaprio).

Levy was a contributing writer on the 2018 documentary film The Weight of Water, based in part on the book No Barriers, which Levy co-authored with blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer.