title: Going to Extremes: Mud, Sweat and Frozen Tears
author:  Nick Middleton 
description: In <b>Going to Extremes,</b> Nick Middleton, a travel writer with a penchant for some of the more bizarre outposts of human habitation, ventures to the hottest, driest, coldest, and wettest inhabited places on Earth. He wants to know not only how people manage to live in these places, but also why they settled there in the first place. And, most intriguing of allwhy they stay. He follows Stalins Road of Bones across Siberias icy wilderness to the worlds coldest town, then crosses the worlds oldest desert, the Atacama, to visit its driest. He descends into the cauldron of the Danakil Depression to suffer the searing intensity of an Ethiopian summer, then wades through the Indian monsoon to reach the worlds rainiest hills. Whether hes risking castration in the hell hole of creation or facing the trauma of giant vampire slugs, Nick Middletons account of his journey to the edge is never less than fascinating.
zlib_text: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  The Men From the Boys
  
  
    
  
  
    
  [One  
  
  
    
  [Two  
  
  
    
  [Three  
  
  
    
  [Four  
  
  
    
  [Five  
  
  
    
  [Six
  
  
  
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  # The Men From the Boys
  
  
  ### Ed Lacy
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Blackmask Online.
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  ####
  
  [One
  
  
  ####
  
  [Two
  
  
  ####
  
  [Three
  
  
  ####
  
  [Four
  
  
  ####
  
  [Five
  
  
  ####
  
  [Six
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
    
  
  
  ![](images/00002.jpg)
  
  
  ### One
  
  
  As if I wasn't feeling bad enough it had to be one of those muggy New York
  City summer nights when your breath comes out melting. With my room on the
  ground floor and facing nothing, I lay in bed and sweated up the joint.
  
  The summer hadn't been too rough till the last few days, about the time my
  belly went on the rocks, when it became a Turkish bath. I stared up at the
  flaky ceiling and wished the 52 Grover Street Corporation would install air
  conditioning. Almost wished I was the house dick at a better hotel. No, I
  didn't wish that—I had a sweet deal at the 