In 1846 several hundred wagons set out from Independence, Missouri, to follow the California Trail. One group, the Donner Party, braver or more foolhardy than the rest, chose an untried route that would shorten the distance. It did. It also subjected them to obstacles so formidable that it cost many of them their lives. Yet it preserved their names and the story of their travail down through history-crowded years. No work of fiction has rendered this remarkable epic of ordeal with more vividness and power than Richard Rhodess novel of the Donner Party, The Ungodly.