The Terror by Dan Simmons

I read several of The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons starting way back in high school. He is still one of the few sci-fi writers I can truly enjoy, so when I saw he wrote a horror novel I was really surprised. In fact, I went back and made sure it was the same Dan Simmons. I was even more surprised to see it on several top 10 lists, including Stephen King’s list in Entertainment Weekly. I had let this book sit on my bookshelf for a while, intimidated by its size and subject matter. I am very glad I finally picked it up and listened to the folks who thought so highly of it.

In The Terror, Dan Simmons creates a fictionalized story of the doomed Franklin Expedition. In 1845, two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, left England on a quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. They never returned. Rescue missions were sent, and few answers or traces were ever found. Dan Simmons takes what history knows and builds a deeply engrossing adventure, horror, and fantasy novel. In Dan Simmons version, the men of the Erebus and the Terror are frozen in the Arctic for the third (or second, I can’t remember to be honest) winter. Franklin is dead, and the two ships are dealing with not just frozen temperatures, rancid food, low rations of rum, and the general crew issues that come up in those kind of conditions, but also a weird tongue-less Eskimo woman and a strange beast that may be a polar bear or it may be something else. The “thing on the ice” is stalking the crew, and for the longest time I didn’t know if it was a polar bear, a figment of their imagination, or something like my old friend The Shrike from the Hyperion novels. It’s a definite pull into the narrative – is it real or is it symbolic for the evil within? (well, yes, but it’s also a rip-tastic slashie beastie.)

What stands out most to me about this book was the attention to detail. After reading it, I went to Wikipedia to find out more about the Franklin Expedition and I was surprised at how much truth there was in this fiction. Franklin of The Terror and Franklin of the real world were the epitome of that “British spirit of exploration,” a man who brings along fine china to the Arctic and yet refuses to adopt native customs that might help his crew live.

I really don’t know what compelled me more, the true story of the Franklin Expedition or the story that Dan Simmons tells and the idea that some of it might be true. The “thing on the ice” became secondary to me when faced with the bare facts of a crew of men faces the odds this crew faced: starvation, freezing temperatures, cannibalism, murder, psychosis, scurvy, the list goes on. Wow. This is one of those rare books that is more than just a horror story. Strip out the gore & beastie and you still have a novel fraught with horror .  Don’t let the thickness of the book scare you away. It’s an excellent read, just make sure you are ready to stomach some big icky areas.

Rating: 5 Purrs for a book well-worth the time and effort it took to read it. I love to find a book that scared me, disturbed me, and taught me something all in one story.