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Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one. | |
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| Epigraph |
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathesome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.
-Herman Melville "Moby Dick" (1851)  | |
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| Dedication |
This book is dedicated, with love and many thanks for the indelible Arctic memories, to Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite, Douglas Spencer, Dewey Martin, William Self, George Fenneman, Dmitri Tiomkin, Charles Lederer, Christian Nyby, Howard Hawkes, and James Arness.  | |
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Lat. 70 degrees -05' N., Long. 98 degrees -23' W. October, 1847 Chapter 1. Crozier: Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts.  | |
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His arm around Silna, trying to ignore the raucous snores from the shaman and the fact that baby Kanneyuk had just pissed on her father's best summer parka, while also ignoring the petulant swats and mewling noises from his squirming son, Taliriktug and Crozier continued walking east across the ice toward solid ground. (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in English (4)
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The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. A they enter a second summer in the Artic Circle without a thaw, thought, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in. When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels in Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may the key to survival - or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terroe of the ice stalks them southward, Crozier as his men begin to fear that there is no escape. (0-316-01744-2)  | |
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It might have been wise to check in with the locals before heading north. (Myriadbooks)  | |
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▾Book descriptions Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0316017442, Hardcover)
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape. The Terror swells with the heart-stopping suspense and heroic adventure that have won Dan Simmons praise as "a writer who not only makes big promises but keeps them" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). With a haunting and constantly surprising story based on actual historical events, The Terror is a novel that will chill you to your core.
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:58:12 -0500) (see all 6 descriptions) ▾Library descriptions Captain Crozier must find a way for his crew to survive the deadly attacks of a sea monster, in a novel loosely based on the mid-nineteenth-century Arctic expedition originally led by Sir John Franklin. » see all 3 descriptions
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The Terror in this book is both the name of the ship and the name of a mysterious large polar-bear like animal that hunts the men of the Franklin Expedition. When I first saw that one of the ships was named The Terror I wondered who in the world would give a ship such an awful name, but it is the real name of one of the ships that was on the expedition (the other was named Erebus). To me naming a ship "The Terror" is just about as bad as calling it "Scurvy," "Death Ship," or "Drowning." Ah, aren't you happy, you're sailing on "The Terror!" It makes me glad that airplanes aren't named in the same manner.
The polar bear that they nickname The Terror is obviously a fictitious element to the story, but it does liven it up and move the plot along, and it worked for me for the most part. This super-sized polar bear seems to always be aware of what the men are doing, and stalks them - often brutally murdering them. I could see how a 992 page story about multiple winters in the Arctic would make for dry reading without a villain to liven things up. The Terror is not the only villain in this story though, as the climate itself with the snow, ice and lightning storms that seem equally villainous in their destruction of the men.
Not a lot is known about the fate of the Franklin Expedition (see this article for more information), so the author is able to speculate on certain aspects of their story, like the addition of an Eskimo woman to the plot. She is completely silent, and there is something haunting and mysterious about her and the man she was with who was killed by the sailors. The author hints that there might be some mystical or supernatural connection between her, the man who was with her, and The Terror.
This book reminded me of several books and movies at once:
* Moby Dick - because of the unusually strong animal villain, and the crew's obsession with killing it.
* Jurassic Park - because of the intelligence and violence of the villainous bear.
* Jaws - because the bear seems focused on pursuing and killing the men.
I read this book without any prior knowledge of the Franklin Expedition, so I was somewhat surprised at the fate of the sailors on these two ships. I wasn't totally surprised, but I was hoping that at least something would go right for them.
As for the length of this book (992 pages) I felt like it could have been half as long and still been a good read. What I didn't like about the novel was the last hundred pages. The story takes a strange turn, and is suddenly filled with Eskimo folklore and rituals. The chapter format changes, the tone changes, and it is pretty much like reading a separate story tacked on the ending. My guess is that the author wanted to include something relating to Eskimo culture, and a possible alternative for what might have happened to a crew member. It just got too weird for me when he threw in supernatural and mythical elements, when the book had been (with the exception of the big polar bear) mostly historical fiction up until that point. Altogether, the supernatural and folklore aspects of the story were less appealing to me because I was looking for more of a dramatization, not a mythic fantasy.
I was fascinated by the tale of the Franklin Expedition though, and read more about it online after finishing the book. I only do that when a book really engages my interest about a topic, so the book succeeded on that level.
It is a long book, but I think it says something about the compelling nature of the story that I read the book over the course of a week and the only time I lost interest was in the last hundred pages. I thought that the plot was inventive and it definitely gave a unique twist to the story. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys stories of survival in harsh situations, and doesn't mind a little bit of mythic fantasy thrown into the mix. (