The Terror (2007)

I thought it was entirely appropriate that while I was reading this book about two shiploads of sailors trapped in the arctic, the area in which I live was experiencing a cold snap with temperatures below freezing for much of the time. In addition to that I ran into images of polar bears multiple times while reading this book (nature shows, advertisements, online photos, my grocery store - it was uncanny).

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. ( )

Finding this book a bit irritating. Nothing much happens for the first third of the book (yes, it's cold and the food's rotten!), then there's a monster-chase in the rigging which seems like it's been written for a visual interpretation but just falls flat on the page. The carnival is pretty good but the long section of Crozier with DTs and a flashback to drop in a bit of info that his granny thought he had second-sight,to validate the images he's seeing in his fever-dream I suppose, seemed forced. Then, almost half way through the book, 2 characters we've never heard of before pop up to give use a bit of 19th century name-dropping (Darwin and Babbage) and a long discourse on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. So far the only bits I've enjoyed were the Carnival, and Crozier's "sermon" from the Book of Leviathan (presumably Hobbes "Leviathan"), otherwise it has plodded. I honestly don't know if I can be bothered to finish this book.

I was correct - couldn't be bothered to finish. ( )

My God this book took me 12 days to read and to be honest i am very conflicted.
Sometimes it was a struggle to read. Not because I do not like Dan Simmons writing but it was all so bleak and it took sooo long. Maybe I should have read my other non fiction book about this case first. Maybe it was hard to get into because I knew this was about an expedition that really happened I don't know.
What I do know is that i discovered that I prefer to have some survivors. I've read The Endurance about Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition and I loved that book. Yes some died but a lot did survive. Because I knew that nobody had survived maybe that made it so hard for me to read. I think that is it. Too sad. You get to know the characters, like Captain Crozier whom i really liked and you can only think, He is going to die too. ( )

Fabulous and incredibly creepy. The perfect book for winter. I had no idea Dan Simmons was such a talented writer. Enjoyed much more than expected. ( )

meh there was no Achilles =(