A brilliant and complex novel, historical fantasy based on the final exhibition of Sir John Franklin to the Artic. Told through the eyes of a number of the crew, it describes their doomed journey.The title hints at the horror they face; the name of one of their trappedd ships; the behaviour that human's can show; and of a supernatural or mythic monster that stalks and kills them. There are hints of The Thing and possibly of Frankstein. It is a long read, but really worth it! The historical research is excellent - and the novel bears arelationship with the same author's Drood, ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2009-0... ( )

A chilly tale of historical horror... Simmons takes the question of the fate of the lost Franklin Expedition (seeking the northwest passage), and imagines that it was not merely the unforgiving arctic ice that did in the two ships and their crews, but a paranormal creature out of Eskimo lore. ( )

After the sun-lit world of Olympos, Simmons plunges his readers into his darkest material since perhaps Carrion Comfort. That in itself is not necessarily a problem, but there is an issue with the way the novel is being billed.

It is NOT a historical novel with a metaphorical element of horror. It is a HORROR novel that happens to have a historical setting.

Again, not in itself a problem. But Simmons himself seems to have difficulty deciding which kind of a novel he's writing, so the historical elements place constraints on the story that keep it from having a fully satisfying plot, while the horror elements introduce events that are historically ridiculous.

After Olympos, Terror's Hobbesian theme is stunningly bleak. But then, life WOULD be nasty, brutish, short, etc. if one were on an early 19th-century Arctic expedition whose captain made astonishingly bad decisions based on an irrational faith that God would see them through--or if one were an Inuit of that time. So the final Rousseau-like chapters romanticizing the "noble Inuit" are particularly strange. Simmons is inordinately impressed with the only two things the Inuit could do: build igloos, which really isn't that hard (I did it as a boy scout at age thirteen or so, though mine no doubt lacked the mathematical symmetry of those Simmons describes, though it's not as if the Inuit, lacking a system of writing, could actually have grasped the higher mathematics of what they were supposedly doing); and hunting seal, which, well, they'd pretty much HAVE to be good at. (None of this is meant to belittle or morally criticize the Inuit of the time, as given their circumstances, it would have been near impossible for them to advance much beyond that.)

Also, Simmons has already done the "what if their primitive mythology were true?" bit in Fires of Eden, with the much more entertaining Hawaiian mythology, and unhampered by pretensions to historicity.

Still, Simmons' style here is beautiful, and many of the characters are among the best he's created, so it's certainly worth a read, like everything else he's written. ( )

Full review: http://realmofryan.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

The fate of Sir John Franklin's last expedition remains one of the great mysteries of Arctic exploration. What we know, more or less, is this: In the balmy days of May 1845, 129 officers and men aboard two ships -- Erebus and Terror -- departed from England for the Canadian Arctic in search of a Northwest Passage to the Pacific. They were never heard from again. Between 1847 and 1859, Franklin's wife pushed for and funded various relief missions, even as the expectation of finding survivors was replaced by the slim hope for answers.
It's a story perfectly suited for fiction, if only because we have so little else to go on. Dan Simmons's new novel, The Terror, dives headlong into the frozen waters of the Franklin mystery, mixing historical adventure with gothic horror -- a sort of Patrick O'Brian meets Edgar Allan Poe against the backdrop of a J.M.W. Turner icescape. Meticulously researched and brilliantly imagined, The Terror won't satisfy historians or even Franklin buffs, but as a literary hybrid, the novel presents a dramatic and mythic argument for how and why Franklin and his men met their demise.
The book opens well into the middle of things, at the onset of the ships' third winter beset in sea ice. Months after Franklin's own death, his second-in-command is now in charge. Gothic imagery pervades, as 'Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts.' This 'attack' turns out to be an artful description of the aurora borealis, though Simmons never tells us that directly. Indeed, the power of his metaphoric language comes from the archetypal superstitions of the crew, who, despite their anchor of Protestant Christianity, are a pagan lot deep down.
But the crew's belief in witches and magic may or may not explain their main fear: a 'Thing on the ice' that stalks, beheads, eviscerates and otherwise kills off crewmen one by one. For 200 pages or so, we aren't sure if this beast is a figment of their overactive imaginations, maybe a giant polar bear or a yeti of Northern lore, a monster suggesting the 'beastie' of Golding's Lord of the Flies -- the terror within -- or Beowulf's Grendel, not to say Grendel's mother -- a preternatural, evil intelligence bent on destruction.
Faced with mutinous threats, general starvation, intense cold and something wrong with their tinned food supply (scurvy and lead poisoning appear rampant), Crozier provides leadership without arrogance. As the novel's protagonist, he is a man of the people, a realist, unlucky in love. As an Irishman in the British Royal Navy, he has been largely ignored by the Admiralty despite his stoic competence.
By contrast, Franklin represents most of what was wrong in early British Arctic exploration. His prior expeditions had met with minimal success, making him best known in England as 'the man who ate his shoes,' though given all the other things men ate to stay alive on Arctic expeditions, it's unclear why shoe leather would be singled out for ignominy. Goaded by his very public failings, Franklin retained his penchant for arrogant idealism and wasteful ritual. He brought along fine china and monogrammed silverware, among other 'necessities.' In the end, his primary mistake is cultural: Out of xenophobia he refuses to adopt local methods of travel, shelter and hunting. Yet to say that Sir John gets his just deserts is unfair if only because 128 others suffer the same fate.
Crozier recognizes the captain's weaknesses, and therein lies the novel's poignant sense of loss. He dispenses shipboard justice out of practical necessity rather than lofty idealism. In their desperate hours, he preaches not from the Bible favored by Franklin but from the 'Book of Leviathan' -- his own recitations from Thomas Hobbes, which, among other things, explains the birth of superstition and religion: 'There was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem, which [man] did not make into either a God or a Divel.' As the novel descends toward its hellish climax, the 'Divel' chasing our crew -- that 'Thing on the ice' -- transcends its monstrous nature and becomes the manifestation of earthly retribution, wild payback for the hubris of Western civilization.
The vehicle of that transcendence is Lady Silence, a mute Inuit girl who lives on the ship and goes at her own whim, providing a portal to Eskimo mythology and shamanism. Northern spiritual philosophy gives the world -- and this novel -- its ultimate balance, predicting the coming of kabloona ('pale people'), whose arrival brings 'drunkenness and despair,' melts the sea ice, kills off the white bear and calls forth the 'End of Times.' While Franklin's men are unable to escape the realities of starvation, brutal cold and the violent urge, Crozier's instinct for survival pushes the novel to its ethereal end.
This mix of historical realism, gothic horror and ancient mythology is a difficult walk on fractured ice, and anyone without Simmons's mastery of narrative craft would have undoubtedly fallen through. Despite its Leviathan length, The Terror proves a compelling read, while making the average meal consumed by the average American seem a precious gift from warm-weather gods.

This book is rather hard to define and transcends genres. It is a fictionalized account of what might have happened to the Franklin Expedition which disappeared while exploring the Arctic in 1846-1848 in search of the North West Passage.

It starts with the crews of the two ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror already stranded and ice bound. The narrative jumps around in time and perspective. We are offered events from the perspectives of Francis Crozier, Captain of the Terror, Harry Goodsir, surgeon aboard the Erebus and Sir John Franklin, commander of the expedition, among others. This can make it a bit difficult to follow the storyline but adds some richness as well because we are able to understand some of the different motivations and desires that drove these men to take on such a dangerous challenge.

To complicate matters further the crews are being stalked by a mysterious (and possibly otherworldly) beast that is killing them at random. Their food stores are determined to be tainted and there is no game for them to hunt. All of which adds additional strain and already stressed crew.

Even without the supernatural stalker, this tale would have been worth reading. I think Simmons offers an interesting and realistic perspective of how events may have played out. The twin themes of patriotism and religion also weave their way throughout the storyline. Most of these men truly believed with every fiber of their being that England was blessed by God and they had a right, if not an obligation, to venture forth in search of ways to make the Empire even greater. This confidence (even arrogance) may have been all that sustained these men during some of the harsh times they endured. Their ability to maintain order, keep their spirits up and keep on going despite the obstacles that faced them is genuinely awe inspiring.

This book is long and sometimes it can be a bit hard to slog through all the verbiage but at the end of the book I felt it was a rich and detailed story worth telling and worth reading. ( )

Oooh, I loved this. An irresistable mix of historical fiction; icy, foreboding atmosphere; survival adventure; and horror. A speculative account of what may have happened to Sir John Franklin's missing polar expedition to find the Northwest Passage in 1845. They were never heard from again . . .

I thought this was well-written and quite gripping. I especially liked the begining which toggled between two different time periods of the voyage as we experience the growing terror, hopelessness, starvation, desperation. The period detail and setting were seamless -- I really feel as if I know what it was to be a sailor in Her Majesty's Navy on an artic expedition. And the ice landscape was incredible -- I turnred my head from the book and half expected to see jagged seracs and pressure ridges instead of today's hot green summer weather. The characterization was also superb - I loved poor Lieutenant Irving, and Dr. Goodsir especially.

Of course, there were some things which stretched the limits of my credulity especially Crozier's denouement. I suppose it was fitting but I would have preferred less mysticism. Overall, a long, fascinating, terrifying journey that I could have continued reading forever. An excellent choice for an escapist read that rises far above genre horror/mystery choices. ( )

Not really a review - but at the 330 page mark this has become for me unpickupable. I've lost all feeling for the story and at this point just want the crew of this expedition to just hurry up and die already! ( )

Good story! Wonderful characterizations.
Really dark and kind of depressing. You know the ending but you still have to see how it plays out.
Really great blend of historical and fictional elements! ( )

First off, let me say that The Terror is a terrific novel that combines two genre's quite seamlessly. Is is both a historical fiction, detailing Sir John Franklin's attempt to discover and force the Northwest Passage deep in the arctic north pole, as well as a horror novel, because after the expedition fails and the two ships become frozen solid in the ice for two years, a monster from the ice appears to wreak havoc on the sailors, slowly devouring the crew and tormenting the survivors. I think this is one of those books that are great for fans of one genre or the other to experience other types of books without leaving their preferred genre. Fans of horror will find plenty of spine-chilling encounters with the monster on the ice while getting a chance to see how informative a fictional novel about a historical event can be, meanwhile historical fiction fans can satiate their thirst for knowledge while torturing themselves with elevated blood pressure and nail-biting terror that horror fans like so much.

The historical fiction parts are very well researched and informative. I felt I left the book with a wealth of knowledge not only about Sir John's expedition, but also about the dangers of the arctic cold and the preparations people needed to take to avoid it, the diseases a sailor is susceptible to, such as scurvy, and a doctors struggle with primitive knowledge about such things and his attempts to understand how and why these things are happening to his patients, and even about those native to the arctic continent, from how they live and survive there on a daily basis to their mythological beliefs on how the world was created.

The horror aspect is also very well done, and is quite terrifying. The "thing on the ice" is quite a scary beast, and every time someone was sent away from the ship my skin began to crawl. From the very beginning Simmons puts the reader on edge with a scene where a man is afraid of the "dead room," a room where the ships dead are stored, because he hears strange scratching and screaming from inside it. I'll probably remember that scene for a long time, it was incredibly creepy.

However, I did find a lot of small problems with the book. In the beginning, I was often confused about what time period I was in. Sometimes the book is set in the "present" (1847, after the ships are frozen,) but other times it shifts to the past to detail how the two ships got frozen in the first place. At first it is an easy distinction of course, but eventually the 'past' sequences got to the point where they were frozen into the ice, just like the present, and when that happened (about 100 pages in, I think) I was often times confused, since the two time periods were only a year apart. I would sometimes read a chapter thinking I was in the present, and then someone would speak that I thought had died, so I had to go back at the beginning of the chapter only to see that I had read 10 pages of the past without realizing it. I also could have sworn that a group of people left the ship in the year 1847 but when they returned to the ship, it was 1846. I may have read the dates wrong, but you it's a good example of how confused I was in the beginning. Fortunately, this format stops after awhile as the past runs into the present.

Also, there were some poor-timing mishaps a few times. The best example is relatively early on, when the thing on the ice is attacking one of the ships. A man is desperately trying to escape, clawing his way up the rigging and masts of the boat doing anything he can to put distance between himself and the monster. It is an exhilarating, heart-pounding action scene, and then suddenly the author decides to spend an entire page to describe how the masts work and why they are set up the way they are. It just wasn't the right time to tell me these things. This happened at least a couple of times.

It also seemed like the book dragged on a bit much. I can't honestly say that I would want to cut anything out...but around pages 600-700 or so I almost felt exhausted. It picked up again towards the very end though.

Overall, I think the book really was a fantastic read. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who has the heart to read this leviathan of a book. The story was addicting, and I managed to read the entire thing in just over a week (the amount of time it takes me to read the average 300-pager.) It's definitely worth reading, it just has a few flaws. ( )

This book is absolutely astounding. Brilliant Writing. ( )

I agree with other reviewers: the author's research into the time period - from simple items like clothing to the details of 19th century seamanship, to Inuit skills and beliefs - is wonderful.

It is because the Inuits are ultimately the survivors in this story that I strongly disagree with those who feel that the conclusion of the novel should have been eliminated - ultimately, the lesson of the story centers around those who fight against the natural world that sustains them, and those who respect it and co-exist with it. To respect it and co-exist with it, you must become a part of it - hence, the beautiful conclusion of the novel.

I really enjoyed this novel.

Here's a great read for the dead of winter; and it's a well-known American author writing Canadian historical fiction. How often do you see that?

Simmons did a solid job with researching arctic conditions, Inuit skills and culture, and British seamanship. He has also respected the known historical facts about Franklin's last expedition and worked them well into his story. The artificial ways in which he inserted mention of strategies they should have employed or facts the crew couldn't have known were very transparent, but it allowed for some fun references to other explorers like McClintock and to contemporaries like the Fox sisters. I liked many of his characterizations of the English crewmen, especially Crozier's, but I also found most of them too blasé about the "thing on the ice". It reminded me of teenagers in bad horror films who continue to place themselves in ridiculously dangerous situations, even knowing full well there's a killer on the loose.

In the latter half, the story loses some of its pacing and takes on a sluggish dreariness as the characters trudge towards what must be their inevitable end - until the last 150 pages or so, when suddenly circumstances become strikingly different and it all becomes considerably less obvious. While I don't find his solution entirely satisfying (there's still too much mystery left for my liking), it does entirely satisfy the known facts of the expedition while having maximized creative leeway that the gaps between those facts afford.

This doesn't top 'Hyperion' as my favourite novel by this author, but it was a good ride and offered strong exploration of a subject that has interested me in non-fiction reading. ( )

I was having a period of reading a lot of non-fiction about the Franklin Expedition and the Arctic. A fascinating and unfathomable period and place for exploration. This book is perhaps one of the most rewarding fact / fiction books I have ever read. Meticulous in the detail and research without bogging the reader down. Scenes are terrifying and beautiful, intense and foreboding, and all are well written. This book reminds me of a cross between Patrick O'Brian and Stephen King. Simmons' portrayal of many monsters in the book, whether it be the strange creature on the ice, the madmen that plot and connive, or even the horribly cruel Arctic conditions itself, are spectacular in their development and imagery. Over 700 pages of pure genius and highly recommend to those who are into the subject matter. ( )

The Terror is, first and foremost, a highly entertaining read and a fascinating story (based on truth!). It tells of the voyage of Sir John Franklin and his failed attempt to find the North-West Passage.

It's also a story of survival and how strong the desire to live really is. It's said the survival instinct is the strongest instinct experienced by any creature, and it's shared by all creatures, and The Terror reminds the reader of this. There were chapters that left me terrified, some that made me smile, and some that made me cry at the pure hopelessness of their situation, especially when one takes into account that a good portion of the story is true. In many ways, The Terror is very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.

Personally, I loved all 766 pages of my edition. For such a large book, there are surprisingly few dry spells and I would find myself reading 100 pages or so before I would glance up at the page numbers (a habit I'm bad - I keep careful track of how many pages I've read). Simmons descriptions are so vivid you'll be able to picture the Arctic in your head with very little difficulty (I was actually shivering a couple times). I will most definitely be checking out some of Simmons other books in the future. ( )

This was a great book to read in the winter - it made me realize that, compared to the conditions these men had to deal with on the Franklin Expedition, the winter here in New York City wasn't all that bad. I enjoyed Dan Simmons' narrative, and expect to read more of his books. I found the whole thing extremely believable. Well, except for the bit of supernatural stuff he added. But that made it exciting too. I almost wondered why he wrote the last part the way he did - it didn't seem to have much to do with the story. But I hung in there, and then realized it was totally necessary to the ending he had in mind. If you read it, enjoy! ( )

Like a mashup of Shackleton's "South" with Steven King's "It." Very good period novel, extensively researched. With a nameless beast striking terror into a mid-19th century British arctic expedition. It's Dan Simmons: read it.

Every now and then you come across a novel that sweeps you up, and holds you captive. A book that continues to speak to you even after you've put it down for the night. I knew, about fifty pages into it, that The Terror by Dan Simmons was going to be one of those novels.

Here's the blurb from the back cover:

"The men on board the HMS Terror - part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage - are entering a second summer in the Arctic circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in."

The world that Simmons paints is a bleak one. Two ships, the Erebus and Terror are frozen in place. With temps dipping well below the -50 mark, the crew battles frostbite and the need to ration their coal supply. This means frigid temps on-board as well as on-deck. Food is becoming scarce and to make matters worse, there is a strange creature out there, watching their every move.

The story centers around several key characters, one of which is Frances Crozier, a member of the Royal Navy and Captain of the Terror. Leading with a firm hand, he continues to motivate his men when needed, yet is quite capable of judging the situation and devising a plan of action. He has gained the respect of many of his men and they look to him for a way out of this dire situation.

As the story unfolds, several of the secondary characters are put into positions that force them to either rise to the occasion, or buckle under the pressure. Each chapter is told from that character's point of view, and over the course of 750+ pages, you begin to see what each man is truly made of. In addition to the men, there is a young Esquimaux woman named Lady Silence. Rescued by the crew, she lives amongst the men and is unable to speak as she is missing her tongue. She is often a mystery and a curse to the men on-board the Terror but they do not turn her out.

To me, what makes a novel great is the balance between a strong plot, vivid characters and a good amount of conflict. This novel has it all. What I especially like about this novel is that the setting is also a character of sorts. The Arctic, the cracking ice, the fissures from melting ice and how it affects their day-to-day existence. These characters are constantly challenged and tested in a way that makes for a very satisfying read. It's an historical adventure mixed with Gothic horror, The Washington Posts says it's "Patrick O'Brian meets Edgar Allen Poe."

Before this novel, I had never heard of Dan Simmons. After checking out his website, I see that he has written numerous novels and won several literary awards. His current book, Drood was just sent to me by the lovely Miriam over at Hachette and I cannot wait to dig into it! ( )

Reading "The Terror" while fishing in the midst of Bering Sea ice pack and hearing it grind against the hull made an appropriate, eerie accompaniment. It definitely better set the stage for the historical basis of the men of Sir John Franklin's polar expedition stuck in the Arctic ice in the 1840's.

That story is chilling enough, with evidence of lead poisoning, botulism, and the sufferings of desperate, starving, frostbitten men trying to escape the Arctic and possibly eventually resorting to cannibalism. Not one of the men survived to see England again. Simmons takes the drama--the terror, if you will--even one step further by introducing the "thing on the ice", a horror that may be an animal, a vindictive natural spirit, or maybe just a representation of an unforgiving, harsh Arctic chewing the hell out of some unthinkably arrogant Brits.

Weaving together native Inuit tradition and lore with the British viewpoint of the men of the doomed expedition, Simmons makes a rich tale, featuring the reluctant hero, Captain Francis Crozier of HMS Terror: Irish and common, and thus perpetual second-in-command to frequently lesser men. Crozier is jaded and sarcastic and frequently drunk, yet as an old polar hand he has his wits far more about him than most. His viewpoint comes along with others from the expedition to give a great story of unrelenting tension.

Obviously the full story of the expedition isn't known, and the supernatural elements of this story are unlikely, but the vivid depiction of the Arctic and the personalities of the men, and the sheer grueling psychological and physical human endurance of the situation, makes for a fascinating "what might have happened" scenario. And as conjecture for the shroud of mystery that still surrounds Franklin's disastrous expedition, it makes a great read.

Impressive and memorable--keep the hot chocolate nearby and the lights on. ( )

I'm not sure whether reading Dan Simmons' The Terror during some of the coldest weather Boston has seen in a decade was a good idea or a poor one. It certainly helped with the atmospherics: one night a week or so ago I was reading in my living room, blankets tucked around me as the wind howled ferociously outside and wind chills dipped to around -10. And in the book, the temperatures without the wind were almost fifty degrees below that mark, and the characters were marooned on a ship frozen in thick sea-ice, never quite getting dry and frequently losing bits of themselves to frostbite when they ventured outside. Certainly stopped me from complaining about the cold for a day or two.

Simmons' book is a fictional ending to a real story, the famed Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, which sailed from England in 1845 aboard the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. Neither the ships nor the 128 men who comprised their crews were ever seen alive again, although remnants of the expedition and some human bones were later discovered near Canada's King William Island (and in August 2008 Parks Canada announced a new search for the wrecked ships using side-scan sonar).

Using the known facts about the expedition and what had to have been some heavy-duty background research, Simmons has woven together the story of the expedition from its first moments in the ice through the bitter end. Drawing on Inuit mythology, he adds a certain supernatural twist: a beastly critter on the ice who begins to stalk and prey on the expedition's crewmen and seems impervious to all human effort. It's a rich story, filled with the gory details of an Arctic expedition gone incredibly, disastrously wrong.

While the book (which clocks in at 766 pages) could perhaps have been edited down a bit, and while I did find a creeping anachronism or two, I was overall greatly impressed with The Terror. I recommend it, but while you're reading, keep a warm blanket handy for when things get chilly.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

Fascinatingly well-researched, this fictional account of a real doomed expedition kept me thinking, "How could it possibly get any worse for these people?" Then I'd turn the page and it would, in fact, get worse. I found myself looking up nautical terminology and taking notes so I could keep up. It's absolutely stunning and horrifying and all too real. ( )

http://martlet-blog.blogspot.com/2008... ( )

This exceedingly well written novel takes an historic event (the doomed arctic expedition of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus) and dramatizes it through insertion of Eskimo mythology. Strangely, the most horrifying aspects of this novel were not those dealing with the mythological monster which stalks the ice bound crews, but were instead the almost unbelievable living conditions and psychological stresses endured by the men of these expeditions. It says something that the biggest "monster" in the novel is not the mythological creature, but instead a member of the crew itself.

I am fascinated by accounts of these expeditions to the arctic and antarctic regions by British explorers of the 19th century (the best example being the Shackleton expedition). It is astounding that these men would undertake such exploration, KNOWING that they would be ice bound, sometimes for a period of years, suffer unspeakable hardship, disease, near starvation, resort to eating shoe leather and sometimes cannabilism, endure temperatures of -100 degrees, and if they survived, be willing to do it again!

As I mentioned before, this story is extremely compelling, even without the inclusion of mythology. In my opinion, the dramatization, if anything, detracts from the story. It is similar to some of Steven King's works which are always very well written, but that sometimes become so bizarre as to detract from the effectiveness of the story. I've read some of Simmons's other work and was aware that he tended in that direction, and if anything he showed admirable restraint in this instance (compared to Illium for example).

In any event, this is a riveting account, based upon an historical event, that effectively explores not only the known facts of such arctic expeditions, but the psychological underpinnings that make such extremes of human endurance so fascinating. In that regard, it is among the best I've ever read. ( )

This is a review of the unabridged Audible audiobook version.

For the most part, I thought this book was well worth the listen. It's fascinating enough as a look into the hardships endured by early British explorers as they sought a Northwest passage through the frigid, icy seas, but author Simmons kicks things up a notch by injecting a supernatural monster into the mix. I agree with other reviewers who say that the last portion of the book should've been left on the editor's desk, since it doesn't quite jibe with everything that came before and ends the book on a note of melodrama that's a bit hard to swallow. Still, worth the read or listen. ( )