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n "A brilliant, massive combination of history and supernatural horror. Being marooned in arctic ice with nothing to eat but your shoes (or — gulp — a helping of shipmate stew) is bad enough; the unseen white monster stalking the nights is worse. Put a log — or, better yet, two — on the fire while you read this one."n
Long before I became aware of Stephen King's high regard for Dan Simmons' The Terror, (as evidenced in the above blurb,) I'd come to love his work, via Carrion Comfort, a few years earlier, with a deep respect and appreciation for what he was accomplishing in the confines of those dense tomes.
But the two couldn't be more different. For one, The Terror didn't read as particularly dense. Not to me. There was a very fluid momentum to it, which made for sixty-seven highly addictive chapters. Simmons can be verbose, admittedly, but there were only a handful of passages which I thought could've been whittled down, or where long, complex sentences could've been divided. With that said, every detail (large or seemingly insignificant,) worked together seamlessly to inform and richly develop the whole. The fact that Simmons' historically-based narrative jumped from past to present never detracted any pleasure whatsoever; nor was I ever bored.
Another element that was increasingly impressive, and which lent a whole lot of surreal believability, was the accuracy of language. I cannot emphasize how astonishing this was, or how such historical accuracies gave it much credence.
Then there was the story itself. Set against the backdrop of Sir John Franklin's search for the elusive Northwest-Passage in the mid-1800's, Simmons crafted a genuine creature-feature, and one tinged with originality. I thought its creation was fairly creative, too. Not that a massive, bearlike creature is especially unheard of (it's cliche, actually,) but what the author achieved through the mythology of said creature and how he orchestrated it was the epitome of uniqueness and creativity.
In addition, the character development was done well, and Simmons managed to do so with a very large populace, thanks-in part-- by implementing several points-of-view. Even some of the supporting characters, who weren't given individual POV's, were decently fleshed out.
n There were only the usual noises, although louder down here in the dark hold: the slow moan of ice pressing in, the louder groaning of the iron tanks and structural reinforcements fore and aft of the boiler room, the more distant moan of the blizzard winds far above, the crash of falling ice carried down as vibration through the ship's timbers, the thrum of the masts being shaken in their sockets, random scratching noises from the hull, and a constant hiss, screech, and claw-sliding noise from the boiler and pipes all around.n
As the above passage should make clear, The Terror wasn't strictly horrific, it
was much more than that. It was primarily about survival, in a world where self-preservation meant more that merely staying alive.
There was one character, Cornelius Hickey, that I came to truly loathe. His actions and abject selfishness were so extreme that I not only likened him to Joffrey Lannister
(A Song of Ice and Fire,
but throughout the novel, I often speculated that he was, indeed, worse than Joffrey.
n
Hickey's face contorted as if the moonlight were changing him into something nonhuman. His thin lips drew far back from his tiny teeth in a way that the others had seen only with scurvy victims in their last hours. His eyes showed something beyond madness, far beyond mere hatred.n
The mythology itself was, in spades, surprising and fascinating. Especially the latter. And, in hindsight, it shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, because Simmons seasoned his far-reaching manuscript with several significant clues throughout. The foreshadowing wasn't obvious, which is probably why I was so taken aback, and I believe that strengthened the overall product that much more.
Without getting too much into the myth, I must say that those revelations weren't made clear until the last five to ten chapters (approximately 90% in,) and learning about Sedna, parts of the Inuit culture, and the Tuunbaq were easily some of my favorite sections. Also, the Kattajaq. I can't say enough about all of it.
Not only were those some of my favorite chapters, but I loved that the captain of the HMS Terror, Francis Crozier, took center stage and everything kind of came full circle. It became very much his journey, in unimaginable ways. And although the ending wasn't at all what I expected, I was both disappointed and satisfied. Why? Because it made sense, and because the actions they took were essentially their own. They were still in survival mode, yet their decisions weren't so much out of desperation as they were of a new approach to life in the Arctic. The old ways no longer worked. Maybe they never had..
The conclusion presented a dilemma, and it's not one I took lightly. After all, a four or five star rating should be given to only some of the best books out there, and this one's clearly very high on that list. Up until the end, I thought five stars was a given. It's certainly one of my favorite books of all time (regardless of genre,) and I've no doubt it will be my favorite read of 2019. It might just be my most beloved novel. Period.
Yet, the ending can make or break a great book. I really, REALLY wanted an epic payoff; an earned ending. I'm not sure that Simmons delivered. But it was satisfying, and in light of everything that Simmons consistently accomplished throughout nearly one thousand pages, I think that anything less than five stars would be a disservice to the work.
The highest recommendation.
For additional reading:
Inuit mythology; Kattajaq-- https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/i...
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...
