3.5 Stars
This was an interesting piece of survival horror based around a true historical event. I learned a lot about an event that I otherwise wouldn't have researched on my own. Some of the information was fascinating, but admittedly I found this one to be too long with too much detail for my personal tastes. However, I did really appreciate the cold and isolating atmosphere of the novel.

n  

"You'd think that one real monster would be enough for any Arctic expedition," said Richard Thomas. No one laughed.
"It's all one real monster," Edward Couch said at last. "And not a new one to our race."

n
A compelling merging of genres here, mostly excellent historical fiction which recreates the doomed Franklin expedition of 1845 to seek the North-West Passage, but with a peppering of adventure/monster/survival story and a late addition of something more spiritual/mythological associated with Inuit culture (which should actually have been woven in earlier, in my view.) The mix works very well, though, and there are some nail-bitingly tense scenes as well as all the nautical and expeditionary details anyone could want. And blood and gore - lots of it!

Simmons is nicely on point in sketching in the cultural context: the unquestioning way in which the characters believe whole-heartedly in the British Empire, Victorian Christianity (God, of course, on the side of the British and empire so that the expedition cannot fail), and a faith in social hierarchies and command structures which, only gradually, start to break down. The scene where the men sing 'Rule, Britannia' is nicely set off against the failures of the Royal Navy which has, for example, awarded a provisioning contract to the cheapest manufacturer who has taken so many shortcuts in the production of new-fangled tinned provisions that the food upon which the men are relying is rotting in its badly-soldered cans.

On top of this is the pointed layering of the monster with the daunting, if beautiful, Arctic landscape itself, here iced over completely and seemingly inhospitable even to native wildlife, let alone the ships exploring for capitalist trade routes and for easier travel to their colonial possessions. The sense of these men being where they shouldn't be, as aliens in a land that they neither respect nor understand, is strong throughout.

There are times where I wanted more characterisation as too many of the sailors are mere names in service to the plot action, but overall this is a gripping story of isolation, crisis, suffering, endurance, friendship, betrayal and human hubris.

ps. The TV miniseries takes some liberties with plot, characters and the order in which the tale unfurls so book and series may be seen as complementary and I enjoyed reading/watching in tandem.

This is so good!!!!!!!! What took me so long to read this?????

The men aboard the HHS Terror believe they will be the ones to successfully search for the Northwest Passage. The year is 1845 and the Franklin Expedition is steam-powered and after spending another a second summer in the arctic circle, their rations begin to dwindle, men's spirits begin to plummet and there is no end to the ice, cold and darkness. As the men begin to show signs of scurvy, they also are confronted by poisonous food, crushing ice, and an unseen "terror" on the ice which seems to be plucking them off one by one.

Plus, there is the Inuit/Esquimaux woman who cannot speak but who has survival skills that leave the men in awe and frightened at the same time. She seems to be able to hunt and thrive in a harsh environment. Is she a witch? Can she be trusted? and how is she able to slip away without notice?

When Sir John Franklin meets a gruesome death, Captain Francais Crozier takes charge and leads the men on a last-ditch effort to take their chances and flee on the ice. Will they survive? Will they starve to death? Will scurvy be their downfall or will the real "terror" on the ice be the death of them all?

This is a monster of a book. It's HUGE and cannot be read fast. It is to be savored and read slowly. There are many characters with stories to tell. The first 5--70 pages were a little slow for me but as the story builds, I found my heart racing in fear for the characters (especially when Blanky was desperately trying to get away by climbing higher and higher through the ropes to survive).

Whew!

UPDATE: $2.99 on kindle US 7-27-17

People, just turn around and go home!



I probably shouldn't have went and read some facts about the history of this book because I might mess this review up. It's just so freaking interesting and I want to read about it. The author left a lot of resources for books at the end and there is one I'm going to try to get for sure.

The fact that Dan Simmons added an horror element to a historic novel is pretty awesome. And there are so many characters that I liked in the book and well. . . you know what happens if you read anything about the real story.

Some parts of the book had me confused because it would go back and forth at different times but I pretty much know what's going on. Captain Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier take the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus out to try to go through the Northwest Passage, which was called the 1845 Franklin Expedition. And it's doomed!!!! Not only do they get stuck out there for a couple of years, they have some monster thing <---(I know what the monster thing is) killing them, along with scurvy, starvation, random stuff, etc.

I LOVE the cold weather and WINTER is my favorite, but not this kind of stuff. Not being stuck in the ice in the middle of no where land with minus a million degrees with food running out, disease running all around, oh and lets not forget the monster!

I liked Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir, he is one of the surgeons on the ships and after awhile he has an epiphany:

•One reason that Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir had insisted on coming along on this exploration party was to prove that he was as strong and able a man as most of his crewmates. He soon realized that he wasn't.•

He's a very good man and does all he can for the crew members. He also keeps a diary which I enjoyed reading because it gave his point of view on things.

There is an Esquimaux lady that is on the Terror. They call her Silence because something chewed off her tongue. Yeah! She was brought there with her father or husband, they are not sure and I will let you read about that little mystery. I was freaked out by Silence the whole book. But there was a lot more going on there than meets the eye.

One of my favorite crew members was Irving, he was such a nice guy and he was told by Captain Crozier to watch over Silence because he didn't trust her. Boy did he see some crazy stuff going on with her.

I also liked Captain Crozier, Fitzjams who took over for Sir John, Mr. Diggle and Blanky. I loathed a man named Hickey. He was more evil than the monster I do believe and I wish he would have had some great torture befall him! Trust me, you won't like him either!

The story isn't just about the monster, this is a big tome of a book at almost 1000 pages but the monster isn't in it a whole lot. The story is about other horrible things that happen. The worries of what the crew is going to do when they are running out of food and find out that food is tainted (true story about the tainted food), running low on coal, people catching scurvy and dying a slow horrendous death, the cold, don't forget the cold. Some really nasty stuff happens that had to do with the cold.

But that monster does some crazy stuff. It's almost like he has a sick sense of humor!

•"It?" snaps Crozier. "One body? Back on the ship?" This makes no sense at all to the Terror's captain. "I thought you said both Strong and Evans were back."
Third Lieutenant Irving's entire face is frostbite white now. "They are, Captain. Or at least half of them. When we went to look at the body propped up there at the stern, it fell over and . . . well . . . came apart. As best we can tell, it's Billy Strong from the waist up. Tommy Evans from the waist down."
Crozier and Fitzjames can only look at each other.•



You never know what you will find in the never ending night!

•On a Tuesday dogwatch in the third week of November, the thing from the ice came aboard the Erebus and took the well-liked bosun, Mr. Thomas Terry, snatching him from his post near the stern, leaving only the man's head on the railing.•

I thought this was a really good book. I did think it was a bit long as a few parts dragged for me. And that's not because it's a tome, I have a few favorite tomes that are bigger than this one. Either way, I still very much enjoyed it and the ending and finding things out was so cool. Of course at one part you start to get an idea of what it's going to be about. And it took a turn I didn't see coming!

I will leave you with a picture of the Erebus they found in 2014/2015, I forget what the article said now but you can google it. They still haven't found Terror. They also found mummified corpses and stuff so be prepared when you google!



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