The Terror by Dan Simmons

On May 19, 1845 two ships set sail from England in an attempt to discover the Northwest Passage. The two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror had been redesigned with the latest technology to survive the arctic circle, which, even during the summer months barely reaches a temperature above freezing, and had been supplied with enough canned food goods to last about five years, that is, if the captain thought it necessary to cut down the rations to last this long, something no one thought would be necessary, but had planned for just in case. What they didn’t count on, however, was the

Book Reviews - The Terror by Dan Simmons

fact that the food might be poisonous due to poor canning and its high content of lead, and that the lemon juice they had brought aboard to combat survey would not be effective after the repeated boiling due to fermentation. They also didn't expect to go an entire summer locked in ice that refused to thaw, or that they would run out of the life saving coal that kept the ships insides from freezing.

Last seen in July of 1845 by two whaling ships in Baffin Bay, no one really knows what exactly happened. Three graves were found on Beechy Island, which is probably where the ships spent their first winter locked in the ice, and thirty bodies were found near the Great Fish River, which is probably the furthest any members of the crew got after abandoning the ships in the Spring of 1848, but between the time of being spotted by the whaling ships and the fall of the last exhausted surviving crew member as he walked toward civilization, no one really knows all the details. It is known that the expedition leader, John Franklin, died in June of 1847 at the age of 61, but no one knows how he died or where he was buried, if he was even buried (given the exhaustion of the men it is possible that he was dumped into a hole in the ice, though this is probably not what happened given the man's status, but no one knows for sure, and even diary entries wouldn't be too trustworthy because no one would want to admit doing something like that). I have mixed feelings about historical novels that try to find answers for the unknown, mostly because it always seems like the situation and the possible answer to the question of what happened are the writer's focus, which often leads me to wonder why they didn't just come out and tell me what they thought had happened in a few simple sentences rather than wasting my time with an entire novel; but with this book I didn't feel that way. With this book the question of what happened wasn't the main focus and came about naturally through the lives of the characters, which is always more enjoyable, and which, ultimately, makes the situation even more tragic because you like the characters and want them to survive. The writing and characterization was so good, in fact, that I also found myself suffering alongside them. I felt their hunger pains as they slowly starved, and cringed with the frigid temperatures and blasts of icy wind, and groaned as certain men contemplated mutiny, and wanted to grab and shake others as they tried to convince everyone else to follow their stupid, deadly plans. Furthermore, the writing was so well done that despite knowing these people would never get back to England, I was uplifted by the ending and felt completely satisfied upon reading the last page and closing the book. I also felt a bit relieved that I could now leave the cold world of the arctic behind and realized that twenty degree Chicago winter weather is not really that bad, not when some people had to live for years in below zero temperatures where frostbite was a daily occurrence.

So, looking for a good book to help pass the long dark nights of winter? Grab The Terror by Dan Simmons. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.