Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2007, 784 pages
Paperback:
Dec 2007, 672 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
Buy This Book
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph; part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, they set out in the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage. Years later, trapped in a landscape of encroaching ice and darkness, endlessly cold, and with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive as an unseen predator stalks their ship.
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.
When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.
The Terror swells with the heart-stopping suspense and heroic adventure that have won Dan Simmons praise as “a writer who not only makes big promises but keeps them” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). With a haunting and constantly surprising story based on actual historical events, The Terror is a novel that will chill you to your core.
1
CROZIER
Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts. Above him — above Terror — shimmering folds of light lunge but then quickly withdraw like the colourful arms of aggressive but ultimately uncertain spectres. Ectoplasmic skeletal fingers extend toward the ship, open, prepare to grasp, and pull back.
The temperature is ?50 degrees Fahrenheit and dropping fast. Because of the fog that came through earlier, during the single hour of weak twilight now passing for their day, the foreshortened masts — the three topmasts, topgallants, upper rigging, and highest spars have been removed and stored to cut down on the danger of falling ice and to reduce the chances of the ship capsizing because of the weight of ice on them — stand now like rudely pruned and topless trees reflecting the aurora that dances from one dimly seen horizon to the other. As Crozier watches, the jagged ice fields around the ship turn blue, then bleed ...
The Terror is not perfect - the changes of narrator and tense, from third-person to first-person, can be jarring, and takes some time to get used to. The creature does increase tension, but its predations are often left vague, and its appearance in the story is sometimes inconsistent. Even so, The Terror is a strong and complex tale, rich in atmosphere, with a surprising and yet satisfying denouement...continued
Full Review
(658 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
The mythical North-West Passage held the imagination of Britain for most of the 19th century. At that time, before the great canals of Panama and Suez were built, trade with the lucrative markets in Asia was perilous and slow, with trade routes either flowing past the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, across to India, and thereby to the Far East; or taking the dangerous passage South around Cape Horn in South America, and then across the Pacific. What Britain sought was a shortcut: The fabled North-West Passage, a sea-route North past Canada, through to Alaska and the lucrative markets of the Orient.
Expedition after expedition was sent. People were convinced a passage was there, with wealth and fame awaiting those who found it. Some even ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked The Terror, try these:
by Hampton Sides
Published 2015
New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides returns with a white-knuckle tale of polar exploration and survival in the Gilded Age. Winner of the 2014 BookBrowse Award for Nonfiction.
by Maria Semple
Published 2013
A compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
