The Terror

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I download a lot of sample books for my Kindle and most are deleted when I finish reading the sample. This one I really, really wanted to know the rest of the story & boy, was I not disappointed. I've read other books by Mr. Simmons (like his terrifying "Song of Kali", also highly recommended) & I think I've liked this one the best. I thought it had a Lovecraft Mythos feel to it. Anyways, if you like reading about what we're capable of in the face of unthinkable adversity then it is safe to say you will like this book. I cannot recommend it enough.

Very well written book. Definitely a page turner. I love history and the authors ability to weave the horrible true events of the loss of both crew and ships interwoven with the frictional monster aspect was awesome.

After reading Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion I was desperately trying to find another Dan Simmons book and came across Carrion Comfort. I was a bit dubious since I wanted to read another science fiction book, but it turns out that Carrion Comfort was excellent. I loved Illium and felt that Simmon's had regained his form; however, I was a bit disappointed in Olympos. I did think that The Terror would also be excellent as a follow up. It was a good book -- kind of, but I just didn't enjoy it that much. It's obvious that Dan Simmons put a lot of work (and intelligence) into it, but it could have been edited down to 450 pages at least. It was interesting to learn about the failed expedition and get a sense of what those poor men went through, but dragging it out for almost 900 pages is a bit much. The last part of the book is like a separate story and should have been interwoven through the first part of the book even more.

I'm not even sure why he wrote this book. He should have put all that energy into Olympos, left it at another cliff-hanger and gone on too write Odyssiad (which he says he doesn't want to do).

Quitting the book. In between the monster attacks, it’s just too boring! The monster attacks are too bizarre, the explanation comes much too late, and the demon-bear thing was too gross and weird. I mean, it tears a woman’s tongue out so that it can breathe in her throat to make music. Not for me! Read at your own risk

This is the most unusual historical novel I have ever read. I'm not usually even a fan of historical fiction unless it's really, really well done, but this fits the bill. The author throws in a compelling supernatural element you'll be wondering about til the end of the book. The twists threw me and will probably throw you too, however good you may be at predicting where things are going. The twists are just that strange. This is one of those books you'll still be thinking about weeks after you finish it.

This book is absolutely brilliant. I couldn't stop reading. I actually did not realize that this book was based on real events until part of the way through the book. The terror, suspense, and creepiness conveyed are gripping. While I'm not generally a fan of historical tales, this book did a great job of keeping me interested in the history of the actual events. Highly recommended.

I liked the blend of a supernatural element with a historical mystery on the disappearance of the Franklin expedition. The author did a great job combining historically accurate technology with the human elements of ego, shared suffering and heroic actions.

This novel is very well written and really creates a feeling of being trapped in the arctic ice in 1845, but it is overlong. The core story is intriguing and engaging, but the author feels the need to add everything but the kitchen sink. I found the references to Poe, Darwin and dyslexia to be to much. The characters were well drawn and interesting.

I liked the blend of a supernatural element with a historical mystery on the disappearance of the Franklin expedition. The author did a great job combining historically accurate technology with the human elements of ego, shared suffering and heroic actions.

This novel is very well written and really creates a feeling of being trapped in the arctic ice in 1845, but it is overlong. The core story is intriguing and engaging, but the author feels the need to add everything but the kitchen sink. I found the references to Poe, Darwin and dyslexia to be to much. The characters were well drawn and interesting.

The fear, intrigue, and hardships of being inbound were well-conveyed. Suspense was nicely crafted from within and without. However, the last part of the tale felt very disjoint and unconnected to the bulk of the story. I felt that I had picked up an entirely different novel.

Although the book can bog down, it is ultimately a satisfying tale. There is plenty of terror/spookiness and a lot of gore, so be forewarned. The amount of historical research that went into it is amazing. The info about the Inuit is especially great. I spent a lot of post read time looking at the locations and the actual historical people. SPOILER ALERT. There are actually three Northwest Passages. But until recently, unpredictable ice has made their crossing problematical. The shrinking ice cover has made the routes somewhat more navigable. Just-in-time regular scheduled shipping is still impractical, however.

the Terror, by Dan Simmons, is nothing short of amazing. Up until I first read this book, I had never heard of the doomed Franklin expedition which disappeared sometime during 1845-1848. Simmons does an excellent job to the point making it feel like you are a spectator aboard the two ships, with the crew members in that frozen hell.
I will not ruin it anymore. If you like an awesome book read it.

I remember hearing bout this book in a magazine, there was a brief review of it and got a very positive review. So I ordered this from the store.... and WOW, what a book, mixing historical facts with fiction, I love books like that. I had a hard time keeping track of the characters. There are characters who you root for, feel sorry for, and who you despise. And to think this is based all on a real voyage to find the Great Northwest Passage. Ok except the monster part, all made up by the Author. But over all this novel is a taught, tight, thrill ride. This book was just so spell binding. This is a great read for Winter, when you're not all ready cold enough, Simmons words describing the Northern Cold sends goose bumps down your back. Mixing history, Victorian times and tradition and Native Esquimaux legends indeed a great read. I do hope this never get's on Hollywood's radar and get's butchered on celluloid!!

Something is killing the expedition crew. After 67 chapters (yes, sixty seven chapters) I was hard pressed to care about the so called mystery or the characters and just wanted the book to end.

There's nothing truly terrible about this elongated novel, it's just that it is as bland and uninteresting as it is lengthy. As a fictionalized historical novel it doesn't convey interest in the events, especially since the author tried so desperately to wrap them in a 'suspenseful' storyline. Trying to read this as a mystery or horror story leaves the reader yawning.

A very interesting novel. Typical Dan Simmons, well put together, well researched and guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat. I found the story easy to read and hard to put down. He wrote this before the recent discovery of the two ships resting place but that in no ways detracts from the story. He does touch on the actions of men faced with a difficult and ultimately deadly situation. Also a very good expose, if you will, on the differences between British Navy preparation for living in the Arctic and the Inuit who live there. All in all an enjoyable and good read, I highly recommend the book.

I am almost speechless at the overall and intrisic qualities of this book. It would be a tedious exercise in futility to list here all of the merits of this amazing novel. But let's sum up as efficiently as possible. It is thorough, well written, almost believable in spite of its mystic/horror edges and far reaching.

Thorough, because it narrates a story based on actual events : the disappearance of both Erebus and Terror off the face of the world during their attempt at finding the mystical Nor'West passage in the vicinity of the North Pole, back in the mid 19th century. Thorough, because beyond the supernatural contents, it reads almost like a documentary on the daily life on board three-masted warships-turned-ice-breakers. Thorough, because after a while, each character comes up as a distinct individual, full of strenghts and weaknesses and a specific personality. Thorough, because in spite of the various ill-founded behaviors, it is overall a great story about mankind. Fragile and arrogant as we might be as a living species, men are and remain men whose greatest and sole liberty is about making a choice for the best or the worse.

Well written, because Dan Simmons carefully manages throughout the 700+ pages of his novel, to keep using 19th century-dated expressions. There is not a single anachronism in his tale. Royal Navy's Seamen, marines, officers speak the way they most likely were using over a century and a half ago. They are not just historic characters speaking in today's modern english. That is one of the finest attributes of this well crafted masterpiece which highly contributes to completely immerging the reader in a different period of time.

Almost believable, because as stated earlier, the core events are true. The description of the harsh environment, with its scores of repetitions about the cold, the shifting temperatures, the deadly ice ridges, the fanstasmagoric behavior of the sun, the lack of firm spatial and temporal points of reference in this all-white, desolate world brings a lot of cohesion and reality to the book. Also, the whole story is a recital of extraordinary, long-reaching erroneous decisions and failures based on hastily assessed situations. None of the characters is exempt from his share of responsibilities -with the exception of Lady Silence. The rest is extrapolation and -sometimes- fantasy. But the mix of the two end up in a story in which it sometimes becomes hard to distinguish actual facts from fiction. Also, the great last sections of the book talk thoroughly about Esquimaux' mythology. With that perspective, the whole story, as fantastic and supernatural as it gets, becomes not as unbelievable as when seen from a Westerner's standpoint.

Far reaching, because of the deep, thorough, profound implications of the underlying message about the Esquimaux' lifestyle, as opposed to our the Western civilization's. Esquimaux have always been able to live in harmony -almost in symbiosis- in their rugged, unforgiving, lethal environment, as so many other tribes and ethnic groups elsewhere in the world (the store, Polynesia/Pacific, in Amerindia etc.). Why is the white man so dumb to behave as if the Earth was only there to serve him ? Also, the book features a beautiful love story -I always flee from this type of stories!-, but this one is just plain beautiful. It's the merger of two totally different personalities with hardly anything in common that ends up in the creation of a single, much greater living being. And really, how is it not possible to fall in love with this Esquimaux woman, Lady Silence? She is quite simply "perfection made woman"!

The book has a few light flaws, such as the time it takes at the beginning for the action to start off, or the fact that it takes time to get to see which direction the plot is actually moving to, but that is no big deal overall.

I have tried to unveil a few of the merits of this book without giving away any of the plot features. Hopefully, I have reached my goal. With that said, get your hands on a copy of this book. It will most likely keep you awake until early in the morning, readings 200 page-long chunks of the story as if you were one of these unfortunate, hungry sailors getting their hands on some fat blubber after years of meager food...

Although the book was a little long, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It had a couple of surprising twists & turns. I read it over my summer break and felt that melancholy feeling as I always do after I am done with a good book.

A literary monument of the best parts of modern fiction, The Terror manages to rise above its parts to become something truly exceptional. This is a book for the well rounded reader; one that enjoys all aspects of fiction, and not just the action, or the plot twists, or romance, or what have you.

The first few chapters are occupied almost exclusively with character development, so I can see how someone who reads books for the action would be bored by it. But to do so, I feel, is to woefully miss out on the true richness of the book. Francis Crozier is the most compelling, human character I've read in a long time, and ultimately this is his story. His story of unappreciation by the Royal Navy and English society in general; his story of unimpeachable competence against ultimate human suffering; his story of acceptance, of his fate and his place, and ultimately, that there might be hope afterall.

This is no abused man, too easy to sympathize with and thus too easy in fiction readers' minds to redeem. This is a realer man than most in fiction; a logical, pragmatic commander and effective leader that's unappriciated by the navy and country he serves. A drunk, but by no means drunkard; a somber soul that hovers around thoughts of suicide, but that was probably common among his two ships. Immediately he garners the reader's trust and respect as do most of his men. Yes, their deaths seem senseless, but that was (literally) the nature of the beast. The ice ate up good men and bad alike; for so many to have been good (notably, Lt. Gore, Peglar and Bridgens, Mr. Blanky), their deaths wear on the soul of the reader in a shadow of the way it must've worn on the soul of a good leader like Crozier. One loses hope that this will end well for anyone, but we press on to honor the men because they pressed on, because hope never dies.

I will not describe how it ends, only that I silently hoped for Crozier's salvation because he was like me in his flaws; nothing extravagant like a Hamlet, just a normal man trying to survive, and we can all relate to that.

The monster was, in the end, something more of a fantasy creature than a horror monster. More dragon than werewolf, it was in the same way an elemental whose fate was tied to its realm. I think you really must read this book with hope, with a love of real heroes, and a child's inherent openmindedness, and you'll find your way through a bitter journey a wiser person.

The terror of the unknown. The terror of command, men's lives resting on your judgment, your decisions taking place in this unknown. The terror of being wrong, and death the result. The slow, building terror coming from the realization of an almost certain death, coming in months, and every day until then unpleasant and painful. The terror of mutiny and murder. The terror of something out there, alive, powerful, uncompromising and malevolent. And the terror of recognizing, facing and giving yourself over completely to your fate and your god.

In this hefty historical fiction work of almost 800 pages, based on the true story of the 1845 Franklin expedition, which sailed in and was never seen again, overly confident British sailor-adventurers brave the elements in their flawed determination to chart the Northwest Passage. Fundamentally ignorant of the Arctic and supremely confident in their knowledge and equipment, the ships become icebound, with murder, mutiny, sickness, starvation, and death the result.

So many things could go wrong on a journey of this kind, and just about every single one of them does: not enough food, and what's left of it has turned; lead poisoning from the food tins; criminal fraud; bad calculations on coal usage; improper clothing; overly confident plans on the strength of the ships/underestimation of the sea's power; bad science and the mythical "open polar sea;" lack of knowledge and overconfidence in overcoming/withstanding nature; hollow racist superiority, and the failure to learn from locals; criminals in the crew; bad weather; inaccurate charts.

And there's a monster. A very big one, with huge teeth and claws and a very bad attitude.

Author Simmons acknowledges his inspiration for the book came while researching the race to the North Pole. What appears to have happened is that Simmons came upon the tale of the Franklin tragedy, and as he researched it and the myriad narrative spokes which radiated from it, he found more than enough material for this book.

And that "more than enough material" I think is where Simmons indulged a bit, or possibly simply refused to let his research and creativity go to waste. This is a long book, sure, but it's certainly not the interminable slog many have lamented. It's been a while since I read a 700+ pager, but once the story had me hooked (page 150, maybe), then the hundreds of pages yet to go really weren't an issue.

Early on (about page 100 or so) I found myself thinking of Tom Clancy's overwrought, baldly self-indulgent Without Remorse. That book was so long, so packed full of personal opinions and insights, so wretchedly editorial that it was clear that the revenue-generating mega-author Clancy had so quickly become no longer had to suffer the indignities of the editor; he could write whatever he damn well pleased, and absolutely all of it would go to print. I see some of that in this book, but not the self-centered grandeur of Clancy. Simmons is highly successful, sure, but while Clancy just ranted about inner city blight and what he saw as criminals' due, it appears in this case that Simmons has done so much research and has so much material that the book just tends to go and go. He's done a lot of work, and he: 1) thinks these many aspects are valid and important additions to the story, and; 2) doesn't want his research to go to waste.

The detail is deep and rich, striking me at times of the descriptions of settings in the Ann Rice Lestat novels . But there's only so many times I need to be told about stamping feet, frostbitten hands and toes, metal sticking to flesh, the rime in the rigging, etc. After a while, it's almost as numbing as the cold it's communicating--maybe this is Simmons' intent.

One particular part of the book was particularly well done, literally made for cinematic interpretation. The doomed New Year's fete is the most vivid part of the book, full of color and action, with all characters present, interacting and taking action in a highly fluid scene. If this book were ever made into a film, I'd go just to see the realization of this chapter.

The story's chronology is non-linear, and jumps around a bit, especially early in the story. It's not entirely clear why Simmons has constructed it this way, as it doesn't necessarily serve to advance the story. What it does do is introduce all of the key characters quickly, while also spicing up a story with action and intrigue early on, really the only way to hook the reader in a book where one can assume the reader knows the ending before starting it. A straight-on, linear retelling would have been much more dull, more like history and less like fiction.

There are also multiple narrators, the story unfolding through many characters' eyes. This also takes some getting used to, but sorts itself out rather quickly, and also adds to the depth of the story.

The monster is a fascinating creation. It raises more and more questions as the story matures, with hints and visions alluding to its nature. By the end it is clear what it is and what its purpose is. I liked Simmons' dream-views of it, and what ultimately it represents. To my reading, this realization and the willing confrontation with the monster is the true terror here, and it was rendered powerfully and lyrically.

Bottom line: This is not a pedantic historical retelling of the Franklin disaster, but there is a great depth of accuracy. Simmons takes this further by offering a compelling and detailed fictional account of how things may have gone, adding the spiritual, mystical and supernatural. If you like deep, rich depth of description, with layers of context and interesting/fanciful asides, this book will work for you, as it did for me. And read it under a warm blanket.

*very slight spoiler alert*
Image if you will, the true story of Captain Sir John Franklin's failed 1845 arctic expedition to find and map the Northwest Passage portrayed as a Twilight Zone episode. The real life expedition ended in the lost of two British Royal Navy ships the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror and all 129 souls. There there have been a multitude of theories for the causes of deaths of the explorers such as hypothermia, starvation, lead poisoning and diseases including scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Dan Simmons' fictional account introduces an additional element of death and terror from a creature that (possibly?) can slip into our world rip off a few hapless sailer's heads then slip away again. Of course there's much more to the plot than that. Way Way much more. At almost 800 pages this is a very lengthy story but, Simmons did manage to keep me interested in the ever dwindling cast of characters and their stories until the end. Ironically enough i was reading this book when the temperatures here in Ohio were reaching 20 year lows, -50 with wind chill at times, helping me empathize with those poor souls frozen in the arctic ice.

This was a well researched historical based novel that started slowly but about half way thru I couldn't put the kindle down. I was amazed to learn the characters were fact based and the events had some degree of probability, Well written by a talented author.