Dan Simmons
Description: The Terror (2007)
download:
Dan Simmons - The Terror (html)
My personal opinion is, that this is certainly worthy of reading. I enjoyed it so much, I even managed to keep reading it at work. :)
From
Up Against The Wall Magazine
n 1845, Sir John Franklin of Her Majesty’s Navy set sail for the Arctic in an attempt to chart the Northwest Passage, the sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. At that time, the route was more theory than fact as the area was largely uncharted. Franklin was in command of two vessels, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, containing a total of 130 men. Both ships and all aboard them subsequently disappeared. In 1850, the British Admiralty finally acquiesced to the pleas of Sir John’s wife and offered a reward of 20,000 British pounds to any sailor who could find them (ironically, in the years to come, more men were lost searching for the Erebus and Terror than were in the Franklin party itself). By 1859 there was conclusive proof that the crews of both ships had all died on the expedition, and the venture is widely regarded as one of the greatest follies in maritime exploration.
Taking this tragedy as his inspiration, Dan Simmons has woven a wonderful—and wonderfully complex—character-driven historical novel that is sui generis: part naval adventure, it’s also a suspense-filled tale of a struggle to survive in an inhospitable, strange landscape which gives it the feel of a fantasy novel, but it is also a horror story as a creature that may either be supernatural or extraterrestrial is preying upon the doomed men of the Erebus and Terror. Simmons dedicates the book to the makers of the original THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951), clearly an inspiration for the seemingly otherworldly goings on as the ships’ crews are decimated by whatever’s out on the ice.
THE TERROR is a dense, surprisingly sprawling book for a story that spends over half of its 765 pages in one location. Its narrative moves back and forth in time, both externally and internally through the memories of the men trapped in this frozen Hell, requiring the reader pay attention. Temporal shifts aside, the story features a substantial cast of characters, most of them drawn from real life, which keeps readers on their toes, too. Seeing the story from several viewpoints, however, allows Simmons the opportunity to explore both the full extent of their predicament and the social structure of the time. Events are seen through the eyes of Franklin; Francis Crozier, the Terror’s captain; Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir; Third Lieutenant John Irving and others, but Crozier ultimately emerges as the story’s protagonist. Other characters who bring the story to vivid life include Ice Master Tom Blankly, a seasoned old sea dog; the mysterious, mute Esquimaux woman the crew name Lady Silence; and Hickey, the manipulative caulker’s mate and sadistic sodomite who emerges as a black-hearted villain as lethal as the thing that’s decimating the crew. Crozier evolves into one of Simmons’ most fascinating and complicated characters in his considerable body of work
This is not the first time Simmons has woven a remarkable what if? inspired by true events. His 1999 thriller, THE CROOK FACTORY, centered around Ernest Hemingway’s WWII exploits in espionage, much of it based on fact, and was a spellbinding speculative biography. That novel should have been a best-seller; it at least should have won some awards but sadly didn’t. For all that novel’s superior qualities, though, THE TERROR is the superior book and an outstanding achievement. While the reader feels as trapped, as helpless as the characters when reading this heavy volume, the journey to page 700 is well worth it—and those final 65 become almost transcendental.
This is a perfect novel to get lost in on long winter evenings. You might just want to put on another sweater and throw another log on the fire.
Back to "Some Ebooks"