A Terror-ific Review

Hey,

So a few days ago I finished up The Terror by Dan Simmons. It took me quite awhile to get through it. Not because it was bad (far from it), just that you knew from the outset that it was going to end badly.

The Terror is Mr. Simmons's fictional take on the Franklin Expedition -- Sir John Franklin headed up an Arctic expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Two ships, the Erebus and the Terror sailed out into the Arctic ocean...and were never seen again. This book tells the story of the ships, their struggle for survival and their slow, relentless deaths. Also, there's an ice monster who kills them from time to time.

So when you know that it's all going to end badly...I find it a bit hard to push on.

But I'm glad I did. While Mr. Simmons doesn't know exactly what happened to the expedition, he's clearly done an immense amount of work on the history of the crew members and the perils of polar expeditions in general. The novel follows several different crew members and each chapter is told from their point of view. The characters are all well-drawn and there's a lot of great description of the Arctic wastes and the endless discomforts and miseries of being locked on the ice where nature, scurvy, and ice monsters are equally determined to kill you.

I would also happily classify this as a very authentic steampunk novel. The two ships are steam-powered icebreakers, among the most technically-advanced ships available for pushing through the pack ice and keeping their crews alive in the hostile conditions. Polar expeditions were the spaceships of their day. Sadly, there was quite a bit of technological hubris and not a fair amount of mis-management. The ships were provided with tinned food that did little to address vitamin C concerns and the tins were poorly soldered together. The food would soon go bad or contaminate the contents with lead. A great deal of common sense seems to have been thrown overboard since reliable steam was here to lend a warming hand.

Overall, it was a pretty good book and one that really manages to evoke a place you don't want to be trapped in.

later
Tom

A Terror-ific Review

Hey,

So a few days ago I finished up The Terror by Dan Simmons. It took me quite awhile to get through it. Not because it was bad (far from it), just that you knew from the outset that it was going to end badly.

The Terror is Mr. Simmons's fictional take on the Franklin Expedition -- Sir John Franklin headed up an Arctic expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Two ships, the Erebus and the Terror sailed out into the Arctic ocean...and were never seen again. This book tells the story of the ships, their struggle for survival and their slow, relentless deaths. Also, there's an ice monster who kills them from time to time.

So when you know that it's all going to end badly...I find it a bit hard to push on.

But I'm glad I did. While Mr. Simmons doesn't know exactly what happened to the expedition, he's clearly done an immense amount of work on the history of the crew members and the perils of polar expeditions in general. The novel follows several different crew members and each chapter is told from their point of view. The characters are all well-drawn and there's a lot of great description of the Arctic wastes and the endless discomforts and miseries of being locked on the ice where nature, scurvy, and ice monsters are equally determined to kill you.

I would also happily classify this as a very authentic steampunk novel. The two ships are steam-powered icebreakers, among the most technically-advanced ships available for pushing through the pack ice and keeping their crews alive in the hostile conditions. Polar expeditions were the spaceships of their day. Sadly, there was quite a bit of technological hubris and not a fair amount of mis-management. The ships were provided with tinned food that did little to address vitamin C concerns and the tins were poorly soldered together. The food would soon go bad or contaminate the contents with lead. A great deal of common sense seems to have been thrown overboard since reliable steam was here to lend a warming hand.

Overall, it was a pretty good book and one that really manages to evoke a place you don't want to be trapped in.

later
Tom