The Terror

Yeah, I think I am not a fan. The two story elements never really gelled together and, boy oh boy, did it drag into endless tedium. Characters never really stood out from each other, and, heavens, did Simmons make sure that I knew exactly what every female character's(both of them) breasts looked like. Over and over again.

The last 10% of this harrowing novel feels nothing at all like the rest. Nothing. My first reaction was disappointment, as I'd been comfortable with the rise and flow of the words, and this last bit felt like it was written by a different author -- tacked to the end of an Arctic journey it didn't match like some belated MadLibs.

It wasn't until I started writing this review that the ending finally clicked for me: the ending is so vastly different than the rest of the book because it represents a massive perspective change for the narrator. Whether this works for a reader, I suppose, would depend on how consistent you like the tone of your narrative. I found the transition jarring, but I can now appreciate narratively why that was done.

The HMS Terror may well have been the most aptly named ship in all of history, first for its opponents in the Second American War (of 1812), then for its inhabitants when England turned its attention back to the Northwest Passage. I can't imagine that even the two prior expeditions were anything less than terrifying for the crew to overwinter in, but the final, Franklin's voyage... that was something special.

Dan Simmons created a very slow burn, here, with an enormous amount of description to help you understand everything there is to know about ship life in the era, woven in with memories of England and expeditions that don't pan out. The writing begins so prosaic but becomes more lyrical and surreal as the chapters go on. When a mythical thing starts killing people, a few at a time, and then a lot at a time, the horror just keeps ratcheting up, and really, it's the long delays between the swift killings that keep you most on edge, just like the characters. And among all the desperate human attempts to survive, the human horror still outweighs anything supernatural.

The book keeps morphing and becoming something else right up to the end. Every page is worth turning.