Dang, That Sounds Cold.

Last week, I missed most of my prime TV watching time because I finally picked up my copy of The Terror by Dan Simmons and dove in. I'd gotten the expansive novel for Xmas and it was on the vastly growing pile of books I planned on reading but sometimes never did. Once I started, though, it became a little difficult to put down, and I plowed through it like it was a cool piece of banana cream pie (with a couple of bad bites here and there).

Simmons mixes a true story with a bit of a supernatural spike (if you've ever read Simmons before, that's to be expected). From the beginning, it appears this is going to be a more grounded, semi-fact based account of the crew of two Ships in the English discovery service that in reality disappeared while exploring the Arctic north and trying to find their way thorough the mythical "north west passage." Apparently, "In 1845, the British sent forth an expedition to find the Northwest Passage. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror left with a combined crew of 129 men, led by Sir John Franklin and Francis Crozier. The ships disappeared, and the ensuing search lasted more than thirty years."*
Of course, this being Simmons--probably best known (or, at least to me) from authorship of the Hyperion series of science fiction novels--it's not enough to portray a harrowing account of men stuck on frozen ships in the Arctic Circle, running out of supplies, trapped by the hubris of one commanding officer (Franklin) and being given a slim chance of survival through the sheer will of another Captain (Crozier)...he's gotta add a snow monster.
This isn't just any regular monster, of course, it's a mythological creature of Eskimo creation ("Esquimaux", natch, in the novel) that turns out to live off both human flesh and the soothing song of a Lady without a Tongue (Yeah, don't ask...just read).

I found The Terror to be both fascinating and frustrating. It worked on a ridiculously high level when describing the "real life" trauma the crew faced frozen in time, surviving the unsurvivable, desperately waiting for a spring thaw that didn't come until it was too late. The exquisite detail and descriptions of the workings of these 19th century explorer ships had me feeling the wind in my face and the chill down to my bones. Then came the monster. Frankly, I'm not sure it was necessary. The tale was working well on its own merits without the dip into the Eskimo legend (plus, the thing bears pun intended too much in common with Simmons own "Shrike" created for the Hyperion novels). The ice monster took me out of the reality that Simmons created so memorably in the rest of the novel.

Nevertheless, I'm giving The Terror a high recommendation because (1) the intricately described adventure in the Arctic is worth the time even if you find yourself distracted by the unnecessary supernatural elements and (2) once I picked it up I couldn't put the damn thing down--which is really how one should judge these things.

Next up in the pile, I have either Christopher Buckley's Boomtown or Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. I'll let you know.





*Read some press, here.