A doomed journey. A terror on the ice. Review of The Terror by Dan Simmons
- Patricia Leslie
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
A Review of The Terror by Dan Simmons
Genre: thriller, historical fantasy/horror
The Terror by Dan Simmons is an epic story about a failed Arctic expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Picture this: two navy ships stuck in ice for three years, it’s absolutely freezing, contaminated food supplies dwindling, illness (scurvy) increasing, the ships are being crushed by the ice, oh and out there in the dark, a monster starts picking them off.
The Erebus and Terror are the two ships in question. Both ships and their crews were lost during the third Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The wreckage of the ships were only found this century (2014 and 2016) and are now a National Historic site.
My thoughts
This was a great read and frustrating. Very long with lots of research included (some repetitive and possible other bits not necessary to carry the story along). On the flip side, there are also passages that are riveting and fully engaging. The deep dive into monsters that lurk in the shadows started slowly with the eking out of knowledge for the sailors (and us readers) that grew as the terror and danger grew. The clash between Indigenous culture and stories and Western ideas of civilisation caught in a microcosm of society, an essence of society really, as rigidly defined and isolated as it is on board the two Navy ships.
As frustrating as all the details were, the pace of the story is good (even if slow). An Inuit woman “joins” the crew (when she feels like it). The characters equally grow and devolve throughout their frigid incarceration, many die (gruesomely), and interrelationships between the crew are complex.
There is some travelling between time with flashbacks and memory recall. Some work. Others confused me and took me away from the story while I worked out who was who and what the hell was going on. It took me awhile to get into the slower pace and style of the story but eventually I worked it out enough to have a deeper understanding by the middle of the book.
The horror side of the story was handled with a master touch and wove together their deadly situation, stuck in the ice, with a violent, intelligent monster the crew had no defense against.
There are two mysteries.
Who is the woman, christened “Lady Silence” by the crew (she can’t talk so we don’t find out her real name until much later) and what is her purpose in all of this?
What is that out on the ice munching on polar bears and playing deadly games with the half-frozen humans?
My dislikes
Too much exposition and too long getting to the point, new characters/revelations occurring far into the story when they could have, at least, been hinted at much earlier, and too many characters given a point of view. The handling of the Indigenous people, Lady Silence included, was a bit stilted. I think it took too long to get to their point of view. If some of the minutiae was culled, the story would be much tighter and even more gripping.
My likes
The thriller and horror parts of the story were indeed, thrilling and horrifying. The interweaving of Inuit culture into the epic was not bad (even if slow to be expanded upon). The development of Crozier’s character was excellent
These parts also introduced the social history side of the story which firmly place the saga in the Age of Sail (and all that entails).
The breakdown of society we witness as the starving, terrified men become willing to do almost anything to survive is all too real. How would we handle such a situation? Taken from everything we know and love and trust and thrown into a survival situation where death appears to be the only way out?
Recommendations
It’s a big read and needs a big commitment. If you enjoy tales of sea journeys, shipwrecks and monsters, and have plenty of time for an intricately evolving story, you’ll probably want to read The Terror.
As far as providing a review of The Terror by Dan Simmons goes, I'm in danger of going on far too long. I hope that this shows, despite my dislikes above, the impact the story has had. Weeks later, I'm still thinking about it and I will be for some time to come.
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