Earlier this winter, an ice storm hit our Oklahoma City home that, among other things, killed heat to half the house and busted our pipes outside. Compared to the wintery, frozen stresses that befall the characters of Dan Simmons’ THE TERROR, I had it easy.
The real-life tragedy of the mid-1800s Arctic expedition of the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus informs Simmons’ work of epic horror. Commandering the ships are Captain Francis Crozier and Sir John Franklin, respectively, who seek a northwest passage for England but find instant trouble once their mighty crafts are frozen in place in the no-longer-liquid waters. Temperatures remain sub-zero, supplies dwindle, their food is tainted and crewmembers come down with scurvy. This all really happened, but Simmons throws them the biggest conflict yet: there’s a gigantic creature out on the ice that’s very, very hungry.
It’s not for nothing Simmons dedicates his novel to the cast and crew of cinema’s original helping of heat-deprived horror, THE THING. But here the creature is not nearly as tangible; rather, it’s a supernatural force with so few distinguishable features that it’s often referred to as “the shape.” Each chapter follows a different crew member, some of whom fall victim and some of whom think the beast has something to do with the arrival of the mute Eskimo woman to their ship. Regardless, the situation looks ever more bleak with each day.
I’d like to report that THE TERROR is the first great novel of 2007, but at nearly 800 pages, it’s overlong by a good quarter. There are only so many times that a ship’s inventory can be taken, that a man can be attacked, that discussion of situations hopeless take place before it’s clear the narrative suffers the same fate as its ships: being stuck in a holding pattern. Additionally, Simmons’ narrative – heretofore fairly grounded – grows too metaphysical for that final stretch, almost as if it’s a different novel entirely.
But up until that point, THE TERROR had me locked in its icy grip. Moving at a purposeful, careful pace, it’s designed to make you feel as hopelessly stranded as the seamen. It works. This is a book not meant to be read in an afternoon, but drawn out, to let the suspense build and build and build, with quick bursts of payoff. Even with an enormous cast of characters, Simmons does a fine job of keeping so many balls in the air (and it helps that you don’t need to get too attached to a good number of them). When writing a work of such length, any author runs the risk of not being able to sustain the story until the tail end, and such is the case here. But for the scenario it sucks you into and the jolts it provides over its majority still provides a solid return on your time investment. –Rod Lott
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“USS Terror and USS Erebus”? Oh, please! Try “HMS Terror and HMS Erebus”. In the reign of Queen Victoria “HMS” would have stood for “Her Majesty’s Ship”. “USS” stands for “United States Ship”.
Good catch! Why’d it take someone eight months to point out my error?
Rod, It happens that I’m Canadian and we Canucks can be real prickly about American/British distinctions. For example, my pet peeve is that maybe one American in 100,000 knows that two British flyers, Alcock and Brown (not Lindbergh), made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. And they did it in an open-cockpit WWI bomber eight years before Lindbergh.
I just finished reading “The Terror” and, being a longtime fan of Dan Simmons, it did not disappoint. Sci-fi readers who liked “The Terror” should definitely consider Simmon’s award-winning “Hyperion” and “The Fall of Hyperion” novels.
Simmons does make one curious omission in “The Terror”. At least one of the ships would have sailed with a marine chronometer. This instrument was critical to establishing longitude. Practical navigation is discussed in the story but Simmons seems to suggest, incorrectly, that the only instrument needed was a sextant.