Reader's Diary #482- Dan Simmons: The Terror

I recently won The Terror and was pretty excited to read it. It was the stories of northwest passage explorers that attracted me to the north in the first place. Dan Simmons' historical horror novel based on Franklin's final and unsuccessful attempt to find the elusive passage sounded wonderful.

Then it arrived in the mail. At 955 pages my enthusiasm waned.

It started off good, with an introduction to many of the intriguing, if somewhat familiar, characters. I'd read Pierre Berton's The Arctic Grail: The Quest For The Northwest Passage and The North Pole some years ago and I recognized many of the names and personalities.

Berton's book, it turns out, was one of Simmons' major sources, and it got me thinking. If you've ever read The Arctic Grail you'll remember how novel-like Berton tells the story. A group of very different men with one shared goal, traveling to parts unknown and perishing in a frozen wasteland-- why, there's fear and plot enough right there. Was adding a supernatural element necessary?

Who cares, as long as it's entertaining, right? Unfortunately, it wasn't. While trying to incorporate Inuit mythology into the story could have been commendable, Simmons efforts are lacklustre. The dreaded tuunbaq is regrettably described in such shoddy detail, it comes across as an abnormally large polar bear. It's scary, yes, but not a great deal scarier than a normal sized polar bear, than starvation, than lead poisoning, than freezing to death, than any of the real dangers they faced.

My biggest issue, however, was the clumsy manner in which historical facts were thrown in. The absolute worst case of this came after it was revealed that Crozier, the captain of the Terror (which accompanied Franklin's Erebus), has a supernatural power of his own: second sight. In one of his visions he sees Lady Franklin harnessing all her resources and power to send out rescue parties from England. Of course, in real life Crozier never learned of those actions, but in Simmons' story he is even able to name specific men she actually recruited. I'd suspended my belief for the monster already, I wasn't able to again. It seemed as if Simmons had found Lady Franklin's story interesting and wanted to work it in at any cost.

I'll admit though, had this book been a mere 425 pages, I'd probably have been little nicer in this review. As it is, I resent the time I wasted. If you're interested in Northwest Passage explorers, do yourself a favour and read Berton's book.