Reviews
The Terror
by Dan Simmons
Little, Brown; 784 pages; $25.99
Reviewed by: Matt Crenson
Indianapolis Star
February 25, 2007
[Sir John Franklin’s ships] Erebus and Terror were last seen in July 1845 off Greenland. Nine years and many rescue attempts later, Scottish explorer John Rae purchased some of the expedition’s silverware from an Inuit gentleman who said a party of 35 or 40 white men had perished of starvation near the mouth of the Back River, in a region of the Arctic Ocean studded with barren islands separated by narrow, ice-choked passages.
What happened to John Franklin and his 129 men is a frustrating mystery to historians, but a boon for Dan Simmons, whose new novel imagines what might have befallen the expedition.
“The Terror” bogs down in spots, with descriptions of Arctic geography and nautical protocol. And Simmons indulges in one or two vicious beast attacks too many. But it also makes some keen observations about man and nature, civilization and savagery.
Matt Crenson, Associated Press
© 2007 Indianapolis Star. Reprinted with Permission. http://www.indystar.com