The Terror
by Dan Simmons
2007Fiction, historicalFiction, horrorFiction, action & adventureFiction, sea storiesFiction, historical, general
4.3
Open LibraryFirst lines
Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts.
If there is a Hell — in which I no longer Believe, since this Earth and some of the People in it are Hell enough for any Universe — I would be and should be Cast Down to the Worst Bolgia of the Lowest Circle.
About this book
The bestselling author of Ilium transforms the story of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition into a devastating historical adventure that will chill you to your core.The men on board Her Britannic Majesty's Ships Terror and Erebus had every expectation of triumph. They were part of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition – as scientifically advanced an enterprise as had ever set forth – and theirs were the first steam-driven vessels to go in search of the fabled North-West Passage. But the ships have now been trapped in the Arctic ice for nearly two years. Coal and provisions are running low. Yet the real threat isn't the constantly shifting landscape of white or the flesh-numbing temperatures, dwindling supplies or the vessels being slowly crushed by the unyielding grip of the frozen ocean. No, the real threat is far more terrifying. There is something out there that haunts the frigid darkness, which stalks the ships, snatching one man at a time – mutilating, devouring. A nameless thing, at once nowhere and everywhere, this terror has become the expedition's nemesis. When Franklin meets a terrible death, it falls to Captain Francis Crozier of HMS Terror to take command and lead the remaining crew on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Eskimo woman who cannot speak. She may be the key to survival – or the harbinger of their deaths. And as scurvy, starvation and madness take their toll, as the Terror on the ice become evermore bold, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape...
Themes & subjects
Fiction, historicalFiction, horrorFiction, action & adventureFiction, sea storiesFiction, historical, generalFiction, thrillers, general
First published 2007Characters & people
Setting
ArcticArctic regionsArctic OceanArctic ArchipelagoKing William IslandNorthwest PassageCanada19th century1845-1848
About the author
Dan Simmons
4 April 1948 – 2026
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the *Hyperion Cantos* and the *Ilium*/*Olympos* cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. A typical example of Simmons' intermingling of genres is *Song of Kali* (1985), winner of the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz. **Source**: [Dan Simmons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Simmons) on Wikipedia.
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