The Terror

I haven't decided if waiting to read this book until I experienced a real life cold snap in the dead of winter was a brilliant move or a bad idea, but I'll be damned that extra bit of immersion didn't heighten my anxiety!

There's always going to be an appeal to doomed narratives where you already know the outcome, but the more bleak and sad that ending is, the more the morbid part of your mind wants to know how things got to that point. The Terror certainly doesn't disappoint here, going into superb (at times maybe too much?) detail outlining the ultimately futile attempts of this expedition's crew to survive in one of the harshest environments on earth. I'm talking descriptions of sailors unable to blink because their eyelids literally froze open, absent-mindedly touching cold metal with an ungloved hand and losing your skin as you pull away, the stench of wearing four layers of clothes you haven't washed in literal months, and one of the most graphic scenes of pre-industrial surgery I've read probably ever.

This is a cold book that was wonderfully atmospheric and was one of those, "the setting itself is a character" stories. To say nothing of the huge cast of sailors who are trying to place faith in their leaders to get them out of this mess until rule of law begins to break down and whispers of mutiny grow too loud. There are a ton of names to remember, but with a book this long and with as much time as you spend with them, it isn't too bad keeping track of them.

Also there's a monster. The monster was very good. Just an unstoppable, evil, and smart antagonist that caused multiple moments that had me saying, "oh Jesus Christ..." out loud. Never have I seen such a sinister force meting out punishment for the cardinal sin of checks notes "being British."

However the part that will always give me pause when recommending this to people in the future will be the ending, which kind of has a bit of a tone shift from being absolutely soul-crushingly bleak to somewhat kinda optimistic? I almost wish things had committed to being the worst possible outcome right to the very end because I was expecting it. There's also kind of a strange mysticism/variant of the "Magical Minority helps the white man" trope that I could've done without.

If nothing else, I feel like for pretty much the rest of my life whenever I experience something really cold I'm gonna be muttering to myself, "omg, this just like The Terror..."

This book was phenomenal. It's about three times as long as the books I normally read (~900 Kindle pages) so it took me awhile to finish. The multiple perspectives were done in a cohesive and easy to understand way. The monster was terrifying!!
Complaints, however: the last 10% of the book went in a weird direction. I felt like there should have been more buildup to this conclusion throughout the book, instead of just throwing in this lore and history at the end to tie it all together; it was a bit lazy. Without making spoilers, the way the information was related to the reader was also a shot out of the dark and could have been better nurtured in the story (rather than the fever dreams of withdrawal). The ending felt rushed, and there were some loose ends I wish the author had tied up. Also, I found myself skipping over some of the long sermons and lore stories.
Aside from those things, I will be buying this hardcover book for my bookshelf because it was a great historical fiction with a creepy, eerie monster and a punishing and terrifying environment.

What a disappointment.

After truly enjoying the mysterious, enthralling tale provided by Drood, I thought that Simmons' prior work of historical fiction would be just as alluring. Unfortunately, The Terror suffers from the same main problem that plagued Drood: the story's buildup and the shroud of mystery surrounding the main antagonist lead to extreme letdown. However, whereas the entirety of Drood's story somewhat made up for its anticlimactic ending, The Terror's story - while chilling in many ways - just isn't good enough to survive its "ending-letdown."

Simmons does a great job weaving 700+ pages worth of the horrific nature of Arctic sailing, where incessant cold, poisoned food, scurvy, and the unknown create a constant state of unease; however, this tale never seems to go anywhere. Whereas Drood made me insanely curious to find out what would happen next, The Terror left me in a constant state of "Can we move on, please?" There are only so many times one can endure a repetitive chapter cycle - recount who is dead and how they died, wander down a long flashback that doesn't endear me to its character, etc. - before boredom begins to set in.

I give this book 3 stars because at its core, The Terror is a fantastic set piece that manages to sustain a constant state of unease and weave in fantastic scenes (such as the carnivale, the failed bear-blind, etc.). However, at its weakest points (including the final 100 pages, which, of all possible ending scenarios, sufficiently destroyed any suspense/intrigue/excitement that had been building up), The Terror drifts along, never truly sure of where it wants to go.