The Terror

Mass Market Paperback, 960 pages

English language

Published Jan. 5, 2009 by Little, Brown and Co..

ISBN:
978-0-316-00807-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
234441234
Goodreads:
3708616

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (47 reviews)

The men on board The HMS Terror—part of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition—are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of ice and desolation. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations and a dwindling coal supply. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in.

27 editions

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

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 …

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The last 10% of this harrowing novel feels nothing at all like the rest. Nothing. My first reaction was disappointment, as I'd been comfortable with the rise and flow of the words, and this last bit felt like it was written by a different author -- tacked to the end of an Arctic journey it didn't match like some belated MadLibs.

It wasn't until I started writing this review that the ending finally clicked for me: the ending is so vastly different than the rest of the book because it represents a massive perspective change for the narrator. Whether this works for a reader, I suppose, would depend on how consistent you like the tone of your narrative. I found the transition jarring, but I can now appreciate narratively why that was done.

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I want to give this book 2.5 stars. I actually liked it, so I'll give it three, rather than two. I listened to the 22 hour audio book and the narrator was amazing.

This book is so long. It makes the long dredge of Frodo and Gollum seem like a summer stroll. It's also strange. Jumping between the soul crushing slog of being frozen in the ice, long and detailed flashbacks, super natural monster fights and graphic sex scenes. It's Dan Simmons though. All of his books feel like they're written by a super intelligent high school boy.

This is my first book with some detail on the themes Arctic exploration and the British navy. I enjoyed a lot of that. I really liked the Inuit mythology and how they survived on the ice. I loved Dr Goodsir and Crozier.

I think I'm glad I read it.

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is a great book. This is exactly the kind of book I love. I have a thing for man against nature, man against the limits of his own endurance. (hence my love of mountain climbing books) Plus I have a "thing" for horror fiction. (hence my love of Stephan King) And this book had both! What a bargain. The setting in the arctic, the oppressive, endless polar night, the ungodly, unrelenting cold, the wind that had real, beastly teeth... And a ship stuck, frozen, trapped for years, no rescue...brrr, spine chilling yo. The specter of death always ready to strike because the margin between life and death being so thin, but the will to survive a formidable match... was a real testament to mankind, the power of love, honor. Loved this book.

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

When it comes to this book, I feel much as I did about Drood. The level of unnecessary exposition is less in this book, but not by much. Simmons really seems to have an issue where when he does historical fiction that he becomes determined to fit every detail from his research into the book, regardless if it fits the needs of the story.

There's a good story here, and brilliant description of the struggle to survive the Arctic. However, there's also about 100 pages beyond that of extraneous details.

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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 …

Review of 'The Terror' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

omg - at first I was thinking that this book was going to be boring - english expeditions looking for the north west passage. But it sucked me in and I couldn't put it down. All 784 pages of it kept me engaged. I kept peeking ahead but ended up staying up late two nights in a row to finish. Simmons spends a lot of time crafting the characters and you feel like you know them well as the book progresses. This is a very sad book yet has a sort of happy ending, at least for one character.

Review of 'Terreur' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Voilà du lourd, du très très lourd. Et je ne parle pas de la taille, de l’épaisseur et du poids du livre, fort imposant cela dit. Dan Simmons, que je découvre ici, nous entraîne dans une aventure des plus oppressantes, inspirée d’un fait réel, et habilement teintée de fantastique histoire de combler les zones d’ombres qui entourent l’expédition. Je suis tombée sous le charme de Simmons et de son talent de conteur. Je reste sans voix devant un tel souci du détail, je n’ose imaginer la quantité de documentations consultées par l’auteur pour reconstituer si précisément une expédition dont on sait encore peu de chose sur le déroulement de sa fatale issue. Le mode de vie des marins de l’époque est d’une précision confondante, rien ne nous est épargné, pour mieux nous immerger dans l’histoire, le contexte, la mentalité d’alors. Il nous restitue tout dans les moindres détails, la gestion …

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