The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.
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SO MUCH BETTER than the AMC miniseries!
Like many other reviewers, I bought this book after watching AMC's adaptation for TV. The sound quality of dialogue on the show was terrible and I felt like I was missing key parts of the story, so I bought the book to fill out what I was missing. I am glad I did!! The show was (as adapted shows or movie versions often are) a pale shadow of the book. I was impressed by the amount of time Dan spent researching this expedition, its members, archeological expeditions to locate the ships and crew, Eskimo culture and language, and how polar expeditionary ships were reinforced and otherwise outfitted. Like Erik Larson's "Devil In The White City" and "Dead Wake", this book brought historical events alive and inspired me to seek out more information about the events described. It was a fascinating, well-paced read, and put me in the era through the effective use of dialogue. I looked forward to reading another chapter of this book every night or more on weekends. I love it when a book does that. The story adds some fictional elements that historical records could never be the source of, but these are added to produce a very compelling story explaining the disappearance of two ships' entire crews (minus the 4 bodies found in graves on Beechey Island) beyond merely explaining that "poisoned food and exposure got them all". The TV series made some significant changes to many of the events in the book, and I can guess that some changes were necessary for a shorter miniseries, but others seem to have been made for convenience. For example (MINOR spoiler), in the TV version, the Eskimo girl Silna is initially silent after the death of her father, but then is seen helping Dr Goodsir add to knowledge of Eskimo vocabulary by teaching him a few words. Later, she cuts out her own tongue for reasons we don't know. In the book, Silna is silent from the beginning. We learn much later that she is part of a small group of "sixam inua" (Spirit Governors) who communicate with the Tuunbaq ...
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