The Terror: A Novel
by Dan Simmons
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Book Reviews of The Terror: A Novel
Book Review: Just short of great
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a very strange relationship with Dan Simmons. When he's firing on all cylinders - say, Summer of Night or A Winter Haunting - he's one of the best in his field. His writing can be beautiful and haunting, and his knack for plotting is great. But when he's off - Carrion Comfort is the one I always think of here - he can be a chore, and given his propensity for lengthy novels, that can be a problem. The Terror is a mammoth read, and it's one that definitely feels too long; while there's really no incidents or major scenes I'd cut, I feel like you could do some minor pruning to the entire book and really help it along. But oddly, while the tinges of bloat keep The Terror from becoming truly great, it doesn't diminish how damned good the book as a whole is. A fictional account of the last years of an actual lost Arctic expedition, The Terror recounts the fate of the British sailors as they cope with freezing temperatures, treachery on their own boats, incompetence, naivety - and if that wasn't enough, there's a thing on the ice out there... The book itself is a masterpiece of mood, and it's filled with scenes both unsettling (my favorite is a long Poe-inspired setpiece, but a chapter near the end of the book from the point of view of a deranged crew member blew me away) and beautiful (the final chapter of the book is a stunning conclusion). If you can survive the stretches here and there of excessive verbiage, The Terror creates a mood and atmosphere that will definitely get to you, and its unique mix of historical novel, horror novel, and survival tale makes for a book unlike much else that I've read. I can't wholeheartedly endorse it, but for those able to push through, it's a remarkable achievement filled with some uncommonly powerful scenes.Book Review: Simmons experiments again
Summary: 4 Stars
dan simmons never shies away from a difficult task. he writes science fiction, horror, crime novels, and now this speculative historical novel. he not only writes with historical accuracy about the members of the john franklin expedition battling the elements; he also includes a horrifying monster that kills at it's leisure, one man at a time, not to mention a heavy dose of eskimo mythology.
my feeling is that simmons tries to do too much here. the book would have been very compelling if the sailors only had to worry about cold, fuel, food poisoning, scurvy, and mutiny. they also, however, have to try to protect themselves against an unstoppable monster. "the thing on the ice" reminds me a little bit of "the shrike" in the hyperion books. on the other hand, without the ice monster, "the terror" might have been a bit too ordinary. and the mythology gives simmons a conclusion to the doomed expedition that isn't totally depressing. the book is certainly a page turner, and the characters are very believable.
a couple of things that bothered me: simmons starts out writing crozier's perspective in present tense. it's kind of a cool technique. but then he switches to past tense and then later to present again. it's a little bit jolting and maybe the fault of the editor. my other complaint is that there are two evil gay men on the expedition, so simmons feels the need to include two benevolent gay men to balance this out. i could live without the political correctness.
dan simmons is one of the best writers of popular fiction, and i never regret having read one of his books.
Book Review: Icy and beautiful yet too big for its chilliness
Summary: 3 Stars
When I finished this very long novel I got the strange feeling someone had forgotten to edit it for style. Indeed, there are many many many descriptions that "sound" as if they had never been reread after the author wrote them: repetition of words and circularity of description which, if deliberate, comes across as cheap. In a novel of this length it is certainly a task to describe the frozen Arctic landscape over and over without putting a reader to sleep, but I was surprised how often the descriptions avoided any poetry or impression. One example was the use of the word "pressure ridge" to describe a feature of the Arctic landscape. The author uses this term over and over, yet never actually tells us what a pressure ridge is or what it looks like.
This is just one example of a whole litany of oddities that make this novel harder to read than it should be, given its fascinating subject and very interesting characters.
There is also something strangely self-indulgent about Simmons's style that didn't become clear until I'd read several hundred pages. At times his style is just plain trippy, incorporating scenes whose relevance is never clearly explained.
This novel could have been just as good - or perhaps even better - at one-eighth the length. Perhaps Simmons opted for a loooooong story to mirror the interminable Arctic night the characters had to endure. I think a short, understated story would have captured the Arctic minimalism even better (just my opinion).
Book Review: Wow
Summary: 5 Stars
Stephen King has said that he is in awe of Dan Simmons. Where does that leave me, someone who's in awe of Stephen King? "He's a god," said a starstruck restaurant owner of Barak Obama during BO's recent visit to his bistro in Gay Paree. While there's only one god, Simmons is an immensely gifted work of that god's hands. "How does he do it?" I kept asking myself as I read his pitch-perfect 19th century English seaman's dialogue. This from a guy born and bred on the Illinois prairie. Simmons does such an effective job of pulling you into the permanently sub-zero world of the polar regions of far north Canada that you want to throw on a couple sweaters after dipping into this book, even if you happen to be reading it on in steamy mid-summer Miami Beach, the sugary sand which surrounds you transformed by Simmon's magic into ice crystals. Brrrrrrr! I didn't much care for his denigration of the intrepid but rather ignorant explorers who are fine examples of why the Brits ruled the world for so long, in comparison to the wisdom of the `Esquimaux,' but that's a quibble. A first class read, a giant book written by a man who always wrote what he wanted to without giving a fig for popularity or critical success, who is now, in his 60's achieving both. As an added bonus there's a first class monster popping up every now and then.Book Review: Awesome author, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
... it was way too jargony (I know that probably isn't an actual word!). The book was amazing, but I couldn't read it because I do not know nautical terms. I have never put down a book I wanted to actually finish this bad. I didn't get very far (its a freakin' huge book) but I was amazed by it. Reading about all the things those poor sailors had to go through in the everyday was good enough to keep me reading (even without the scarey stuff it would have been a wonderful read). Unfortunately I was overwhelmed with terms I didn't understand. I don't know one side of a boat from another and I had no idea what a man line or a rat line was. So, imagining some of the scenes became hard. I gave the book to a boat-person who even had some trouble. I almost went out and got a nautical dictionary to read along with The Terror. The only reason I had to give it a 3 star rating was being unable to read it... I can read Sophocles, Dante, Austen, Koontz... just about any author from any time period... but this book would have been a JOB. I wish I could have finished it. It has made me want to read non-fiction about the voyage... and I don't like historical fiction. I will look for more books by this author, and maybe try The Terror again one day. If you know boats this would be a great book to read!