Hugo-winner Simmons (Olympos
) brings the horrific trials and tribulations of arctic exploration vividly to life in this beautifully written historical, which injects a note of supernatural horror into the 1840s Franklin expedition and its doomed search for the Northwest Passage. Sir John Franklin, the leader of the expedition and captain of the Erebus
, is an aging fool. Francis Crozier, his second in command and captain of the Terror
, is a competent sailor, but embittered after years of seeing lesser men with better connections given preferment over him. With their two ships quickly trapped in pack ice, their voyage is a disaster from start to finish. Some men perish from disease, others from the cold, still others from botulism traced to tinned food purchased from the lowest bidder. Madness, mutiny and cannibalism follow. And then there's the monstrous creature from the ice, the thing like a polar bear but many times larger, possessed of a dark and vicious intelligence. This complex tale should find many devoted readers and add significantly to Simmons's already considerable reputation. (Jan.)
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Reviewed on: 11/06/2006
Release date: 01/01/2007
Genre: Fiction
Paperback - 784 pages - 9780316017459
Paperback - 784 pages - 9780316486095
Mass Market Paperbound - 992 pages - 9780316008075
Hardcover - 769 pages - 9780593057629
Hardcover - 769 pages - 9780593057636
Open Ebook - 507 pages - 9780316137492
Open Ebook - 944 pages - 9781407038995
Paperback - 810 pages - 9785699456857
Paperback - 1 pages - 9780553818208
Hardcover - 784 pages - 9780316017442