Monday, March 11, 2013

The Terror, by Dan Simmons

(pb: 2007)


From the back cover:

"The men on board The H.M.S. Terror - part of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition - are entering the second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded on 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."


Review:

The Terror is an epic-sprawl tale, not only a supernatural horror work, but one of human and elemental horror and, ultimately, redemption for some.

Though this resounding novel does, on occasion, get chatty with its vivid details, it's still easily one of the best long-read novels (955 pages long) that I've encountered in a long while. 


Worth owning, this.

#

Set to air sometime in 2014, a television miniseries, based on the book, is being developed by AMC.  According to Fangoria and IMDb, David Kajganich is writing the screenplay.

(I'll update this review/movie notice when I have more time, and more information becomes available.)

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