[movermike] movermike: Book Review: The Terror

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Posted by movermike:
Book Review: The Terror
http://www.movermike.com/posts/1173239848.shtml


   I just finished The Terror by Dan Simmons. Over 700 pages recounting
   the voyage of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror in the 1840s from
   England. The mission of the crew was to find the Northwest Passage by
   finding an ice-free route across the Arctic Circle to Russia and
   China, thus saving the long, long voyage around the tip of South
   America to the Pacific Ocean. The ships were lost and never seen again
   and this is Simmons' novel about the voyage.

   [pridge4.jpg]
   Pressure Ridges

   I don't usually read historical novels, however I was intrigued by the
   burb

     As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw,
     though, they are strab=nded 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.

   The crew must battle pressure ridges on the sea and on land, and
   battle the pack ice that flows like a glacier from the North Pole.
   Then on land they must cross seracs.

   [bad_ice.jpg]
   Arctic Pack Ice

   The characters are well drawn and you not only care about the crews
   survival, but the author mnakes you feel what it is like to live in 60
   to 100 degrees below zero.

   [1][Bernina_Seracs.jpg] 
   Seracs

   One of the best books I've read in years, I marveled at the ways of
   the eskimo and how they survive in the hostile environment.

   IFRAME:
   [2]http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=movermike-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=03160
   17442&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=i
   fr

   [3]The Terror [4]Dan Simmons [5]HMS Terror [6]HMS Erebus [7]Northwest
   Passage
   [8]Mover Mike

References

   1. http://www.m-klueber.de/Foto/Alpen/Bernina_Engadin/Bernina_Seracs.jpg
   2. http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=movermike-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0316017442&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
   3. http://technorati.com/tag/The+Terror
   4. http://technorati.com/tag/Dan+Simmons
   5. http://technorati.com/tag/HMS+Terror
   6. http://technorati.com/tag/HMS+Erebus
   7. http://technorati.com/tag/Northwest+Passage
   8. http://technorati.com/tag/Mover+Mike