Just Finished Reading The Terror by Dan Simmons

Having already gone through his four-volume science fiction series Hyperion Cantos and his historical novel about Dickens titled Drood, I already considered Dan Simmons to be a very good author.  His attention to detail in his stories shows the fruits of someone who has put in considerable research of his topic, and his 2007 novel The Terror...which I just finished reading...is a great example.  Another historical novel, it is based on the real, doomed voyage of two British ships Erebus and Terror in 1845-48 as they sailed through the icy waters of northern Canada, in search of the elusive Northwest Passage to the Pacific.  The ships get themselves stuck in ice and the mission becomes a matter of survival instead of discovery.  Besides the terrible cold, dwindling supplies including contaminated food, and mounting scurvy, they are bedeviled by a monstrous, murderous creature resembling a polar bear but much, much larger...and more intelligent.  The captains of Erebus and Terror, Sir John Franklin and Francis Crozier, respectively, present their experiences through alternating chapters that also include other characters, most notably surgeon Harry Goodsir.  Their first encounter with the native eskimos turns tragic as an old man is mistakenly shot and killed, leaving his young adult daughter...missing a tongue...for the explorers to care for.  As the story progresses it seems clear that the outside beast terrorizing the expedition has some sort of connection with "Lady Silence", as Captain Crozier calls her...and he seems to have an unspoken mental link with her through his dreams.  Without revealing what happens in detail, let me just say that it is a story of suffering and attrition, going into great detail about the various issues involved in surviving under the brutal conditions of the far north.  But the story does undergo a remarkable transformation toward its end, and brings forth a theme I've noticed in other fiction: that different cultures' myths have underlying literal truth to them.  You see this in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Stephen King's Pet Sematary, and Harlan Ellison's short story The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, among many others.  Eskimo mythology figures into this story, which sharply contrasts their views on life and death with those of their European counterparts as well as their strategies for survival.  There is an awful lot of suffering in The Terror, but before long I realized what a noble, honest, and courageous character Francis Crozier was and that the story was worth pursuing to its end if only for his sake.  I recommend The Terror in spite of the misery contain within its pages...