Mover Mike

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.

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.

Arctic Pack Ice

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

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.

The Terror Dan Simmons HMS Terror HMS Erebus Northwest Passage
Mover Mike

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