The Terror is a 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons. It is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to locate the Northwest Passage. In the novel, while Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and illness, and forced to contend with mutiny and cannibalism, they are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by a monster.
Most of the characters featured in The Terror are actual members of Franklin's crew, whose unexplained disappearance has warranted a great deal of speculation. The main characters in the novel include Captain Sir John Franklin, commander of the expedition and captain of Erebus; Captain Francis Crozier, captain of Terror; Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir; and Commander James Fitzjames.
The Terror was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 2008 and adapted for the first season of an eponymous television series that aired on AMC TV in 2018.
Plot summary The story begins in medias res in the winter of 1847, when HMS Terror and HMS Erebus have been trapped in ice, 28 miles north-northwest of King William Island, for more than a year. The weather has been much colder than normal, the ships' tinned provisions are dwindling, often putrid, and tainted with lead from soldering. Furthermore, the sea ice and landmasses are mysteriously devoid of any wildlife that can be hunted. In addition to the natural dangers, the crews are being stalked and attacked by a monster resembling an immense polar bear.
In a flashback to 1845, Sir John Franklin is assigned by the British Admiralty to lead an expedition into the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. Franklin's second in command, Captain Francis Crozier, joins the expedition as a means of distracting himself after being rejected as a suitor by Franklin's niece. Although the expedition begins auspiciously enough, three men (John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine) die of disease during their first winter in the ice, and soon afterward, Franklin makes the fateful decision to travel around the northwest coast of King William Island, which results in Terror and Erebus becoming trapped.
In the spring of 1847, Franklin sends out parties to search for open water. One of the parties encounters a pair of "Esquimaux": a young woman and an old man. They accidentally shoot the man, whereupon they are set upon by the monster, which kills the expedition's fourth in command, Lieutenant Graham Gore, who led the party. When the survivors return to the ships, the woman follows them. Surgeon Stanley names her "Lady Silence", as her tongue appears to have been bitten off, rendering her mute. After the man dies aboard Erebus, the monster begins stalking the crews. Although the creature shows signs of intelligence, the men initially assume it is merely an unusually big and aggressive polar bear. Franklin is killed in a botched attempt to bait the animal, and a number of other crewmen are killed as the months progress.
Crozier assumes command of the expedition, with Commander James Fitzjames assuming the role of executive officer. Despite some initial tension between them, they gradually become friends as they work to address the conditions facing their men. An ill-fated New Year's Eve carnivale masque ends with a large amount of expedition members, including three of the four surgeons (with only Dr. Goodsir surviving among them) and Lieutenant James Walter Fairholme, being killed by the monster and friendly fire from the expedition's Royal Marines detachment. Crozier subsequently orders Caulker’s Mate Cornelius Hickey (for wearing a white polar bear costume) and two other men (for unbecoming behavior) to be given fifty lashes. Hickey begins to plot against the officers.
As the spring of 1848 approaches, Erebus is eventually crushed and sunk by the relentless ice. Its remaining crew decamps to Terror until Crozier finally orders the ship abandoned. The survivors relocate to "Terror Camp", a tented refuge on King William Island. After ruling out an attempt to reach the far side of the Boothia Peninsula, Crozier and Fitzjames conclude that their best hope is to haul the lifeboats of both ships south to the Back River and row upstream against the current to an outpost on Great Slave Lake, an arduous journey of several hundred miles. Before they can set out, Hickey murders Lieutenant John Irving and lays the blame on a band of Esquimaux whom Irving had in fact befriended; the Esquimaux are attacked and massacred in revenge. From this point on, the crews fear and avoid the native population.
The trek across the island is brutal, and many men die from exhaustion, exposure, and disease including Fitzjames and Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte. The monster appears with deadly frequency, at one point slaughtering all of Terror's Royal Marines as well as an entire boat crew as they explore an open lead in the ice, among the dead being Crozier's second, Lieutenant Edward Little, and the sole surviving ice master, James Reid. With no other options, the men continue to press south and eventually reach a position on the southern shore that they name "Rescue Camp". From there, the survivors splinter into several groups due to desperation and the collapsing authority of Crozier, exacerbated by the disproportionate number of deaths incurred among the officers and men loyal to the captain. Hickey and sixteen men declare their intent to return to Terror Camp, while three others opt to return to HMS Terror. Among the mutineers are men whom Crozier thought loyal, shockingly including Lieutenant George Hodgson. Crozier agrees to let them go, but later he and physician Harry Goodsir are lured away from the camp and ambushed by Hickey's men. Crozier is shot and apparently killed by Hickey along with three men loyal to the captain, while Goodsir is taken hostage. The remaining crew, led by Second Mate Charles Des Voeux, an originally junior officer who is now the highest-ranking officer of the expedition to date, believes the captain and Goodsir to be dead and believes a battle with Hickey's faction would be a pyrrhic victory at best. They reluctantly decide to keep marching south with the forty able-bodied loyalists, making the difficult decision to leave all men who are too sick to walk behind to die, including Crozier's faithful steward, Thomas Jopson.
All three groups eventually meet with disaster. Hickey's group, despite resorting to cannibalism, begins to either starve or freeze to death in a blizzard; the remainder are murdered by Hickey, who has begun to suffer delusions of godhood. Goodsir poisons himself, ensuring that any of Hickey's crew who eat his body will die. The monster delivers a death blow to Hickey, but pulls away and does not consume his soul. A later vision relayed to Crozier suggests that the monster will eventually become ill and die after consuming the explorers' souls. The other groups' fates are not revealed, but it is implied that they also perished, rendering Crozier the expedition's sole survivor. Crozier is rescued by Lady Silence, who treats his wounds with native medicine and brings him with her on her travels.
As he recovers from his injuries, Crozier experiences a series of visions that finally reveal the true nature of the creature. It is called the Tuunbaq, a demon created millennia ago by the Esquimaux goddess Sedna to kill her fellow spirits, with whom she had become angry. After a war lasting 10,000 years, the other spirits defeated the Tuunbaq, and it turned back on Sedna, who banished it to the Arctic wastes. There, the Tuunbaq began preying on the Esquimaux until their most powerful shamans discovered a way to communicate with the demon. By sacrificing their tongues to the beast and promising to stay out of its domain, these shamans were able to stop the Tuunbaq's rampage. Lady Silence is revealed to be one of these shamans, and she and Crozier eventually become lovers. He chooses to abandon his old life and join her as a shaman.
Some time later, Crozier and Lady Silence (her real name revealed to be Silna) have two children, and he has taken the name Taliriktug. Traveling with an Esquimaux group, the family discovers many of the expedition's relics (including Des Voeux's silver watch, implying the loyalists' demise) and eventually encounters the still-standing Terror almost two hundred miles south of her original location. After exploring the decaying ship and encountering a shriveled corpse in his former bunk, Taliriktug sets the ship alight and watches the conflagration with his family, as Terror sinks below the ice.
Characters Captain Francis Crozier The expedition's second in command (he becomes commander of the expedition following the death of Sir John Franklin) and primary narrator of the novel. He is portrayed as a competent leader and skillful captain, though he suffers from alcoholism and a deep sense of insecurity stemming from his Irish ancestry and humble birth. He also is implied to possess latent psychic abilities. Towards the end of the novel he is shot several times during the betrayal and ambush by Cornelius Hickey, near Rescue Camp. Crozier is saved (in unexplained circumstances) by Lady Silence, who uses native medicine to heal his gunshot wounds. She teaches him how to survive in the adverse Arctic conditions and the ways of the sixam ieua spirit-governors, and the two become lovers. Crozier eventually joins Silence as a sixam ieua, and they have two children together. He adopts the Inuit name Taliriktug, meaning "Strong Arm". Commander James Fitzjames The expedition's third in command and the de facto captain of Erebus prior to Franklin's death. He is an upper-class officer, described as handsome and charming. At the start of the novel, Crozier is wary of Fitzjames and jealous of the apparent favouritism that is shown towards him within the Royal Navy. However, they become firm friends as the novel progresses. Following Franklin's death, Fitzjames proves to be a very competent captain of Erebus and an invaluable assistant to Crozier. Throughout the novel, Fitzjames' physical condition steadily deteriorates, and he eventually dies of an illness (implied to be botulism) during the trek south across King William Island. Doctor Henry D.S. Goodsir Trained as an anatomist and signed on by Franklin as an assistant surgeon, he is considered the lowest of the four doctors who set out on the expedition, since he is technically an anatomist and not a physician. Following the violent death of the other medical officers at the Venetian Carnivale, Goodsir becomes the only physician aboard either ship. Though he initially appears to be weak and effeminate, he is portrayed as a compassionate, strong-willed, and indefatigable man, who earns the respect of the entire crew. He is also one of the few men Crozier trusts implicitly. During Hickey's final and successful attempt to mutiny and leave the expedition, Goodsir exposes Hickey's real motives to take two sick and catatonic crew members with him. Despite Hickey's insisting the men are his friends, and he and his crew wish to care for them, Goodsir states the real reason Hickey wants the two crewmen is so Hickey's crew can eat them. Goodsir then proceeds to humiliate the flustered Hickey by instructing him in front of the entire expedition on how to butcher his able and healthy friend, Magnus Manson, should he need to later. Goodsir is later kidnapped by Hickey's mutineers, who repeatedly mutilate him when he refuses to assist them in butchering their dead crewmates for sustenance, and Goodsir eventually commits suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of drugs. He does this as a parting shot to Hickey and his men, as the poison he ingests will kill anyone who attempts to eat his corpse. Lieutenant John Irving