What I liked and didn't favor about this book: the story is based upon the failed Franklin Expedition to find and navigate the Northwest Passage in the early-mid 1800's. The captain's and crews of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror (Her Majesty's Ship) set forth and quickly find themselves trapped in ice in the Arctic. Brutal weather keeps them virtually locked in place for years, with ever increasing disease, dwindling stores of food and medicines and no rescue in sight.
The author takes this horrific tale and weaves a "what could've happened" scenario and overlays a creepy element of horror on top of that. Be prepared to be immersed though! At nearly 800 pages this book goes into detail at times that although sets a tone of accuracy and historical relevance, can sometimes wane on being excruitatingly tough to plow through. By page 150 or so I finally became hooked into the story, up to that point it was tough for me to feel like I knew or cared about the characters. For me it was similar to reading the first couple books of the Old Testament, a lot of names and not a lot of "meat and potatoes".
The entire middle portion of this story is in depth, you can nearly feel the horror and pain of the men who made this type of journey and wonder how on Earth anyone could have ever survived such an ordeal back in the days when this type of exploration was all the rage.
During the last 75-100 pages or so, the book moves from the story line in a huge leap. Once I traversed the complete change of story and got on board with the new direction, I liked it as well but it almost seemed like a "sequel" portion to what had transpired previously. All in all, I enjoyed this historical fiction. I think I learned a lot on my journey through this tale both in terms of exploration, survival, and eskimo life and folklore.
To learn more about this story or other's that Dan Simmons has written, visit www.dansimmons.com
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