The Terror (Novel)

The Terror is the name of a 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons. The novel is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic to force the Northwest Passage in 1845–1848. In the novel, while Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and scurvy and forced to contend with mutiny and cannibalism, they are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by a monster.

The characters featured in The Terror are almost all actual members of Franklin's crew, whose unexplained disappearance has warranted a great deal of speculation. The main characters in the novel include Sir John Franklin, commander of the expedition and captain of Erebus, Captain Francis Crozier, captain of Terror, Dr Harry D.S Goodsir, and Captain James Fitzjames.

In the final chapters of the book, Simmons explores and uses various aspects of Eskimo mythology to explain the existence of the monster (called the Tuunbaq) as a mythological creature made flesh, as well as its reasons for stalking and preying on the men of the Franklin Expedition.

The Terror was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 2008.