In May of 1845, two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, left England on a projected three-year voyage under the leadership of noted explorer John Franklin. Their mission? To find the fabled Northwest Passage that would enable ship traffic to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific through icy waters north of Canada. They were neither the first expedition to attempt this feat nor the last, but their utter disappearance amid the Arctic islands has led to more than 150 years of speculation about the nature of the men's fate.

Hugo Award-winning novelist Dan Simmons has turned his accomplished pen to this same task with THE TERROR. It turns out he's more than up to the challenge of inventing a fictional fate for the doomed mariners. His novel participates in a long line of Arctic-themed literature, and fans of these other accounts will not be disappointed. Simmons has clearly done his research, seamlessly incorporating clues gleaned from recent forensic expeditions to the site into his plot. All the elements of a multi-year Arctic voyage are here --- the tedium and fear, the constant danger, the consumption and the scurvy, the snow-blindness, the near-starvation and the madness and cannibalism that result.

But Simmons has added his own unforgettable, bone-chilling element to a story that could seem icy enough. Perhaps inspired by the name of the HMS Terror, Simmons has invented a monster, a leviathan that haunts the men from without as much as their own demons haunt them from within. The men can't settle on what the thing is --- most seem to think it resembles a gigantic polar bear, one that possesses not only lethal claws and an insatiable appetite for human flesh, but also a deadly intellect. Where did the beast come from? Is its arrival connected to the appearance of the mute Inuit woman, Silence, who is alternately lusted after and feared by the sailors?

The answers become clearer when the (surviving) crew, led by the novel's real protagonist, Captain Crozier, set out over the pack ice on sledges when it's clear that the future on the ships is untenable. Crozier himself, an eminently sensible but materially unsuccessful Irishman, is cast as the foil to Franklin, whose impracticality and refusal to leave behind the trappings of Western society (including real china and gourmet food) is posited as part of his downfall.

Throughout, Simmons's storytelling is practically flawless. For a good chunk of the novel, readers (and sailors) are not sure whether the creature stalking the ship is real or a figment of the men's imagination. Only near the end is the beast's appearance explained and rationalized in a way that makes perfect sense and gives it near-cosmic importance (not an easy feat in an over-750-page book that could have been dismissed as just a gory horror novel). Historical facts and details are presented naturally and painlessly, as when Crozier, in a psychic vision, correctly foresees the years of follow-up expeditions that will search for the party's remains.

In addition to advancing the plot quickly by shifting points of view among various officers and crew, Simmons also brings certain key scenes --- particularly the New Year's Carnivale --- to life with imagery that will remain crystallized in readers' minds long after they have managed to escape the icy prison that awaits Franklin and his men.