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''The Terror'' is 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.〔 ''The Terror'' was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 2008.〔 ==Plot summary== The novel follows a non-linear narrative structure, beginning at a point approximately midway through the overall plot. The narrative switches between multiple viewpoint characters and uses both third and first-person narrative (the latter in the form of Dr. Goodsir's diary entries). The story begins in the winter of 1847. HMS ''Terror'' and HMS ''Erebus'' have been trapped in ice 28 miles north-northwest of King William Island for over a year. The weather has been much colder than normal, the ships' tinned provisions are dwindling and often putrid, and the sea ice and landmasses are mysteriously devoid of any wildlife that can be hunted. In addition to the natural dangers of the intense cold, disease and impending starvation, the crews are being stalked and attacked by a monster on the ice, which resembles an immense polar bear. (The creature is later revealed to be a mythological Inuit demon called the ‘Tuunbaq’.) In flashbacks set prior to the beginning of the story, the novel relates some of the backstory behind the expedition's current predicament. The Franklin expedition is the latest in a series of attempts to force the Northwest Passage, all of which have ended in failure. Sir John Franklin, having been recalled in disgrace from a government posting in Van Diemen's Land, views the expedition as his last chance for glory and recognition. Captain Francis Crozier, embittered by romantic rejection at the hands of Sir John's niece, seeks to distract himself from his heartache by again venturing into the Arctic. The rest of the crew have signed on for glory and adventure. Though the expedition begins auspiciously enough, three men die of disease during their first winter in the ice, and soon after, Sir John makes the fateful decision to travel around the northeast coast of King William Island, which results in the ships becoming trapped. The flashbacks continue. In the summer of 1847, Sir John orders a number of exploration parties to set out in various directions across the ice, in hopes of finding open water. None of the parties succeed in this goal. However, one of the parties encounters a pair of Inuit on the ice, a young woman and an old man. They accidentally shoot the man, whereupon they are set upon by the Tuunbaq, who kills Lt. Graham Gore, the leader of the party. When the party returns to the ships, the girl follows them back. Crozier names the girl ‘Lady Silence’, as her tongue appears to have been bitten off in the past. After the Inuit man dies aboard HMS ''Erebus'', the Tuunbaq begins stalking and attacking the crews. Though it shows signs of intelligence, the men believe that it is nothing more than an unusually aggressive bear. This assumption leads them to underestimate the creature. Sir John is killed in a botched attempt to bait the creature out, and a number of other officers and men are killed as the months progress. Following Franklin's death at the claws of the monster on the ice, Captain Francis Crozier becomes the expedition commander, with Captain James Fitzjames assuming the role of executive officer. Despite some initial tension between the two men, they gradually become firm friends as they attempt to deal with the threats of the monster, disease, and impending starvation. As the narrative continues into 1848, the crews become further debilitated by the extreme cold and lack of fresh food, and the Tuunbaq continues to hunt and kill them. An ill-fated ‘morale boosting’ New Year's Eve carnivale masque ends with a large number of the expedition, including three of the four surgeons, being killed by the Tuunbaq and friendly fire from the expedition's Royal Marine detachment. Crozier lays the blame for this disaster on Caulker’s Mate Cornelius Hickey and two other men. They are punished with 50 lashes of the cat. From this point on, Hickey begins to plot against the officers, especially Crozier and Lieutenant John Irving, who had earlier discovered Hickey copulating with another member of the crew in ''Terrors hold. As spring 1848 approaches, the ''Erebus'' is eventually crushed and sunk by the relentless ice. Its remaining crew decamps to HMS ''Terror'' for a short time, until Crozier finally orders the ship abandoned. The 105 survivors of the expedition 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 man-haul the small boats of both ships south to the Canadian mainland and then down Back's River to an outpost on Great Slave Lake, an arduous journey of several hundred miles. Before they can set out, Lt. Irving is set upon and murdered by Cornelius Hickey. Hickey lays the blame for Irving's death on a band of Inuit hunters that Irving had in fact befriended, and the Inuit are attacked and massacred in revenge. From this point on, the native population is feared and avoided by the crews. With all hope of outside rescue eliminated, the crews begin hauling the boats across the sea ice and frozen gravel of King William Island. The trek is brutal, and many of the men die from exhaustion, exposure, and disease, including Captain Fitzjames. There are rumblings of mutiny from Cornelius Hickey and his growing entourage, and the Tuunbaq continues to appear with deadly frequency, at one point slaughtering an entire boat crew as they explore an open lead in the ice. With no other options, the crew continues to press south, despite the mounting casualties. The survivors eventually reach a position on the southern shore of King William Island that they name ‘Rescue Camp’. The survivors now splinter into several groups. Hickey and his faction declare their intent to return to Terror Camp, while another group opts to go back to ''Terror'' herself, despite the possibility that she has been crushed by the ice. Crozier agrees to let them go, but later he and Dr. Goodsir are lured away from the camp and ambushed by Hickey's men; Crozier shoots and fatally wounds Magnus Manson, Hickey's lover and chief crony, and is then shot and apparently killed by Hickey, while Goodsir is taken hostage. Without them, the remainder of the crew decides to keep marching south. All three groups eventually meet with disaster. Hickey's crew, despite resorting to cannibalism, is stopped short of its goal by a blizzard, and most of the men either starve or freeze to death, while the remainder are murdered by Hickey, who has begun to suffer delusions of godhood. Manson dies of his wounds, Goodsir commits suicide, and Hickey is killed by the Tuunbaq. The other groups' fates are not revealed, but it is implied that they have all died as well, leaving Captain Crozier as the only survivor of the expedition. Lady Silence rescues him after the ambush, treats his wounds, and begins teaching him how to survive on the ice. They eventually become lovers, and he chooses to abandon his old life and become a ''sixam ieua'', a shaman with a mystical connection to the Tuunbaq. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Terror (novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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