Here’s the final installment of this year’s Father’s Day Gift Guide, featuring recommendations from Marie Gilbert and Jeffery X Martin. You can also see previous installments here.
Marie Gilbert:
When you are married as long as I am, it’s hard to find a great Father’s Day gift for your hubby. Luckily, we both like historical drama. We recently watched “The Terror” on AMC. The series is based on the doomed Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Although the series was exceptional, it only served to make my husband more curious about the book, which led to the perfect Father’s Day Gift.
The Terror.
Dan Simmons’ 2007 novel is a fictional account of the Franklin Expedition. There were two ships, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus. The expedition was the best-provisioned arctic expedition since Sir James Clark Ross’s expedition to Antarctica. The book and the series begin in the winter of 1847. Both ships are been trapped in the ice, over twenty-eight miles from King William Island.
Captain Franklin was not the first choice for this expedition, but he lobbied for the job with the hopes of this trip being the last chance to obtain prestige and honor. Captain Crozier, both on the series and in the book is portrayed as the better of the two captains, but his heavy drinking causes a few problems.
The crew may have signed up for recognition and adventure, but what they got was a true nightmare. Not only were they isolated from the rest of the world except for the few Esquimaux they encountered, but the food they took with them was tainted with lead. After they rescue a young Esquimaux girl, Lady Silence, and her injured male companion, their situation turns dire. There is a mystical creature that is hunting down the crew, but the only person who understands the creature, Lady Silence is unable to speak: her tongue has been bitten off.
Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer who has won four Bram Stoker Awards, as well as the Hugo Award for his works. However, it is with The Terror that he has created the most accurate of horror tales. He has pitted man against nature, and man against man.
Jeffery X Martin:
