Beyond these, however, Simmons fills in the gaping spaces between the facts with a superb thriller. In the book, the men experience true historical events such as the sudden deaths of three crew members very early in the mission, a fateful decision that would trap the ships in ice for years, and the missions to leave progress reports and messages at designated points in the area. He gives them personalities and uses some of their real-life backstories to flesh out characters. Simmons’s characters are taken from the exhibition’s actual crew lists. This novel mixes history, historical fiction and Gothic horror.

Because of this lack of information, it provides a neat, clean skeleton on which an interesting tale can be built if the author is imaginative enough. There are so few clues as to what happened-some human remains, a few messages left in rock piles, and stories from local Eskimo tribes.

The drama offers a reimagined account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition, in which the crewmen of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are targeted by the mythical 'Tuunbaq' monster after venturing into uncharted territory.The story of the Franklin Expedition is one of the great mysteries of modern history. back in 2018, and it was recently acquired by the BBC for broadcast in the UK. The small-screen adaptation of this mysterious true story originally aired on AMC in the U.S. However, after discovering the remains of Sir John Franklin’s expedition in the 1980s, archaeologists found evidence of scurvy and cannibalism among the deceased crewmen. The full history of what occurred during the expedition remains a mystery to this day. However, in the face of treacherous conditions and limited resources, all 24 officers and 110 men on board eventually died after the ships were run aground in ice. Per Radio Times, the Royal Navy voyage had set out to discover the Northwest Passage. But, what is it that inspired the horror anthology – is The Terror based on a true story?Īs mentioned, the series is based on the 2007 book The Terror by Dan Simmons - a novel which is inspired by the real story of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition to the Arctic. Based on Dan Simmons' best-selling novel of the same name, psychological thriller The Terror centres on a doomed Royal Navy expedition to the Arctic, which departed from England in 1845 and never returned.

The terror by dan simmons