Into the Cold, Dark Wintry Night

April has arrived in South Texas, with a long, hot summer soon to follow. While I await its arrival with dread, perhaps others would consider it a blessing.

Lately, I've begun reading a novel by Dan Simmons entitled The Terror. The novel is a fictional recounting of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated attempt to cross the Northwest Passage with two steam-powered ships: the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror - vessels which had already entered the annals of British maritime legend during Sir James Ross's expedition to Antarctica from 1839 to 1843. The Franklin Expedition, however, would not conclude so successfully.

Presently, I've read only sixty pages into what is a seven-hundred-fifty plus page novel, but the situation portrayed by Simmons is incredibly bleak. Marooned in the Canadian Arctic and facing a third consecutive hard winter, the remaining men of the two vessels struggle against the elements as well as a frightening Lovecraftian monster that is picking off the survivors at will.

By contrast, the difficulties of a South Texas summer don't seem so daunting at all. Even from a fictional source, perspective is a wonderfully sobering agent.