The Terror

by Dan Simmons

I hope to become something of a Naturalist on this voyage. While having no personal Experience with arctic flora and fauna, I plan to become personally acquainted with the life-forms in the Icy Realms

Flora? In the Arctic? I don't think there is any. ANd you want to watch out for the fauna cuz some of them can kill you!

“Belay that!” cries the first mate. “No fucking profanity.

LOL

Another winter—another full year—in the ice could undo them. The expedition would be out of food, coal, oil, pyroligneous ether for lamp fuel, and rum. This last item’s disappearance might well mean mutiny.

Oh well, we're out of food and coal for heat but we still have rum so let's not mutiny just yet.

and native Esquimaux who were hostile more often than not

"Esquimaux"?! Is this the first way it was written before being shaved down to "Eskimo"?

At least it can’t climb the mainmast. Nothing that size can climb. No white bear—if it is a white bear—has experience climbing. The thing began climbing the attenuated mainmast.

Ha ha, so you think buddy!

The day, though dark as night, was not as cold as some recently—perhaps only forty-five below out—and

Oh a heat wave, only -45 (F) out!

For the past week Erebus had been rocked and battered by a blizzard and staggeringly low temperatures, some reaching down to–100 degrees.

-100 degrees?!?!?! (F) How is it possible to survive that without getting frostbite everywhere?

When Tom Blanky’s third and final leg snapped off, he knew it meant the end.

What the....oh wait, he's the guy with the peg-leg. That sentence made me do a double take for a second there, like there's a 3 legged guy!