The Terror (2007)

In May 1845, 129 sailors left England in search of the mythical Northwest Passage. They were never seen again. In The Terror, taking that historical incident, Dan Simmons imagines the men of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror stuck in the ice for two years while everything around them — the cold, rotten food, scurvy, frostbite, and, by chance, a giant, cunning monster — picks them off one by one. At over 750 pages, the book miraculously flies by, balancing dozens of engaging characters with riveting horror-movie set pieces (an homage to Poe's Masque of the Red Death is particularly effective). Brutal, relentless, yet oddly uplifting, The Terror is a masterfully chilling work.