Journal Article

Comparing Colonialisms in Dan Simmons's The Terror and its AMC Adaptation

Moore, Fiona

2025

Overview

The book has a less sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of native people and their resistance to colonialism, but a more optimistic view of the sustainability of their relationship with the environment. The present article adds to this discourse by, firstly, considering the relationship between the book and its TV adaptation in terms of their treatment of colonial themes. [...]far, few works have included the TV series when considering The Terror, or, when they do, tend to focus on the written text (for example, Ziki et al 2018). [...]the article uses a media studies lens to explore the process of adaptation and its relationship to the novel, considering how the decisions made by the showrunners in producing the series, and in dialogue with historians, archaeologists and Native people, affected the decisions made on how to present colonialism in The Terror. Jen Hill, however, argues that this is a perspective largely informed by hindsight, and that the imagery at the time was more complicated: that 'polar space had come to represent the limit of both empire and human experience' (Hill 2008: 3), but that 'empty Arctic space, despite or because of its removal from colonial spaces, had helped to define a form of British masculinity that enabled and naturalized British rule of colonial spaces' (8).

• Publisher: Science Fiction Foundation
• Subject: Adaptation / Canadian literature / Colonialism / Expeditions / Imagery / Inuit / Literary criticism / Native peoples / Novels / Richler, Mordecai (1931-2001) / Science fiction & fantasy / Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851) / Simmons, Dan / Television