Dan Simmons's latest novel takes on the legendary Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition. For the first two-hundred pages, it's unclear whether it's a straight fictionalization of the ill-fated expedition or a work of fantasy. Simmons drenches his work in historical accuracy, and it's a wonderful read. From the history books (or, in my case, wikipedia ), we know that no one survived the expedition, that the crew was very likely stricken with lead poisoning from poorly-tinned canned food, and that they likely resorted to cannabalism at the end.

Simmons weaves all of these details into his reimagining of the expedition, and he adds a couple of twists that could (perhaps) be interpretable as hallucinations due to lead poisoning. Regardless of how firmly the novel is based in reality, it's a knuckle-whitening read. Good stuff.