A perilous 19th-century voyage to the wilds of Alaska awakens a subterranean terror.

This lively work of historical horror opens in 1866 when President Andrew Johnson assigns Interior Department Field Director Jack Calsin to survey the Alaskan territory that the U.S. is about to purchase from Russia. Johnson hopes it will bolster his chances in the upcoming election if the survey finds evidence of gold and other valuable resources. In Jack’s first-person account, trouble begins when one of the ship’s main boilers explodes, killing crew members. From then on, the catastrophes mount—fatal illnesses, a destructive storm, and a disastrous landing on Alaska’s coast. Even as Jack is given a brief respite to marvel at the abundant wildlife, plentiful ore deposits, and rugged beauty of the surroundings, the author ups the suspense with the threat of something deadly looming. “A creature,” says a tribal shaman, “who hunts during the anger of the big wind and frozen water!” (Although short at 80 pages, the 19th-century setting of this illustrated tale and the wonders and terrors Jack observes during his ill-fated trip are reminiscent of the Jules Verne 1871 classic, Journey to the Center of the Earth.) Marich knowledgeably weaves the historical into the fantastical with references to Johnson’s role in the fraught post­–Reconstruction Era, the bitterness of the ship’s crew (comprised of former Union soldiers) over Johnson’s leniency toward the Southern rebels, and the torment of the ship’s doctor, haunted by graphic memories of the dead and maimed on the Civil War battlefields. Touched upon here, too, is a sense of what life was like onboard a three-masted ship with coal-burning boilers. Scattered throughout are full-page illustrations of some of the story’s dramatic scenes roughly executed by the author in what appears to be charcoal, sepia, and colored pencil. A sequel is planned.

A credible approximation of a 19th-century diary that deftly blends history and horror.