Simmons, Dan

• Series: Hyperion
  • Hyperion (10 r)
  • The Fall of Hyperion (8 r)

    • Get ready for two very different, very powerful books. The first has been compared to the Canterbury Tales, as a group of travelers on their way to a planet called Hyperion share stories of how they are related to the place and the weird creature of death there known as the Shrike. If the first tale (the priest's tale) doesn't hook you, I don't know what will. The second book takes place after the pilgrims arrive and tells how they seek out the Shrike and try to discover both his purpose and their own. This is epic science fiction the way it should be done. One of my all-time favorites!

  • Endymion (9)

    • This picks up the story many years after TFoH, and continues one of the major storylines from there. A young girl, Aenea, is forseen is a great threat to the current ruling hegemony in the Galaxy, a twisted version of the Catholic Church that relies on the cruciform parasite and the promise of resurrection to hold sway. She is protected by the Shrike and some of her other companions while she tries to unravel her destiny. As usual, Simmons drops idea after amazing idea on the reader and tops it off with an interesting plot. Even if you haven't read in the Hyperion series for a long while, you'll still enjoy this book, which is definitely better than TFoH but not quite as good as the original (which is admittedly a hard target).

  • The Rise of Endymion (8)

    • While not as compelling as the first book in the series, this is still a very strong conclusion to the overall storyline. This book continues to follow the story of Aenea and her companion, Raul Endymion, as they escalate their battle with the church. I think I would have enjoyed this book more had I read the rest of the series more recently. Several references are made here to the philosophical questions dealt with in books 1 and 2, and I didn't remember enough of the plot from book 2 to really appreciate the positions of the various factions.

• The Song of Kali (5 r)

  • Fiction story set in modern-day Calcutta about a man who is travelling there with his wife in order to find out more about the Kali cult. Interesting story, scary at times...probably Simmons weakest effort I've seen, but still damned good!

• Phases of Gravity (7)

  • A multi-layered novel about an Astronaut who is reflecting on his life. Very different from Simmons' other stuff, but also quite good. I've written a full-length review of this, if you want to read it.

• Carrion Comfort (7 r)

  • Dan Simmons attempts to write his King-sized (pun intended) horror novel and comes away with a really good story. This one is about a bunch of mental vampires who roam around taking control of other's minds. It describes the history of a feuding group of four of these foul people and how one man tries to fight them. Excellent book!

• Summer of Night (7)

  • Another big horror novel, the obvious comparison will be drawn to King's "It" in that this is about a terror stalking a town that only a group of kids seems to be able to fight. Simmons again writes a good plot with great characters and some very scary scenes, even more so than King (though I like King's plots better than this one for some reason). I strongly recommend this one!

• The Hollow Man (7)

  • This book is about a telepath who nearly goes insane when his wife (who had telepathically shielded him from the babble of others' thoughts) dies. This describes how he tries to find himself and how he ends up in some really horrifying situations (I'll never forget that ranch!). Eventually, the book gets into a much deeper meaning, as the characters try to find a way to use their powers to actually control reality. I get a little bogged down in the techno-babble here, but the plot and the ending especially more than made up for any such weaknesses. Another winner from Simmons.

• Fires of Eden (5)

  • I got the feeling upon reading this book that it is a book that Dan Simmons will look back upon one day and regret. It's almost as if he took an extended vacation in Hawaii and then made a point to incoporate a lot of the local mythology into a horror story so he could call the whole thing a tax write-off. The premise of this story is that some native Hawaiians got so mad at a millionaire developer that they summon up their local gods, who subsequently run amok. Meanwhile, in an attempt to parallel a little-known adventure had by Mark Twain, a woman named Eleanor tries her best to stop the madness. To say the characters are cardboard-thin would be a complement. Many plot threads are just dropped altogether near the end, which is a hopeless mess.

    With all of this firmly in mind, I still enjoyed it. This book is your basic horror-story pulp fiction, and Dan Simmons, even when he's slumming, is entertaining. Don't go in expecting too much, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. The idea that the same genius who wrote Hyperion...well...it just seems like a waste of talent.

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