Among all the Dan Simmons book I’ve been reading in the last few weeks, I think this is the weakest, while also suggesting a much tighter, better book within. Perhaps that’s why he followed this book up with three shorter noir books in the Joe Kurtz series. He creates an interesting character, a former Marine sniper who later became a transportation crash expert through a doctorate and work on the Challenger explosion (this is the second thing I’ve read that Dan Simmons wrote about the […]

The second book in the Hyperion Cantos, and the direct sequel to the book Hyperion. From what I can gather the next two books are more spin-offs and far sequels, so my plan is to wait on those a little. We begin in the fallout of the first book, which is mostly told in storytelling and flashback. Hyperion is a mystical planet with a godlike creature on it that if captured, beaten in battle, or wooed can grant a wish. In the first book, several […]

Hardcase There’s a tell early in this novel about what exactly we’re dealing with here. It’s neo noir book written by Dan Simmons, who is mostly known for science fiction and horror, but who has dabbled in some other genres. The tell is that a character mentions loving the Richard Stark “Parker” books, but hates the prissy Donald Westlake books. Donald Westlake and Richard Stark are the same person (Donald Westlake), and the Westlake books tend to be light-hearted and funny, while the Stark books […]

A collection of short writing by the science fiction and horror writer Dan Simmons, this book is less a good collection, and more of a catch-all for fictional writing Dan Simmons worked on in a given time. That’s a shame because what’s good is very good and interesting, but there’s some distracting other writing here. Included in this collection are stories that are part of longer works like his novel Carrion Comfort, in which the original 50 page story (chapters 1 and 3 of the […]