If I had checked this out of the library I would never have finished it, but when I buy a book I usually finish it to try to find something worthwhile. I have several books on my shelves that I hated but kept because they had nice covers and/or spines and I decorate with books...this one I disli...
There are few words that strike more fear in the hearts of Über-Intellectuals (as defined in my review of The Da Vinci Code, of all places) than the word “sequel”. Adored by Hollywood producers and publishing moguls alike for its low-risk, high profit profile, this extension of plot and character...
Centuries after the events of The Fall of Hyperion, and three and a half years after I read that book, Endymion takes place and I read it. I had actually forgotten that there was a book between this one and Hyperion; I described this as the second book in a series when friends asked me what I w...
(Contains spoilers towards the end)This is my least favorite book.It's not the worst book I've ever read. "Manos: The Hands of Fate" is perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's not my least favorite. It takes more than simple technical ineptness to rise (or sink) to the rank of my least f...
Holy bloody freakin' incredible hell. Or Hades. Whatever. I'm... I have no words. Seriously. This was beyond brilliant. I don't know who took Dan Simmon's brain, drugged it up, sprinkled it with colours and glitter to come up with THAT but please do it again. Often. Ilium is a wild mixture of sci...
The Terror is a fictional tale based on the real life experience of the notoriously doomed John Franklin Expedition.These brave men journeyed hundreds of miles by sea voyage in the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, part of the British Naval fleet sent to the Arctic to force the Northwest Passage in 1845...
An extraordinary artist with few rivals in his chosen arena, Dan Simmons possesses a restless talent that continually presses boundaries while tantalizing the mind and touching the soul. Now he offers us a superb quintet of novellas -- five dazzling masterworks of speculative fiction, including "...
http://archive.boulderweekly.com/1030...This review originally appeared in the BOULDER WEEKLYA good storyDan Simmons weaves words into worldsby Vince Darcangelo- - - - - - - - - - - - Technology has enabled artists to express themselves and materialize their artistic visions in ways that would ha...
Although this novel is classified as horror, the nature of that horror is somewhat ambiguous. There are hints of supernatural horror and there is the presence of violent criminality but, in some ways, it is the Indian city of Calcutta (Kolkata in modern spelling) itself that is the true horror po...
Je ne m’étendrai pas sur l’absurdité du titre qui ne veut rien dire (décision arbitraire de l’éditeur et non de la traductrice d’après ce que j’ai compris). Ce n’est ni la première fois ni la dernière que des titres se voulant racoleurs passent à coté du sens profond qui leur a été donné au dépar...
Dan Simmons’ Summer of Night, published in 1991 by Bantam Books — I elected to review this first because it made a strong impression me, as a writer. Yet it’s one of those books that seems to incur either admiration or abject dismissal. If you haven’t read it or the sequels, when determining whic...
Accident reconstructor Darwin Minor gets into an accident himself. It turns out people are gunning for him. But why? With the help of beautiful FBI agent, Sydney Olson, he's going to find out...Dan Simmons is one of the more versatile writers active today. He can write in any genre, from scie...
Prayers to Broken Stones is a collection of the early short stories by Dan Simmons. I remember being knocked out by his novel Hyperion when I read it in the early 90s. My best friend sent me this collection of short stories shortly thereafter and I somehow managed never to get around to reading i...
Phases of Gravity is a treatment of the human journey, paralleled and perused by a middle-aged fictional astronaut and his personal wanderings. It is a story of the aftermath of success, and the gaping hole of fear left by failure. Three levels of experience are interwoven in this book: that of...
I first want to thank my pal Dustin for recommending this novel (brick of a book is more like it) to me - I think it was exactly what he said it would be. Thanks again bub!Carrion ComfortThis was a complex time traveling, time bending, vamperific, violent sludge of a read; thank god I listened to...
After finishing this novel, I'm still not 100% sure what I think about it. First off, it takes place in Hawaii, a place I have never been nor do I know all that much about. There is a tremendous amount of Hawaiian mythology in this book and to be honest with you, I have no idea if Simmons made it...
Finally I have finished the entire Hyperion Cantos, the series than began with the all-time sci-fi classic Hyperion, almost concluded in The Fall of Hyperion, launched a second arc in Endymion and ends here with The Rise of Endymion. These last two books read more like a duology than the third an...
A heartfelt bravo and a cap tip to Danny Simmons for breathing fresh air into the crowded, stale world of the vampire. Overall I am giving this one a solid 4 stars, but there are aspects here that are easily 5 star (or even 6 star) worthy making this a must read for fans of "classic" vampire fict...
This fantastic book LOVEDEATH is a collection of short stories all with death as the theme. It was like shooting thru a tub of butter with a cannon the way I went thru this bo ok. Mostly Fiction.The first story was written like an H. Ellison story running back and forth between reminiscences of b...
I'm a huge Hemingway fan, have been since my my senior year in High School when I had to read one of his short stories for my Advanced English class - I immediately couldn't get enough. The summer after high school I binge read almost all of his novels. In university, I took every class that had ...
The brightest names in science fiction pen all-new tales of space and wonder. Contents 1 • Introduction (The New Space Opera) • (2007) • essay by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan 6 • Saving Tiamaat • (2007) • shortstory by Gwyneth Jones 24 • Verthandi's Ring • (2007) • shortstory by Ian McDo...
-Otro ejemplo de gustos y tendencias del género en su tiempo.- Género. Relatos.Lo que nos cuenta. Antología con 27 relatos de terror con toques fantásticos de diferente naturaleza, de 20 autores diferentes ordenados por un objetivo orden alfabético, publicados en la conocida revista “Twilight Zon...
The first two books in this series are pretty good, sort of a sci-fi Canterbury Tale. The whole thing is very ambitious, but ultimately just tries to do too much, borrowing from nearly every possible resource from Dante to Robinson Crusoe to Asimov to the Matrix to Star Trek. There are Martian P...
The architecture was noble and the layout oozed common sense: rather than wait outside in the cold and damp under a gigantic open shed roof as in London’s great and small stations, here one went down a ramp inside the sprawling structure, and the train came in to you on a warm and well-ventilated...
Human figures writhed on the many branches and spikes: the closer forms recognizably human and in pain, the farther ones dwarfed by distance until they resembled clusters of pale grapes. Kassad blinked and took a breath beneath the surface of his quicksilver skinsuit. He looked around, past the s...
............................... This story started—as all stories do—as a vague rumination, quickened into focus during a Star Trek: Voyager telephone pitch, was midwifed into existence by Robert Silverberg, and finally resulted in me missing the Ninth Annual Lincoln Stree...