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 it. All I can do is shake my finger at my younger self and say, "You missed something. Should have read it sooner."Wow. I don't remember making the connection to Harlan Ellison when I read Hyperion, but if anyone comes close to writing like Ellison, it's Simmons. (And, interestingly enough, the introduction is written by Ellison and he claims to have discovered Simmons.) He has that same ability to move effortlessly between genres...a little horror here, a little science fiction there, a little bit of the dark thriller...and all of it making deft and accurate comments on the human condition. And this is his early stuff--the "I'm just getting into my writing groove" stuff. Makes me want to run out and buy the most recent thing he's written just to see if he kept it up and made it better.This book has it all--from pyschic vampires who get their jollies (and "feedings") from making other people kill to a story of Resurrectionists who can bring your mom or dad or son or lover or whoever back from the dead. But is that really a good thing? There are stories built on the battle of Gettysburg and the loss of the Challenger shuttle. And stories cutting the televangelists down to size. There's even a story explaining why there seems to be so much more cancer nowadays....and stories that hold the seeds that would grow into Hyperion.The man can write. He can take you back in time to a Civil War battlefield or whisk you away to planet you've never heard of--and you absolutely believe that you're there. He may have just started in these stories, but he's miles ahead of other first-time writers
Great read. Simmons has a more novel-as-short-story approach. There is a lot of movement and coloration where others prefer scene-based and quick motion narrative."The River Styx Flows Upstream" and "Vexed to Nightmare by a Rocking Cradle" and also "Iverson's Pits" are my favorites. Simmons is probably the greatest storyteller of the last 50 years. I believe he will be remembered as the greatest writer of the century. I would like to note here though that NONE of these short stories would be published in todays faux-artistic world of short story publishing. These stories take patience and require the reader to move through scenes as one might observe them in real-time, all with a perfect balance of strangeness and true to character voice. Magazine editors currently (I'm hoping it's a fad) are almost exclusively interested in "idea stories" or what I call "What if" stories. There is no room anymore for philosophical subtext, clever description or even a puzzling split metaphor. Everything has to be understood by the common idiot. Everything has to be plain as day and to hell with double meanings or even single meanings, they'll be lost on the modern reader. It's sad that writers are almost forbidden to learn from or mimic the great writers. To do so is a direct path to rejection. Rather, there better not be any loopholes in your story about lawnmowers that come alive at night to feed on rascally garden gnomes. Never mind that you can't write worth a shit, and you couldn't spot a plu-perfect verb if it latched on to your only descended testicle.Oh my, another one of my rants. Oh well.It was a good book.
What an interesting and literary kaleidoscope of short stories! Prayers to Broken Stones contains a wide variety of Horror, Science Fiction and even Fantasy elements in it. Some of the stories are mesmerizing and tantalizing to the senses while others are adequate to well done. Being my first Dan Simmons experience, I am impressed with his ability to make the plot thicken like blood after it has run cold. Truly imaginative and inventive in its imagery and prose. Great introduction into the mind of Dan Simmons. 4.5 stars
—Matt Garcia
This is a collection of short stories by my favorite author. I love his sci-fi, and even enjoyed his novel Carrion Comfort, though I would generally shy away from horror. The stories in this book are mostly horror, or if they're sci-fi, tend to have a bit of a thriller type morose edge to them. Though his writing is still superb, and the intros are interesting, I must say that I much prefer his novels. This is because Simmons is the undisputed king of the backstory. He writes up the most unimaginably complex web, and ties it all up with a pretty little bow at the end. Short stories just don't have time for that. Also, his novels tend to end at least somewhat happily, but not necessarily so for his shorts. I guess I'm a sucker for a happy ending, but none-the-less, I have to acknowledge these stories (even or perhaps especially the darkest ones) to be well written and enjoyable to read. Remembering Siri is my favorite. Glimpses or hints of the Hyperion universe are also quite fun in a couple of the stories.
—Greg Frederick
"Prayers to Broken Stones" is a collection of thirteen early short works by Dan Simmons, who is the best writer working in any genre (in my humble opinion, at least). Several of the short stories in this collection were the seeds for his longer works. Characters in the short stories "Remembering Siri" and "Death of the Centaur" would play larger roles in his Hyperion series. "Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams" is clearly an early version of "The Hollow Man". The short story "Carrion Comfort" would later appear in the novel of the same name. There are some great stories in here, ranging from hard sci-fi to horror and everything in between. Some of the notables: "The River Styx Runs Upstream", Simmons' first-ever published story is a creepy but superb sci-fi zombie tale of a family dealing with the loss, or rather NOT dealing with the loss of a wife and mother; "E-Ticket to 'Namland", in which the entire country of Vietnam has become an "amusement" park for veterans and their families to "relive" the excitement of the war; "Metastasis", which reveals the true nature and cause of cancer; and "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites", which explains why so many communities have a barber shop that no one ever seems to frequent. Occasionally, one will run across a story that is merely mediocre, but keep in mind that Simmons wrote most of these early in his career, and even in his mediocrity one catches glimpses of his genius. This is a must-have for Simmons fans.
—Scott Rhee
