We Lost Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons died on February 21st. He was 77.

He wrote lots of books, but the one he’ll be best remembered for is Hyperion.

If you haven’t read Hyperion, I want to be careful not to overexplain it, because the structure is part of the experience. The short version is that the novel is built like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It features a group of pilgrims traveling toward something terrible, each telling their story along the way. It won the Hugo Award in 1989. It’s simply one of the best science fiction books of the 20th century. The Fall of Hyperion completes their story.

The author might have gone off the deep end in the last few years of his life. Simmons got driven crazy by watching too much Fox News after September 11th. Seriously. However, if you can separate the art from the artist, I highly recommend reading Hyperion (and maybe Carrion Comfort and The Terror, too).