Most Popular Books by Dan Simmons

LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • The multiple-award-winning science fiction master returns to the world of Hyperion in this dazzling third novel of the Hyperion Cantos, introducing new characters who bear the fate of time itself in their hands. “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest. Retrieving Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her is only the beginning. With help from a blue-skinned android named A. Bettik, Raoul and Aenea travel the river Tethys, pursued by Father Captain Frederico DeSoya, an influential warrior-priest, and his troops. And the shrike’s enigmatic appearances continue. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror—and the continuation of one of the science fiction’s greatest sagas.

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist

LOCUS AWARD WINNER • Multiple-award-winning science fiction master Dan Simmons concludes the renowned Hyperion Cantos with this magnificent “full-blooded action novel” (The New York Times Book Review). “An enormously satisfying conclusion to one of the major works of modern science fiction.”—Locus The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples. But first they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself. They have been followed on their journey by the mysterious Shrike—monster, angel, killing machine—who is about to reveal the long-held secret of its origin and purpose. And on the planet of Hyperion, where the story first began, the final revelation will be delivered—an apocalyptic message that unlocks the secrets of existence and the fate of humankind in the galaxy.

LOCUS AWARD WINNER • The multiple-award-winning science fiction master continues the epic adventure that began in Hyperion, where the opening of the Time Tombs threatens to alter the very fabric of time and space, in the second novel in the Hyperion Cantos. “One of the finest achievements of modern science fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review The shadow of war has fallen on the Web. In the corridors of power on Tau Ceti Center, chaos reigns. Out of reach from the clashing empires, the artificial intelligences of the TechnoCore manipulate everyone and everything. And on Hyperion itself, where battle rages in the skies and on the streets, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing—nothing anywhere in the universe—will ever be the same.

The "masterfully chilling" novel that inspired the hit AMC series (Entertainment Weekly). The men on board the HMS Terror — part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage — are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in. “The best and most unusual historical novel I have read in years.” —Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

Beneath the gaze of the gods, the mighty armies of Greece and Troy met in fierce and glorious combat, scrupulously following the text set forth in Homer''s timeless narrative. But that was before twenty-first-century scholar Thomas Hockenberry stirred the bloody brew, causing an enraged Achilles to join forces with his archenemy Hector and turn his murderous wrath on Zeus and the entire pantheon of divine manipulators; before the swift and terrible mechanical creatures that catered for centuries to the pitiful idle remnants of Earth''s human race began massing in the millions, to exterminate rather than serve. And now all bets are off.

The first installment of a new saga based on themes from "The Iliad" and "The Tempest" places classical characters and gods in such settings as the Plains of Ilium, the terraformed oceans of Mars, and Jupiter space.

When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general''s ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life. Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer''s ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa''s long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people''s sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people''s legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the face.

Embraced by giants such as Stephen King and Dean R. Koontz, Dan Simmons''s Carrion Comfort was originally published by Warner Books in 1989, and remains a classic of dark fantasy and horror. "One of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century. Simple as that." --Stephen King THE PAST... Caught behind the lines of Hitler''s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi''s themselves... THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world''s most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to ''use'' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul''s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind''s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself... "Epic in scale and scope but intimately disturbing, Carrion Comfort spans the ages to rewrite history and tug at the very fabric of reality. A nightmarish chronicle of predator and prey that will shatter your world view forever. A true classic." --Guillermo del Toro

A provocative dystopian thriller set in a future that seems scarily possible, Flashback proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers. The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn''t care: they''re addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom''s wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he''s lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result. Nick may be a lost soul but he''s still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor''s son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

"A mix of Henry Jamesian and Stephen King style scariness . . . Surely the first psychological/horror masterpiece of the 21st century." — The Denver Post A once-respected college professor and novelist, Dale Stewart has sabotaged his career and his marriage—and now darkness is closing in on him. In the last hours of Halloween he has returned to the dying town of Elm Haven, his boyhood home, where he hopes to find peace in isolation. But moving into a long-deserted farmhouse on the far outskirts of town—the one-time residence of a strange and brilliant friend who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960—is only the latest in his long succession of recent mistakes. Because Dale is not alone here. He has been followed to this house of shadows by private demons who are now twisting his reality into horrifying new forms. And a thick, blanketing early snow is starting to fall . . . " A Winter Haunting further demonstrates Simmons'' talent as a literary stylist. It is a frightening ghost story, one that will keep readers guessing until the last page." — Denver Rocky Mountain News "One of the scariest and most unnerving ghost stories to come along in quite some time." — St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[A] highly effective supernatural shocker." — Publishers Weekly "Simmons works toward a seriously well-written nonhorror novel, until we grow suspicious that we are into a deceptive tale much like the flicks The Sixth Sense and The Others, with a Jamesian ghost story overlay, wherein the everyday has an otherworldly reverse side." — Kirkus Reviews

Once Joe Kurtz needed revenge -- and revenge cost him eleven years in Attica prison. Now Kurtz needs a job, and the price is going to be higher. Out of prison, out of touch, Kurtz signs on with the Byron Farino, Don of a Mob family whose son Kurtz had been protecting on the inside. Farino enlists Kurtz''s help to track down the Family''s missing accountant -- a man with too much knowledge of Family business to have on the loose. But someone doesn''t want the accountant found -- and with enemies inside the Family vying for his throne, and turf warfare just around the corner, Farino needs an outsider like Kurtz to flush out who''s really behind this latest affront. As the story twists and turns and the body count rises, Kurtz no longer knows who he can trust. Everyone seems to be after something, from the mob boss''s sultry yet dangerous daughter, to a hit man named The Dane, an albino killer who is good with a knife, and a dwarf who is armed to the teeth and hell-bent on revenge. Kurtz has always been an ace investigator. Now he''s about to discover that to get at the truth, sometimes you have to go after it -- hard.

Kurtz must face the wrath of "Little Skag" Farino, the local Mafia don, and his vengeful sister Angelina while trying to track down a serial killer.

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 "Orphans of the Helix," his award-winning return to the Hyperion Universe -- that demonstrates the unique mastery, breathtaking invention, and flawless craftsmanship of one of contemporary fiction''s true greats. Human colonists seeking something other than godhood encounter their long-lost "cousins"...and an ancient scourge. A devastated man in suicide''s embrace is caught up in a bizarre cat-and-mouse game with a young woman possessing a world-ending power. The distant descendants of a once-oppressed people learn a chilling lesson about the persistence of the past. A terrifying ascent up the frigid, snow-swept slopes of K2 shatters preconceptions and reveals the true natures of four climbers, one of whom is not human. At the intersection of a grand past and a threadbare present, an aging American in Russia confronts his own mortality as he glimpses a wondrous future.

From a ghostly Civil War battlefield to a combat theme park in Vietnam, from the omnipotent brain of an autistic boy to a shocking story of psychic vampires, journey into a world of fear and mystery, a chilling twilight zone of the mind. A woman returns from the dead with disastrous results for the family who loves her. . . . An old-fashioned barbershop is the site of a medieval ritual of bloody terror. . . . During a post-apocalyptic Christmas celebration, a messenger from the South brings tidings of great horror. . . . Includes the following stories: “The River Styx Runs Upstream” “Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams” “Vanni Fucci Is Alive and Well and Living in Hell” “Vexed to Nightmare by a Rocking Cradle” “Remembering Siri” “Metastasis” “The Offering” “E-Ticket to ''Namland” “Iverson''s Pits” “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites” “The Death of the Centaur” “Two Minutes and Forty-Five Seconds” “Carrion Comfort”

The World Fantasy Award winner by the author of the Hyperion Cantos and Carrion Comfort: An American finds himself encircled by horrors in Calcutta . Praised by Dean Koontz as "the best novel in the genre I can remember," Song of Kali follows an American magazine editor who journeys to the brutally bleak, poverty-stricken Indian city in search of a manuscript by a mysterious poet—but instead is drawn into an encounter with the cult of Kali, goddess of death. A chilling voyage into the squalor and violence of the human condition, this novel is considered by many to be the best work by the author of The Terror, who has been showered with accolades, including the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the Hugo Award.