Horror Aficionados discussion

It has been a LONG time since I have placed a pre-order on a book, but I did the other night with the new Simmons. Oh yeah, only a couple of days early, but I still felt like I should do it while I was thinking of it. Now I just need to find the time to read it. That will have to wait until December.

Anybody else getting it?

YES!

I preordered the hardcover about a month ago! :)

I forgot about this!

I'm going to buy it. I hope its even half as good as The Terror was. I also have some interest in Everest itself. Looking forward to it.

Yes

I am all over this!

I loved The Terror, but I REALLY, REALLY hope he is not political in this novel. His Flashback was Tea-Part dystopian novel, and I could not believe that Dan, whom I always loved for his literary style with numerous allusions to literature and mythology could be so conservative.

I gotta get a copy of FLASHBACK!

Jon Recluse wrote: "I gotta get a copy of FLASHBACK!"

Why?

Why not?

If you only explore one side of anything, you're not learning.
You're just being indoctrinated.

If you have problems with what FLASHBACK was about, and think Simmons was preaching, do yourself a favor and go to his site and find his rebuttal that he wrote to the attacks saying it was his political manifesto. He kind of puts people in their place quite well. :)

What I have heard about THE ABOMINABLE is that it is NOT a horror tale, and is basically a mountain climbing thriller. I guess it is a little slow going, but the final 1/3 is an absolute roller coaster. This what I have been able to figure from the couple of reviews that have shown up online. I avoided any spoilers, and just got an idea of the overall book.

I hope you used the pronoun 'you' in its general meaning.
I read Flashback by mistake, and I encourage people not to do the same; on the other hand, I always read one or two BAD books per year deliberately to distinguish better between good and bad fiction. Why is it that when it comes to bad fiction, it is either religious pulp or crazy far-right? I have no explanation for this one. I will read the Abominable because I read six other Simmons books, and I really enjoyed them, but if he gets uber-right political again, I will have no patience with him.

Carl wrote: "If you have problems with what FLASHBACK was about, and think Simmons was preaching, do yourself a favor and go to his site and find his rebuttal that he wrote to the attacks saying it was his poli..."

I do go to his site regularly, and I really enjoy his other entries. In his personal blog, he also explains why he is not voting Democrats any more.

I implore you to read one of his blog entries. http://www.dansimmons.com/news/messag....

He analyses his political transition and tries to explain his transformation
Many bloggers have noticed that his beliefs (political and religious) have changed with the accumulation of wealth. Does money really corrupt us so much?

That's kind of narrow minded.
There is plenty of bad fiction with no underlying message.

And way too much pushing the party line.

It's a shame to waste valuable reading time filling your mind with "safe" ideas.

Leads to an inability to form ideas.

These are the quotations from his blog

I hate the idea of war, but I’m growing ever more certain that our current appeasement policies toward Iran and its race to build nuclear weapons are all but assuring that we’ll be in a war sooner rather than later.

He said he’d win the “real war” in Afghanistan; now he’s bugging out and removing our troops in the middle of the fighting season while “friendly Afghans” daily turn their weapons on Americans.

Is this man the Dan Simmons I loved for his Song of Kali, The Terror, Drood, Illium, and Summer of Night?

Jon Recluse wrote: "That's kind of narrow minded.
"

So, handling Rand in early twenties on one hand and uber-Commie fiction under duress in secondary school on the other hand, and choosing something totally different is narrow-minded, isn't it?

And yes, I do pack my mind with 'safe' ideas of well-written fiction by Kafka, Dostoevsky, Fowles, Joyce, and Wallace. Sorry, I play safe, but I also like dark fiction that explores the horizons of a human mind and human essence. I also believe it is one of the most underrated genre fiction. That is why I like Stephen King - his main villains are human beings, not supernatural creatures. The battlefield is always human soul, and he delivers, even more now, with his sad meditations and lyrical style.

And I love the Old Dan Simmons, and I hope he is back in his new novel.

You were the one who said that bad fiction is either religious pulp or crazy far right.

That's narrow minded.

So how can you explain that all the bad books I have read belong to these two categories? And as a linguist, I first judge a book by its language and then ideas. An author can put any ideas he/she wants, and if it is written beautifully, it is still a book worth reading. I love religious fiction, well-written religious fiction. Idiot by Dostoevsky, Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, Siddhartha by Hesse, Gilead by Robinson - they are masterpieces and openly express religious ideas of their authors.
Maybe, you should indeed read FLASHBACK. I hope you will not like the ideas about racism, white supremacy, military aggression, and religious intolerance. Unfortunately, either Dan Simmons played the role of the devils' advocate very unwisely or, and this thought is horrifying, he was trying to postulate his opinions and project his fears.

I can't. honestly. But if you read a large amount of a certain subject, the amount of bad ones climbs accordingly.
I've read a lot of bad history books.

I intend to. Without making assumptions about the author. I read fiction for the stories, not to sit in judgement upon the author for what he may be thinking.

I hear you with history - people do tend to distort history, especially in books.
And no, I try NOT to read religious fiction and uber conservative books, but it happens because of my book club members. And every time I read the books of their choice, they are what they are. Just my luck ... On the other hand, statistically ... I think you got the point:-) Besides, and this is the excuse my students like to give, it is Arkansas :-)

Zulfiya wrote: "I hope you used the pronoun 'you' in its general meaning.
I read Flashback by mistake, and I encourage people not to do the same; on the other hand, I always read one or two BAD books per year del..."

Yes, no personal attack or direction meant. He just states his case incredibly well. The piece he wrote is almost as long as The Terror. :)

I should also state that I have not read Flashback or Black Hills. But from my understanding Flashback is a dystopian future in which the stuff people are condeming Simmons of promoting is what is the power. No? I have been trying to find the book, but will only buy the hardcover. Simmons and Lansdale I insist on everything being HC.

Yes, Simmons made a statement about this book. However, if you look around the forums there, it is distinctly RW. I have been a member there since around 2005. I don't participate any more because of it. I love Dan Simmons' work, but I hated Flashback.

I will also say that I don't really place much on Simmons and his personal views. Mainly due to my meeting him at a book signing back when CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT came out and he came across as a bit of a jerk. Later that night he was on a radio show and I called in to ask him questions about some of his writing, and the producer put me on hold to see if Simmons wanted to take that question. I got a quick "Mr. Simmons says he only wants to talk about the new book" and then the guy hung up. The only good aspect of that day was getting my books signed, and Simmons (begrudgingly) doing a small drawing of a vampire in my CHILDREN book. I only had him to it because he did one in the guy's book before me.

Wow. I enjoyed Flashback (as I have most of DS's books, and I have read many), and I'm one of those "San Francisco values" people the Tea Party hates so much. I just saw Flashback as a bleak speculative dystopia of a future that is scarily possible if the TP ever gets its way. If he was trying to sell me TP values, he went about it backwards, because Flashback just made me imagine and fear that future. (Admittedly, I don't read his blog; I let the book stand for itself.)

Back to The Abominable; I concur it's slow going to start, but also weirdly fascinating. (I felt the same about The Terror.) I can't put it down, and even as it teaches me way more than I ever wanted to about climbing gear in the 1920s, I'm still sucked in. And it's not political at all, aside from operating within always-complicated politics in Tibet.

In last night's reading, they finally made it to Base Camp! It should get rolling now . . .

Wow, I'm disappointed to hear that, Carl. I really am.

Heidi, you and many other people liked Flashback a lot. I'm not one of them. (There is an HILARIOUS review here on GR written by Kemper.)

Either way, I wouldn't let Flashback stop me from reading his work because I am a big fan of everything else he has written.

Oh, here's a link to that review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I'll admit, that review is hilarious. I'm not sure why I felt the need to defend Flashback -- maybe I'm just so far left that I couldn't even imagine it as propaganda. It scared the liberal snot out of me! Hoodwinked again?

All that aside, DS has surely written much better books. Song of Kali will always be my fave, but I have a huge soft spot for his sci-fi, Ilium & Olympos in particular. (AI Shakespeare and Proust scholars! A recreation of the Trojan War, gods and all! Scary, scary Caliban!)

I loved those books! It was the Hyperion books that first captured me, then the horror novels. :)

I have to say, after reading the reviews on Amazon I am looking forward to the book. The negative reviews seem to be the same, with all of the people stopping before page 100. Even the ones who say they liked THE TERROR did that. If they actually READ The Terror then they might remember the first 100 of that being a bit of a slog. My favorite is the one guy who says this is nowhere near as good as "DROOD, or even THE TERROR (which had its fair share of detractors." I think he is getting his Simmons mixed up, as I only seem to read good about TERROR and very little good about DROOD. It seems this is typical Simmons, splitting the ranks.

I really enjoyed Drood and The Terror both. :)

I'll second that.

Here's a question for those of you who read/liked Drood: how familiar with Dickens' book does one need to be? I know there's something wrong with me, but I'm not a big Dickens fan. I watched the miniseries; is that enough?

I haven't read much Dickens. But Drood is more about Dickens, the man, as opposed to Dickens, the author.
I am a big Wilkie Collins fan, though.

I like Wilkie, too. I've had Drood since it came out, but kept telling myself I needed to read the Dickens first. Thanks for the feedback!

I agree with Jon. I haven't read a real lot of Dickens, just a few of his novels. To be honest, I had never even heard of Wilkie Collins until I read Drood.
Once I finished it, I checked into some of Wilkie's work. I think I've read three of his so far, The Woman in White, The Moonstone and The Haunted Hotel. I enjoyed them all, but most especially The Woman and Moonstone. :)

Damn. My library network will not allow a hold on this book and of the nine libraries that have the book, all show it as being checked out. Good news for Simmons though! Holding off on buying it until I see what you guys think....

You will have to wait about a month+ for my review. The dang thing just sits there taunting me.

Just posted my review -- no spoilers, but definite opinions.

Heidi wrote: "Just posted my review -- no spoilers, but definite opinions."

I just Abominable today! Now I need to get the Terror and Drood….