Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Bremen left the hospital and his dying wife and drove east to the sea.

The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Art of Literature by Arthur Schopenhauer

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The Hollow Man – 3/5 Stars This is not the basis of the Kevin Bacon movie, and we’re all the better for it. This book, which I think is filled with some issues throughout, is very compelling and interesting, even if I think the driving narrative behind it is relatively weak over all. Jeremy Bremen is a telepath and a mathematician, and we find him on the worst day of his life, as his wife has finally succumbed to the cancer that had been killing […]

The hegemony consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

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I had a very unclear understanding of what I thought this book was, not by reading about it or looking at reviews for it, but by looking at the original cover. It looks like a kind of sci-fi fantasy novel ala Dune or some other kind of adventure in space. And while there’s elements of that throughout, the book ended up being so much smarter, better written, and a number of other things as I started to understand what I was reading. We begin aboard […]

“Don’t go, Bobby,” said my friend.

Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

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This is a horror novel that when it gets right down to it is pretty scary because of how subtle the actual terrifying moments of it are. It’s very much like being in a black room and a tiny amount of light slightly unveils the horrors in the room and even if your image of them are unclear and the immediate danger isn’t fully realized, it’s all the scarier. In addition, the mix of real world scary and fantasy scary intermix in convincing ways. The […]

Monsters on the Ice

The Terror by Dan Simmons

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We chose this for our October 2019 book club.  I just finished it. It is a very long book. Honestly, I would not have read this but for the book club.  Nothing about it seemed all that appealing to me. “I need to read it before watching the miniseries”: nope. Scary ice monsters: nope. 900 pages: nope. A slow, cold descent into terror and death: NOPE. Dan Simmons: Honestly, neither here nor there. Old ships: OK MAYBE. So I’m as surprised as anyone that I […]

The incredible ending to one of the greatest modern speculative fiction stories

Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

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Sticking the landing is difficult in stories. Hyperion built up so many mysteries and threw so much at the reader, it would take a monumental achievement to have a satisfying conclusion. Dan Simmons accomplished that ending so beautifully that even an East German judge would score it a 10 (kids, ask your parents to explain that, if necessary). There are so many disparate stories in this book that are woven together: the pilgrims on their way to the Shrike to either have their one wish […]

Hyperion – a modern classic

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

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Some books make you think and force you to challenge long held concepts. Some books affect you emotionally and can force you to weep during social situations where it may be inappropriate (reading on the bus, for example). Only a true classic can achieve both of those objectives and Simmons’ Hyperion certainly qualifies. This is a book that has won many awards and been hailed as a classic for over two decades and I am now realizing how influential it is when I watch shows […]



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