Cafe of Dreams ~ Book Reviews: Review

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Review - Drood by Dan Simmons

Wilkie Collins

Charles Dickens

I am thrilled to be part of Hachette Books blog tour for Drood by author Dan Simmons. This is the first by this author for me and I couldn't be more hooked - whats more, it's the first book that I have read with this many pages since I can ever remember, lol!! On to the tour review....

Drood

by: Dan Simmons

Hardcover: 784 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (February 9, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316007021
ISBN-13: 978-0316007023
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 2.6 inches

WOW! This is the first word that pops into my mind when I think of this astonishing novel, Drood, by the talented author Dan Simmons. I have to say that the length of this book was highly intimidating to me - but I am sooo thrilled that I did not let that stop me. With the focus being on Charles Dickens, as narrated by his good and close friend Wilkie Collins, I am now fascinated with both of these people and want to learn all that I can about both. I would also love to read a work by Wilkie Collins, since, to be quite honest, I don't recall ever hearing of this literary figure prior to reading Drood. I absolutely love how this is a "what if" take on what may have happened with Dickens after a near death accident - delving into his psyche and reason for his actions - was he indeed driven to the insane side after his accident or was what he was seeing and experiencing real?

Dan Simmons uses excellent and very vivid descriptions in his writing. The beginning of the book seems a bit on the lengthy wordy side, however, that is all for a purpose. Mr. Simmons writes in a way that never leaves the reader shaking their head in bewilderment or confusion. For the length of this novel, it is wonderfully excecuted and draws the reader in from the beginning.

Drood is not a light read, by far. Bordering on the dark side and questioning sanity, this novel will take you to an entirely different diminsion. One thing that I wanted to mention, also, about the author's style of writing in Drood - Mr. Simmons's writing takes on a very old time, era precise style, at least to me. This makes the story even more believable, coming from the voice of Wilkie Collins. Even the length, it seems, is appropriate for that time period, from which Dickens and Collins lived. As I stated before, I have not read anything else by this author, so have nothing to compare it to, but his style in Drood, just brought the story to life and almost transport the reader back into that time period.

Drood is a true delight and one that I highly recommend!

*overall rating 4.5/5

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About the book:

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

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About the author:

Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.

Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years -- 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York -- one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher -- and 14 years in Colorado.

His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.

Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."

Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range

of Colorado -- in the same town where he taught for 14 years -- with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker -- their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike -- a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels -- was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.

Dan is one of the few novelists whose work spans the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, historical fiction, noir crime fiction, and mainstream literary fiction . His books are published in 27 foreign counties as well as the U.S. and Canada.

Many of Dan's books and stories have been optioned for film, and current discussions include plans for such books as THE CROOK FACTORY, DARWIN'S BLADE, the four Hyperion novels, his story "The River Styx Runs Upstream," and his original screenplay for "THE END OF GRAVITY." He also has written two teleplays which were produced for the low-budget syndicated TV series "MONSTERS" and a screenplay adaptation of "CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT" in collaboration with European film director, Robert Sigl, with whom he hopes to adapt his 2002 novel, A WINTER HAUNTING.

In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education and writing.

(click here) to visit the author's website!

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