Comments on: Drood: A Humongous Horror Novel

By: Max Renn

Max Renn — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:19:22 +0000

Yup, I’m with Bob. And this is Simmons’ second novel to lift an entire historical episode and embellish it with massive flab. Simmons whinged at length that reviewers refused to take ‘The Terror’ seriously as an ‘historical novel’ but reviewed it as genre fiction. LeGuin is chuckling somewhere.

Dan’s got some real issues with non-white folk.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:49:49 +0000

Perhaps people would enjoy reading this, also from Dan Simmons:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610142/posts

He will join Orson Scott Card on the not-getting-my-money list.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:36:25 +0000

Rampant venereal diseases. At least they can be cured today if you have insurance.

Can you cure herpes?

Is any woman going to suck my sore dick?

By: Robinsod

Robinsod — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Kafka owned a snake?

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:34:10 +0000

They don’t get paid by the word. They get paid by the page.

By: Nestor

Nestor — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:34:36 +0000

Um, I’m coming to the close of the Baroque Cycle so this sounds like a convenient next stop.

By: Grimgrin

Grimgrin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:04:37 +0000

Simmons lost me with his Ilium/Olympos bits. He starts out writing a neat bit of classical mytholgy meets sci fi in the vein of Zelazny and by the second half it’s “EVIL MUSLIM LIZARDS KILLING SPACE JEWS!!!”

By: Keno Download

Keno Download — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:21:34 +0000

Thanks for the review.

By: rick

rick — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:58:59 +0000

I don’t know if you adequately deal with how loathsome the integration of marketing major stuff into literary content has become. Like with the historical literary characters. Oh! It’s Ahab’s Wife! It’s Jane Austen! It’s Kafka’s pet snake narrating! It’s some memory brand patterns lighting up in your brain!

It’s even more vile, or maybe sad, when you think of how feeble the “former English major” market is. I guess the ladies can’t be blowing away zombies, they gotta do something. As a fiction writer I barely read (I sure as hell once did.) But all the smug cutesiness of literary-y fiction makes me want to puke. Still, the aesthete in me has degenerated to the point where “watchable” and “readable” are really all that’s left.

I like these reviews though, they have that unique snobby populism, never skimping on either.

By: Geoduck

Geoduck — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:07:51 +0000

It’s not like this is Simmons’ first doorstopper-horror novel; check out _Carrion Comfort_ if you’re into that sort of thing.

By: Requiem

Requiem — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:06:12 +0000

Will I hate myself for reading this? I think I will.

Will I read it anyway? Hell yes.