Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Carrion Comfort
Book Review: Great entertainment. Sad. Terrifying
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, it was long. Sometimes it was a little plodding, but as I got farther and father into the book I realized that I was beginning to be awed by this novel. The descriptions of Philidelphia were right on. (I was visiting it when I started the book) And what is further testiment to this novel is that I was reading it at the same time as Heart of Darkness and have to say that that classic is just too esoteric for any normal person to make any sense of and I was deeply disappointed because I like Apocalypse Now. I found myself more amazed by Simmons prose and themes and characters than I ever was with all that dark side, good/evil, symbolism nonsense encrypted into the Heart of Darkness. And Simmons does settings infinitely better than Conrad, capturing much of the essence of the United States. Racism, corrupt government, love, death, its all here in many forms. Beware the Honky Monster.Book Review: Great first-time experience!
Summary: 5 Stars
Aside from Dean Koontz, I think that Stephen King may be forced to abdicate his throne to the likes of Dan Simmons. I have read "Carrion Comfort" due to an indication of a friend of mine, and I was amazed. Not only by its bulkiness, but also by the fact that in it being so big, 900 pages, give or take, it was not boring, in the least. A new frontier has been forged in the fields of horror. It's name is Dan Simmons.Book Review: Great writing, fine plotting, but looooooong
Summary: 4 Stars
I haven't read anything by Dan Simmons since The Rise of Endymion, over 6 months ago. I decided to read Carrion Comfort in an impulse - I was curious as to how good his horror will be.in the first 300 pages I was enchanted, and I asked myself frenzily "How come I haven't read anything by Simmons for so long?"
by page 400 I knew the answer. Because it's sooo loooong.
Now don't get me wrong, Simmons is a hell of a writer. Many scenes in this book are really tense. The characters are vary between ok to great (most of them),and no stickers. The action is often exciting...
But there is so much of it! around page 350, Simmons starts a huge sub plot about a gang war and a haunted house(kind of). The subplot doesn't really go anywhere, except that it kills a bunch of people, and substitutes them with some other people.
Simmons is the writer most need of an editor that I know of. This could have been a Thriller masterpiece. Had it been 700 pages long, it would have stood there next to 'Red Dragon' and 'The Silence of the Lambs' by Thomas Harris.
Rather it is 992 pages long( british mass market paperback), it's a really good book, and a one that you would enjoy reading. It has some minor flaws other than the length, but it is really well done. It has the spookiest chess scene I've ever read, and quiet enough original ideas to keep this a truly original Thriller.
Dan Simmons wrote a Science Fiction masterwork with Hyperion, and now he came very close to writing a thriller masterwork. That's quite an achievement.
If you're looking for a good horror-thriller, with some mind candy and lots of action and obscenitites and sex, this is a great choice.
Book Review: Gripping, disturbing, chilling--you'll look at the strangers around you in a new way
Summary: 5 Stars
How horrifying would it be to find someone else in that most intimate of "places," your own mind, using you as a marionette, steering you to commit senseless acts of violence as an absolutely helpless pawn in their sociopathic schemes? That is the central, chillingly effective premise of the epic second novel by award-winning author Dan Simmons. Ranging from a concentration camp in Nazi-controlled Poland to the genteel Southern city of Charleston, South Carolina, to the racially charged streets of Philadelphia to a private island off the Atlantic coast, this near-900-page chiller deftly covers an equally extensive expanse of literary territory, including elements of science fiction, supernatural horror, psychological thriller, and international espionage.
If I could summarize the plot in one paragraph, it would be as follows. Our world is populated by a vanishingly small population of psychic "vampires," individuals who can enter the mind of others to control their thoughts and actions. These creatures are sociopaths, amoral monsters who casually foment violence, commit mental and physical rape, and destroy lives in order to play their "games." Three such vampires, old colleagues in sociopathology, have decided to end their decades-long game with one another by attempting mutual homicide, using (of course) innocent bystanders as their weapons. The resulting mass murder brings together our protagonists---a psychiatrist and survivor of the Chelmno death camp, a young black college student whose father was a victim of the vampires, and a Southern sheriff whose demeanor belies a keen intelligence. Over the course of 850+ pages, these characters uncover a sinister cabal of "vampires" whose games seem to be leading toward the ultimate finale---destruction of the world itself.
At almost 900 pages (have I mentioned how long the book is?), *Carrion Comfort* could be a daunting, even boring, read in the hands of a lesser talent, and yet Dan Simmons is able to pull it off with aplomb. His use of various side characters, subplots, multiple points of view, and unexpected twists, along with an ever-climbing bodycount of innocent puppets, keeps the readers interest through the very last page. Most chilling, perhaps, are the first-person musings of Miz Melanie Fuller, a Southern belle "vampire" whose obsessions with scripture, race, and propriety exist side-by-side with her callous disregard for the lives of all the pawns she uses and discards.
I had the opportunity to do dinner with Dan Simmons a decade ago and found him to be a charming man with a warm, open manner. It amazes me that a story so profoundly dark and chilling could come from a person so engaging. I guess that goes to show that Simmons is great at what he does. Whether writing award-winning fantasy, horror, science fiction, or thrillers, he always seems to be at the top of his game, and *Carrion Comfort* is no exception.
Book Review: Horror as courtship material
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time I spoke to the woman who was to become my wife, I offered to lend her my copy of "Carrion Comfort". We still have that copy. It is well-thumbed. It is tatty, tiired, falling to bits. Every year, I read it. Every year, she grabs it off me, and reads it herself. Simmons has written two perfect novels: "Carrion Comfort" and "Hyperion". The rest of his work (which also takes pride of place in my bookshelf) is merely extraordinarily good. Dan, if you're ever in Taupo for some of the finest trout fishing in the world.. drop by and see me. I generally have a coldie in the 'fridge.