# Dan Simmons has died **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 2, 2026, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140 "2026-03-02T15:45:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/1 "2026-03-02T15:45:54Z")
> **[Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion and The Terror, dies aged 77](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/02/author-dan-simmons-death-hyperion-terror)** > > Award-winning science fiction and horror writer died in Colorado on 21 February with family at his side The Hyperion Cantos is still one of my favorite book series. Too bad he turned into such a nutjob douchebag in later years. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/2 "2026-03-02T15:47:41Z")
I really enjoyed his Hyperion series, the Ilium books, and several more stand alones (Song of Kali was horrifying and stuck with me for a long time). I don’t know how such smart and creative people can turn into such weirdos. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/3 "2026-03-02T16:00:23Z")
He was one of the all-time Science Fiction greats - up there with anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/4 "2026-03-02T16:22:24Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t know how such smart and creative people can turn into such weirdos. I think they are among the most likely to _turn into_ weirdos (as distinct from learning the basics of it at their parents’ knees). Creative thinking doesn’t always have a good check valve. I was also a fan. Fortunately, I didn’t experience any of his nutjobbery for myself. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/5 "2026-03-02T16:25:28Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t know how such smart and creative people can turn into such weirdos. He was one of a number of writers that turned into right wing extremists after 9/11 happened, unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/6 "2026-03-02T16:34:03Z")
His early work was great, but after _Hyperion_, he had a vast decline. I remember one of his novels as just an excuse to describe guns in loving detail. I had hopes for _Drood_ – Willke Collins is a favorite of mine – but the ending was one of the worst I’ve ever come across, a deus ex machina to set up “it was all a dream.” I only vaguely know of his politics. Looking back, I can see the racist subtext and the homophobia (though the villain’s homophobia is what leads him to be destroyed). His early career made him look like one of the greats. His later work did not. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/7 "2026-03-02T16:40:01Z")
This is the fist I heard of this. I loved the Hyperion series. Didn’t care much for Song of Kali, but liked Carrion Comfort and Children of the Night. I read Ilium, but not the sequel. I hadn’t heard about his decline in recent years. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > I had hopes for _Drood_ – Willke Collins is a favorite of mine ? The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Dickens, not Collins. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/8 "2026-03-02T16:43:20Z")
I just added Hyperion to my cart on Amazon last week. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/9 "2026-03-02T16:50:02Z")
I admit the only book of his I have read is _The Hollow Man_. It was great though and he will be missed ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/10 "2026-03-02T16:51:21Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > I just added Hyperion to my cart on Amazon last week. Just the first one? You can arguably skip 3 and 4 and have a complete story, but you need 2 if you have 1. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/11 "2026-03-02T16:55:13Z")
I loved the first two Hyperion books. I read them both a few times, and they inspired in me a brief but deep interest in Keats. I enjoyed the second two, but never revisited them. The first two novels are on my shelf of “favorite books of all time”. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/12 "2026-03-02T16:55:33Z")
+1. I read the first one in the late 90’s and couldn’t get my hands on the second one for about five or six years (In the dark ages before easily accessible epub/kindle books it was occasionally impossible to get a given book here in the global deep south), talk about cliffhanger agonies. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/13 "2026-03-02T17:04:18Z")
I wasn’t aware he went down the same road as Orson Scott Card. He certainly didn’t have a good regard for religion, at least not the Evangelical kind. I prefer to remember his works over his political leanings. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/14 "2026-03-02T17:18:52Z")
I agree that the first two Hyperion books were great and the last two… I don’t think I could even finish the series. As for Scott Card, he didn’t change at all from what I know of him. I was in a writer’s workshop with him in 1983. All the others there I knew were liberal to progressive locals who saw him regularly, and they already were uncomfortable with Scott’s politics and personality. He was brilliant, to be sure. He hadn’t had time to write a story to pass around, a commandment at a workshop like that, so he borrowed a machine and set down a story he had composed in his head. It later won an award. The field is full of people like that. The storyteller and the person often come across wildly differently. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/15 "2026-03-02T17:58:22Z")
Yes, just the first, good to know it’s not a complete story. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/16 "2026-03-02T18:12:27Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Yes, just the first, good to know it’s not a complete story Read them all. The whole series is great, and should stand as a benchmark for other authors to aspire to in telling a complete story, with a satisfying ending that wraps up loose ends and explains the mysteries. If I’m remembering right, there are tonal, stylistic, and character shifts across the books, and that may be why some people react negatively to the later ones. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/17 "2026-03-02T18:25:12Z")
Books 3&4 take place a few hundred years after 1&2, with mostly all new characters. There was one loose end after the second book, which got expanded into 3&4. I didn’t dislike them but they weren’t nearly as good as 1&2. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/18 "2026-03-02T18:27:37Z")
I couldn’t get into books 3&4, the ready, to me, more like a typical SF adventure story without the greatness of the first two (specially the first one). ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/19 "2026-03-02T18:40:08Z")
He did write some great sci-fi and some excellent horror, though the latter borrowed a bit from Stephen King (homage I guess, not theft). And I read and recommended most of those early works. I think where he started to slide for me was _Darwin’s Blade_, a one-note joke on the Darwin Awards, and then he went off the edge completely in his Dennis Miller-like rightward lunge in _Flashback_. I stopped reading him then, but can unequivocally recommend most of his early books. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140/20 "2026-03-02T23:34:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This is the fist I heard of this. I loved the Hyperion series. Didn’t care much for Song of Kali, but liked Carrion Comfort and Children of the Night. I read Ilium, but not the sequel. > > I hadn’t heard about his decline in recent years. > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > I had hopes for _Drood_ – Willke Collins is a favorite of mine > > ? > > The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Dickens, not Collins. Yes, but Collins is the protagonist of _Drood._ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-simmons-has-died/1028140.md?page=2)