I forget what I’d read of his that made me pick up Flashback. Now I wish I could forget Flashback. He seemed to have the mindset that liberals don’t get to be right on anything. I don’t mind a writer being conservative, I loved Jerry Pournelle who, when he portrayed the other side, did so honestly.. But with the Simmons book, the vitriol dripped off of every page. I am only grateful that I picked it up at a library sale for maybe a buck and didn’t pay full price.
Yes. That’s when I gave up on him. The book was just an excuse to lovingly describe firearms.
That was near his last book. Only two more after Flashback, plus one more that was supposed to be published in 2025, but wasn’t. (It was also supposed to be published in 2017, but wasn’t.) He got a brain injury in 2014 that apparently left him unable to continue writing much.
I enjoyed Hyperion Cantos 1&2, and agree that 3&4 are very different books. I do actually enjoy 3&4, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure I’d recommend them to fans of the first two.
I read and enjoyed the Illium/Olympos dualogy, but didn’t feel the stories intertwined as successfully as Hyperion. And with the disappointment of the latter 4 novels, I didn’t read anything else, and thus was ignorant of the changing political tone.
Still, I’m a sucker for anyone who works classic literature, poetry, and history into quality scifi, so I’ll miss their writing, even if not the person they became. 