Like I've said before, book reviews are tough because by the time I remember to review a book, I'm halfway through the next one. But this time I'm halfway through the fourth in a series, so it's no big deal. Jim Treacher mentioned Dan Simmons and his Hyperion quartet (it's really two books split in two each for market purposes) in my comments a while back. Just a couple of days later I saw a Dan Simmons short-story collection at a bookstore in Boulder (I can't remember the name. Of the collection, not the bookstore. Although I can't remember the name of that either, come to think of it).
So I picked it up. One story was a neat one about a suicidal former teacher in Colorado who was fired for being a drunk and drove his jeep into a mine shaft. A classic Colorado suicide, all the elements are there: drink, a jeep, and a deserted mine shaft. But instead of dying he was whisked away to some parallel universe seemingly run by a female former student, who's trying to kill him. There was no one else there, just empty streets and unlocked stores. So he found a gun, some ammo, and some liquor. Then she shot up the liquor and closed down all the liquor stores, so he was stuck being sober. That's terrifying!
The other story I remember was set in the Hyperion universe, a few hundred years after the four books. It didn't seem interesting to me, a story about creatures that used to be fully human but modified themselves with solar wings and the like so they could live in deep space. Yawn. I skipped it, and then came back to it later. What do you know, it was fascinating. Far future, alien culture seemingly bent on destroying a near-alien human culture, attempts to decode their language, all shit I dig. So I bought the Hyperion novels.
Article comments
1 - Tony
The collection you are talking about is Worlds Enough and Time.