Search Results for: Dan Simmons

The book that reinvented Space Opera – from the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Terror, which is now a chilling TV show.

It is the 29th century and the universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.

On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.

Readers are hooked on Hyperion:

‘One of the best epic, old mythology, and literature inspired, mindblowing, amazingly ingeniously written space operas‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘The scope of imagination, wordplay, and critical analysis of humankind is astounding . . . this is a story-driven narrative, and the stories that we’re given are well worth the entry into a brave, new, unfamiliar world‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Hyperion has that indescribable, almost lovecraftian terror, dread and brooding present throughout’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Combine the artful poetry of John Keats with a science fiction retelling of the Canterbury Tales . . . what you have is Hyperion. A masterpiece of literature‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘A science fiction classic . . . If you count yourself an sf fan you need to read this. If you just want to read a damn good book this is also for you‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Part three of the groundbreaking Hyperion Cantos, from the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Terror, which is now a chilling TV show.

Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest. Retrieving Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her is only the beginning. With help from a blue-skinned android named A. Bettik, Raoul and Aenea travel the river Tethys, pursued by Father Captain Frederico DeSoya, an influential warrior-priest and his troops. The shrike continues to make enigmatic appearances, and while many questions were raised in Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, still more are raised here. Raoul’s quest will continue.

Calcutta, a monstrous city of immense slums, disease and misery, is clasped in the foetid embrace of an ancient cult. At its decaying core is the Goddess Kali: the dark mother of pain, four-armed and eternal, her song the sound of death and destruction. Robert Luczak has been hired by a New York magazine to find a noted Indian poet who has reappeared, under strange circumstances, years after he was thought dead. But nothing is simple in Calcutta, and before long Luczak’s routine assignment turns into a nightmare … it is rumoured that the poet has been brought back to life, in a bloody and grisly ceremony of human sacrifice.

The conclusion to the groundbreaking Hyperion Cantos, from the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Terror, which is now a chilling TV show.

The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples.

But first they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself. They have been followed on their journey by the mysterious Shrike – monster, angel, killing machine – who is about to reveal the long-held secret of its origin and purpose. And on the planet of Hyperion, where the story first began, the final revelation will be delivered – an apocalyptic message that unlocks the secrets of existence and the fate of humankind in the galaxy.

Taking the events and characters of the Iliad as his jumping- off point, Dan Simmons has created an epic of time travel and savage warfare. Travellers from 40,000 years in the future return to Homer’s Greece and rewrite history forever, their technology impacting on the population in a godlike fashion.

This is broad scope space opera rich in classical and literary allusion, from one of the key figures in 1990s world SF. Ilium marks a return to the genre for one of its greats.

Helen of Troy is in mourning for her dead husband, Paris. Killed in single combat with the merciless Apollo, his body is nothing but a scorched and blasted thing.

Hockenberry, her lover, still sneaks from her bed after their nights of lovemaking. And the gods still strike out from the besieged Olympos, their single-molecule bomb casings quantum phase-shifting through the moravecs’ force shield and laying waste to Ilium. Or so Hockenberry and the amusing little metal creature, Mahnmut, have tried to explain to her.

Helen of Troy does not give a fig about machines. She must dress for the funeral.

And man and the gods and the unknown players in this tragedy must prepare for the final act. And a battle that will decide the future of the universe itself.

The Hyperion books are credited with single-handedly reinventing and reinvigorating SF in the 1990s. A broad canvased, hugely imaginative and exciting SF epic, the books draw on the works of Keats and provide a uniquely intelligent and literary approach with cutting edge science, compelling characterisation and edge-of-your-seat excitement.

The story is continued in ENDYMION and THE RISE OF ENDYMION, which Gollancz will also be publishing in an omnibus volume.

The critically acclaimed and bestselling sequel to HYPERION, from the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Terror, which is now a chilling TV show.

The mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The Ousters are laying seige to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the Ultimate Intelligence; God. The God of Machines. His genesis could mean annihilation for man.

Something is drawing the hegemony, the Ousters, the AIs, the entire universe to the Shrike.

April Grove and Burracombe characters are linked in this touching Lilian Harry novel.

It is December 1952. A wedding is being planned in April Grove, Portsmouth, and Jess and Frank Budd want to bring together all their friends and neighbours. They even invite Stella Simmons and her sister Maddy, who now live in the Devonshire village of Burracombe.

Dan and Ruth Hodges attend, together with Dan’s son Sammy, who immediately falls in love with his childhood playmate Maddy. But Stephen Napier, son of the Squire of Burracombe, proves a strong rival and Maddy is not yet ready to make such a momentous decision about her life.

Meanwhile, Ruth’s niece Lizzie and her husband Alec seem to have overcome the problems they encountered when Alec returned from the POW camp which almost broke him. But their happiness is threatened when a face from Lizzie’s past reappears in her life and turns everything upside down.

Take three of the leading names in contemporary horror writing, commission one-third of a book’s worth of stories from each, and the result is DARK VISIONS.

Stephen King leads off with three stories, including “Sneakers”, about a very unusual haunting, and “Dedication”, one of the most powerful and unsettling of all his works.

Dan Simmons pays homage to Philip K Dick with “Metastasis”, one of three highly accomplished stories.

And George Martin rounds off the book with the brilliant werewolf novella, “The Skin Trade”.

DARK VISIONS is a brilliantly original showcase from three masters of the macabre.

The Inhibitors are back and Humanity is doomed!

Many, many millennia ago, the Inhibitors seeded the universe with machines designed to detect intelligent life – and then to suppress it. But after hundreds of millions of years, the machines started to fail and intelligent cultures started to emerge.

Then Dr Dan Sylveste and the crew of Infinity discovered what had happened to the long-vanished Amarantin race … and awakened the Inhibitors.

On Yellowstone, where no one is quite who they appear, the Inquisitor and the planet’s Most Wanted War Criminal are watching as the Inhibitors turn a small group of planets into raw materials. Whatever they are building with those materials is not going to be good for Humanity.

Once again, Al Reynolds has produced a stunning, universe-spanning space opera of mind-blowing proportions. Big in size, big in concepts, REDEMPTION ARK will leave you gasping at its audacity and breathless at its conclusion.

This is British SF at its absolute best.

Readers are hooked on the Revelation Space series:

‘An exceptional, incomparable read‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Better and even darker than the previous one. And so realistic written that it gives you shivers . . . There are concepts which are simply too big to comprehend’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘A hugely satisfying read . . . one thing that is cool about this series is that I’m three books in and while there is a overall larger story being told each one is totally self-contained . . . Big ideas, a gigantic story, and a sincerely massive and awesome finale‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘It’s a well-written mix of sci-fi, horror, suspense, and mystery . . . Redemption Ark is a treatise on the dangers of the kind of closed-minded thinking which plagues our world today’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘I am blown away by the level of realism, depth, and structure of this series. Throw in some incredible characterizations and you have a premium sci-fi series‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Reynolds has created a fun, thought-provoking, and exciting space opera series that is as well-written as it is entertaining. Fans of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series and Dan Simmons’s “Hyperion” series will enjoy‘ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The tyranny of the gods is absolute, and they are capricious, malevolent and almost all-powerful, playing cruel games with the fates of mortals for their own ends . . .

A vibrant and powerful epic set against an alternate Bronze Age, this tale of gods, men and monsters, conspiracy and war, is a rich, compelling and original read from a master of the historical and fantasy genres. The people caught up in toils of the gods are merely trying to survive. Victims of vicious whims, trapped by their circumstances or pushed beyond what the mortal frame can bear, a handful of god-touched mortals – a scribe, a warlord, a dancer and a child – are about to be brought together in a conspiracy of their own.

A conspiracy to reach the heavens, and take down the corrupt and aging gods . . . who are already facing troubles of their own . . .

An epic which draws on the Greek mythology of gods and heroes, this new trilogy is a must read for fans of Dan Simmons and Madeline Miller alike.


Praise for Miles Cameron:

‘Utterly, utterly brilliant. A masterclass in how to write modern fantasy – world building, characters, plot and pacing, all perfectly blended. Miles Cameron is at the top of his game’ John Gwynne, author of The Faithful and the Fallen series

‘Cold Iron is fantastic. It shimmers like a well-honed sword blade’ Anna Smith Spark, author of The Court of Broken Knives

‘Promising historical fantasy debut featuring an expansive cast, an engaging plot, and a detailed eye for combat’ The Ranting Dragon on The Red Knight

‘Literate, intelligent, and well-throughout . . . a pleasingly complex and greatly satisfying novel’ SFF World on The Red Knight