Dan Simmons has produced science fiction, horror, fantasy, and mainstream fiction and won awards in just about all of them. His first novel, Song of Kali, won the World Fantasy Award; his first science fiction novel, Hyperion, won the Hugo Award. His other novels and short fiction have been honored with numerous awards, including nine Locus Awards, four Bram Stoker Awards, the French Prix Cosmos 2000, the British SF Association Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

E-Reads has hundreds of titles on Kindle we’re happy to tell you that Song of Kali is nnow one of them. Look for news of its release on the Apple iPad soon.

In Calcutta, one of the world’s most crime-ridden cities,  nightmares become real and evil is defined by frightening occurrences. An American family finds itself immersed in lurid events as a death cult tempts it to doom.

Today marks the publication date of a new Dan Simmons novel so astonishing it’s almost impossible for me to articulate it – and I have spent several decades articulating the achievements of my client Dan Simmons.

The books is Black Hills, published by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. Here is an excerpt of a starred review from Publishers Weekly:

Hugo-winner Simmons, the author of such acclaimed space operas as Hyperion and Olympos as well as Drood, an intriguing riff on Dickens’s unfinished last novel, displays the impressive breath of his imagination in this historical novel with a supernatural slant. In the author’s retelling of Custer’s last stand at the Little Big Horn in 1876, the dying general’s ghost enters the body of Paha Sapa, a 10-year-old Sioux warrior who’s able to see both the past and the future by touching people. The action leaps around in time to illustrate the arc of Sapa’s life, but focuses on 1936, when, as a septuagenarian, he plots to blow up the monuments on Mount Rushmore in time for a visit to the site by FDR to atone for his role in constructing the stone likenesses. In his ability to create complex characters and pair them with suspenseful situations, Simmons stands almost unmatched among his contemporaries.

E-Reads carries two vintage Dan Simmons novels, Song of Kali and Phases of Gravity.

Richard Curtis

Here is Simmons himself to introduce his book to you.

Dean R. Koontz described Dan Simmons’s Song of Kali as, “The best novel in the genre I can remember. Dan Simmons is brilliant!”

In Calcutta, arguably the world’s most crime-ridden city, nightmares become real and evil is defined by frightening occurrences. When an American family finds themselves encircled by the terrors of this land, lurid events befall them and life takes on a new meaning – death.

Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Song of Kali will chill the blood and frighten even the most jaded of horror fans.

– RC

I seldom remember my dreams, but a long time ago I dreamed that I stood on the moon gazing at Earth. The exquisite glory of that vision has haunted me ever since and I have longed in vain to return to that sublime moment atop a lunar plateau taking in the dazzling silver disk of our planet. So it was easy for me to identify with the protagonist of Dan Simmons’s Phases of Gravity. Richard Baedecker is a former astronaut for whom standing on the moon has eclipsed all other experiences including love. Baedecker has literally come down to earth, but until his heart returns from the moon he will remain emotionally handicapped.

Having myself stood on the moon, at least in a dream, I can’t blame Simmons’s hero for struggling so desperately to cling to the memory, even if by doing so it takes such a terrible toll on his human relationships. Read Phases of Gravity and decide if you could relinquish your grip on an experience that only a handful of humans has been privileged to have.

– Richard Curtis

Above photo from NASA’s Apollo 8 Mission, the famous “earthrise.”

Amazon has just posted its list of best science fiction and fantasy books of 2007 and Dan Simmons’s The Terror is the top-rated book in the category. If you haven’t read this masterpiece I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for. Simmons’s recounting of the doomed Franklin expedition in search of the Northwest passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific will freeze your blood. Bad enough that two ships lay icebound for several years, but the lurking presence of a malevolent and unnameable predator takes the book into the territory of Melville and Conrad.

E-Reads is proud to carry two earlier novels by Dan Simmons, Song of Kali and Phases of Gravity.

- Richard Curtis