Drood: A Novel - Softcover

Simmons, Dan

3.54

16,651 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316120618 ISBN 13: 9780316120616

Publisher: Lb Books, 2011

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On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?
Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

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Review:

Drood is something of a change of pace for the talented American writer Dan Simmons, who made his mark with highly ambitious, sprawling futuristic epics such as Hyperion, (which won the prestigious Hugo award) and The Fall of Hyperion, creating -- with tremendous panache and invention -- alternate worlds and societies. Here, however, is Simmons’s take on 19th Britain and two of its greatest creative artists: the writers Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins (the title, of course, is a reference to Dickens’s last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood). Dan Simmons’ Drood, however, is a very different literary endeavour, with the two writers plunged into a darkly atmospheric Victorian world where supernatural creatures haunt the shadows (and, beneath the streets, an alternative cityscape exists).

All of this is handled with the energy we have come to expect from Dan Simmons, and along with his eventful narrative, he is able to take on notions of creativity and the gulf between genius and talent (Dickens and Wilkie Collins are pungently characterised). Perhaps those more used to the intergalactic reach of Simmons’ earlier work may need to adjust (and an interest in Dickens, Collins and in the 19th century classics is definitely an advantage), but for those persuaded to join Simmons and his two protagonists on their sinister and terrifying odyssey (a rather long one, it should be noted – the book is nearly 800 pages), this is a journey they will not regret undertaking. Simmons’s early work utilised elements from the horror genre (a constant here) – and horror reappears frequently in Dickens’ world, making this a strong literary marriage. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"A dazzling journey through a crooked, gaslit labyrinth and a tenebrous portraiture of the tortured minotaurs that dwell within. Genius is the true mystery, and at its edge--the abyss." Guillermo del Toro, writer and director of The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth"

" A spellbinding tale, bold and sly and so steeped in the filigree of this era that it seems to have been written just after a seance during which both Dickens and Wilkie Collins were present." Julia Keller, "Chicago Tribune""

"Simmons has captured to a tee the high style of late Victorian melodrama: the story line is consistently engrossing and utterly unpredictable. This rip-roaring adventure is a true page-turner." "Library Journal""

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