So, we all know about the Large Hadron Collider, correct? Just in case we don't, let me try (I stress TRY) to explain. The LHC is the largest and most expensive (BY FAR) particle accelerator ever built. Over 10,000 scientists contributed to its construction and a worldwide collection of thousands of massive computers stand by to monitor its findings. A particle accelerator is a HUGE contraption constructed with immense electromagnets meant to smash subatomic particles together to find even smaller subatomic particles. The ultimate goal of all this particle acceleration and particle smashing is to break down matter into its SMALLEST measurable form. When this smallest measurable form is discovered, ostensibly, we will know the true nature of all matter in the universe and all the mysteries of the cosmos and quantum physics will unravel before us. There was no small controversy before the first (successful) experiment of the LHC on September 1oth of this year, due to some paranoid fringe elements who believed that it would cause a miniature black hole which would swallow up the Earth and end all life as we know it. Alas, just over a week later, on September 19th, the LHC was shut down due to a fault between two superconducting bending magnets. No more experiments will be carried out until Fall of next year. Everyone got that?
OK. Imagine that you hold a diagram in your mind of the complete blueprint and layout of the Large Hadron Collider. You understand every circuit, every relay, every artificial synapse firing at every millisecond, for miles and miles and miles.
Now put 100 of those in your head.
You still aren't even close to the mind of Dan Simmons.
The first time I read 'Hyperion', it completely flipped my reality. This was quantum physics not as science, but as art. A narrative with a strong undercurrent of hard sci-fi, meticulously researched, but executed with such lyrical and eloquent skill, it read like some sort of complex binary sonnet. Three sequels later, I still couldn't get my jaw off the floor. On one level, an intergalactic love story spanning hundreds of universes and told from dozens of perspectives, on another, a military epic set in the farthest-flung reaches of deep space. On yet another, a primer on quantum physics, uroboric time travel, and the strongest and darkest underpinnings of religion and the very concept of faith. Simmons is a genius. He is a freak. He is my favorite author.
Did I mention that a couple years after he TOTALLY OWNED the sci-fi kingdom with the Hyperion series, he strolled back in with 'Ilium' and 'Olympos', a two-part saga clocking in at just under 2000 pages, concerning a re-animated history teacher, genetic clones of the Greek pantheon, bio-android hybrids from the rings of Jupiter, little green men on pirate ships, wizards, and Burning Man? Oh, and even deeper meditations on quantum physics and the true nature of our universe? No?
Well, besides all that, he occasionally tosses of a vampire novel like 'Children of The Night', some cryptic Indian suspense-thriller like 'Song Of Kali', dark historical fiction like 'The Terror', or a coming-of-age horror story like 'Summer of Night'. And don't forget 'Carrion Comfort', another 1000-page plus epic concerning "mind-vampires" who take control of unsuspecting passers-by to fight out a timeless, bloody war betwixt each other.
You don't deserve fiction this good. But Dan Fucking Simmons is going to give it you anyway.
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