| Print |

Written by Jesse Gernigin Tuesday, 23 February 2010 17:08

The book is a freeze-frame of style that harkens back to Simmon's earlier Steven King-like works.

Carrion Comfort is a call back to the Dan Simmons of old. It is the second book Simmons wrote after his first success Children of the Night. If you are just now coming to 2009's reprint of this original small release novel you might be disappointed. The Simmons we have come to know in the past few years, the one that wrote Terror and Drood, is not the Simmons present in Carrion Comfort.

Carrion Comfort is a freeze-frame of style that harkens back to Simmon's earlier Steven King-like works when he was publishing books like Children of the Night. It is an old school horror epic on the same scale as The Stand. If this was all there was to say about Carrion Comfort, it would be a good read, but it is not. Where Steven King's The Stand kept the narrative moving and the plot simmering constantly, Carrion Comfort goes cold for a steady three hundred pages while the plot sinks into disdain.

The problem is that Simmons wrote himself into a Hamlet and the pirates situation forcing the narrative to take a meander around in the outer lands of plot territory. By the time Simmons brings the story back to full speed you almost forget where you were and why you were there.  The story finishes nicely, and the plot is an interesting slant on a much explored theme (that of mind controllers doing various bad things), and definitely a breath of fresh air from all of the zombie and werewolf stories that are flooding the market today.  If you like the Simmons of old this will be a wonderful re-exploration of the early parts of his writing style if not I suggest starting with Children of the Night and plotting your experience from there. | Jesse Gernigin