{"id":26066,"date":"2026-02-27T15:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=26066"},"modified":"2026-03-03T13:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T19:46:47","slug":"dan-simmons-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=26066","title":{"rendered":"Dan Simmons, RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From David Morrell comes the sad news that Dan Simmons has died:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My dear friend &amp; incomparable author Dan Simmons died Saturday from a stroke at age 77. He defied literary norms, exploring historical fiction, horror, crime &amp; other genres. His must-read titles include THE SONG OF KALI &amp; HYPERION. He was one of a kind.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NcBFT4hBc6\">https:\/\/t.co\/NcBFT4hBc6<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kNbof3MPyG\">pic.twitter.com\/kNbof3MPyG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; _DavidMorrell (@_DavidMorrell) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_DavidMorrell\/status\/2027414097030181163?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script> <\/p>\n<p>Of all the modern writers I read and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?tag=dan-simmons\">collect<\/a>, Simmons had, next to Gene Wolfe, the most complete writer&#8217;s toolkit of any of them. Characterization, plotting, pace, point of view, voice, he was a master of them all. He could write science fiction, horror, hard-boiled mysteries and thrillers, mainstream, you name it.<\/p>\n<p>After his World Fantasy Award-winning <b>Song of Kali<\/b> in 1985, Simmons would burst on the field like a supernova in 1989 with the publication of the Hugo-winning <b>Hyperion<\/b>, the Stoker-winning <b>Carrion Comfort<\/b> and the under-appreciated <b>Phases of Gravity<\/b>, and then it was off to the races. Simmons would be one of many writers tagged &#8220;The next Stephen King!&#8221;, and <b>Summer of Night<\/b> would make it onto the bestseller lists. But Simmons wouldn&#8217;t stick to horror for long, going on to publish more science fiction and a series of acclaimed historical novels that usually contained fantastic elements. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM-1024x798.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"351\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-26078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM-1024x798.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM-300x234.png 300w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM-768x598.png 768w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM-1536x1197.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-27-at-3.11.48-PM.png 1866w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I met Simmons a few times, and even did an interview with him for <i>Nova Express<\/i> that, alas, had tape recorder problems, so it never appeared. He was one of the best writers of his era, in any genre, and will be missed. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/GAK-Nova-Hyperion-772x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"597\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-18116\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/GAK-Nova-Hyperion-772x1024.jpeg 772w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/GAK-Nova-Hyperion-226x300.jpeg 226w, https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/GAK-Nova-Hyperion-768x1019.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From David Morrell comes the sad news that Dan Simmons has died: My dear friend &amp; incomparable author Dan Simmons died Saturday from a stroke at age 77. He defied literary norms, exploring historical fiction, horror, crime &amp; other genres. His must-read titles include THE SONG OF KALI &amp; HYPERION. He was one of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":139,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,56,5],"tags":[277,2332,1979,597,1970],"class_list":["post-26066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-horror","category-science-fiction","tag-dan-simmons","tag-david-morrell","tag-horror","tag-obituary","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26066"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26083,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26066\/revisions\/26083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}