The following profile was originally written for the Bloomsbury Review, and will run in September/October, 1999. Dorman T. Shindler, a freelance writer from Kansas City, is a regular contributor to The Bloomsbury Review, Dallas Morning News, Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, San Antonio Express-News, St. Petersburg Times and Mystery Scene. The profile is Copyright © 1999 by Mr. Shindler and reprinted here with his permission.

Dan Simmons: Literary Chameleon

Three years ago, Dan Simmons was planning a trip to Cuba. It was to be part of a research trip for a new novel, The Crook Factory (Avon, 1999), an historical, literary thriller featuring Ernest Hemingway. "I'm ashamed to say I never got there," Simmons admits, during a recent telephone interview. "I did set up a trip with a fellow who was taking celebrities and so forth down there -- because it's difficult to get there, you can't get a Visa -- but it never happened." Nevertheless, Simmons did his usual amount of intricate research into his subject. Says Simmons, "I got more and more involved in the details of 1942 Cuba, so I feel like I've been to all these places. I might be surprised, somebody may point out some mistake I made. It's hard to find a 1942 Cuba travel guide! But there is a lot written about the time. And Hemingway wrote a lot about Cuba." Some of the most surprising and seemingly fictional parts of the novel are actually true, such as the almost vaudevillian silliness of the American intelligence agencies. "It reads like a farce." Says Simmons. "The FBI didn't even communicate with the FBI. And the Long Island incursion where the German spies came ashore. If I had made that up, I wouldn't have put it in the book." Apparently, the FBI actually considered Hemingway a real-life threat, going so far as to intrude on the most personal details of his later life. Simmons explains, "I don't think there was any doubt that he was suffering. But he was suffering more from physical injuries. That's been quite an interesting area of controversy, and it became a whole area of research by itself. He had had so many concussions at that point, and his body was in such bad shape -- especially after the African aircraft accident -- but the most shocking fact in the research, to me, was that the FBI was still actively involved in surveillance and that they talked to Dr. Rome, his psychiatrist (even before he and his wife did) about shock treatments. People thought he was paranoid, but the fact was that the FBI was actively following him at the time. He certainly was a mess, but I think he had reason to be paranoid."

In the course of eighteen years as a professional, Simmons has written novels in a wide variety of genres. From science fiction, Hyperion (Bantam/Spectra, 1990) The Fall of Hyperion (Bantam/Spectra, 1991), Endymion (Bantam/Spectra, 1996), The Rise of Endymion (Bantam/Spectra, 1998), to horror, Summer of Night (Warner, 1992), Children of the Night (Warner, 1993), and mainstream Song of Kali (Tor, 1998), Phases of Gravity (Bantam Spectra, 1990). He's even managed to mix and match genres in a few novels, like The Hollow Man (Bantam Spectra, 1993) and Carrion Comfort (Warner, 1990), or Fires of Eden (Harper Prism, 1995). But such diversification wasn't part of a calculated effort, Simmons is quick to point that out, "It really hasn't been so much a career plan as a tremendous celebration of being able to write what I want. Which sounds corny, but that's true." His literary thriller, "The Crook Factory," is evidence of that. It fits into none of the former genres he has explored. Says Simmons, "I'm not turning into a thriller writer. I get the urge to write the next book and then somebody has to categorize it. But I am running into the problems that my agent and everyone explained to me. Many of the chain computers are compartmentalized. Computers look at my name and I don't exist -- because I don't exist as a thriller writer. So I'll probably get a total of eleven [new readers] on this new category. But I'm happy to be able to write. So many writers are falling by the wayside today, or they're being subsumed into franchise machines." Something that literary chameleon Dan Simmons need never worry about. His middle names seem to be originality and diversification.

Along with a writing thrillers, Simmons has recently been involved in shepherding several of his novels into the Hollywood film-making factory. Both "Song of Kali" and "Carrion Comfort" have been optioned for film; and negotiations are in progress for rights to his quartet of SF novels. The project most likely to see completion first will be his screenplay of "Children of the Night." It is to be directed by Robert Sigl, a young director whom Steven Spielberg has compared to Polanski. "He truly is imaginative and filled with energy. And I like him as a friend," Says Simmons. "If this project goes all the way to completion, at least it's with people I've resonated well with, and a director I know has his own vision."

If he sounds laid back regarding concerns over film adaptations, it's because Simmons saves his energies for more important battles. After a project for Microsoft (an interactive version of his "Hyperion" books, for which Simmons had already been paid) was canceled, he regained the material and the rights, and found himself growing more interested in electronic publishing and the rights of authors in that new frontier. "That's something I'm very interested in," says Simmons. "That's going to be the next battlefield for authors and agents. Things don't even have to be online -- as long as they can download it to these E-books. So a book would never be out of print! Even in instances where the estate holds the rights, some of the publishers are saying it's still in print, so they can download it to E-books. It's like it was with illustrators: they would do fine work and it would be owned by somebody else forever. [Publishers] are going to own the rights to things for all eternity if they print books [in that manner]. When [one of my] books goes out of print, I want it taken out of print and I want the rights back. Richard Curtis, my agent, has been on the cutting edge. He has seen what the publishers are planning and he's trying to protect author's rights. So this will be a good fight."

In the meantime, Dan Simmons has plenty of projects to keep him busy. As usual, he isn't writing with either genre or marketing in mind. There's a second thriller, entitled "Darwin's Blade," which was just finished for Avon. It is a tale of insurance fraud featuring Darwin "Dar" Minor, a former NTSB accident investigator who is working for a private, California-based company. Simmons calls the tale both "a thriller and a black comedy." And "Orphans of the Helix," a recently completed SF novella (his last piece of fiction set in the "Hyperion/Endymion" universe), will be published in Avon's "Far Horizons" anthology this May. Simmons is also gearing up for a short story collaboration with Harlan Ellison (who helped launch his career). That tale will see publication sometime in the year 2000, in one of Ellison's books. Then there's the idea for a ghost story book he recently pitched to his publisher. Simmons describes the embryonic novel as his version of "The Jolly Corner" for baby boomers. Does he worry that refusing to play the categorization game will affect his future as a writer? Laughing, Simmons just says, "Writers should write until they go face down in the keyboard ^Ö it's my agent's job to sell that last page!"