The following review originally ran in the Kansas City Star on 28. January, 1995. It has been been substantially expanded and modifed by the author to be published on this web site. Dorman T. Shindler is the Science Fiction columnist for the Des Moines Sunday Register and a contributing writer/reviewer for the Dallas Morning News, the Denver Post, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel the San Antonio Express-News the St. Petersburg Times the Bloomsbury Review and The Armchair Detective. The review is Copyright © 1996 by Mr. Shindler and reprinted here with his permission.

Fires of Eden: A Review

Dan Simmons often creates genre fiction with ties to "classic" mainstream works and writers: Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion (The Canterbury Tales and John Keats), or The Hollow Man (Dante and T.S. Eliot). And when not assimilating such worthy sources, he has made a point of deliberately writing against the pro forma expectations of the "popular" audience, as he did in his brilliant first novel, Song of Kali.

Set in the Hawaiian Islands, Simmons' new novel, Fires of Eden, takes the ingredients of horror fiction and blends them with an unlikely spice: comedy. Using a dual narrative, the author spins parallel tales of nature striking back at the humans who persist in ravaging its resources. The first narrative takes place in the present as Eleanor Pery and Cordie Stumpf seek answers to the mysteries contained within the journal written by an ancestor of Eleanor's -- they seek these answers in order to stave off an invasion of ancient Hawaiian gods that have mysteriously reawakened. Gods that take the forms of a half-human, half-shark creature and a multi-eyed, talking pig (chauvinistic, no less)!

The second narrative takes the form of Lorena "Kidder" Stewart's journal during a sojourn to the Sandwich islands. There she becomes embroiled in an adventure that includes the first uprising of the aforementioned gods, the invocation of a volcanic goddess called Pele, and the companionship of a scraggly, obnoxious young man who keeps boasting about his reportorial and writing skills -- one Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

What sets this book apart from other horror novels is the authors audacity: he dares to mix humor and horror in such large and extreme portions, and even poke fun at the genre itself. Most writers of horror fiction (from Stoker and Poe, to Stephen King and Peter Straub) have always taken the form too seriously. Dan Simmons takes the trappings of the form (evil gods, greedy antagonists, helpless women) and turns them inside out.

The gods that have been called upon to destroy mankind for sins against nature want nothing more than to indulge in the same type of debauchery. The greedy antagonist (one Byron Trumbo) turns out to be one of the more likable characters. And the strongest and most heroic characters of this novel are all women.

For long time readers and fans, Simmons has brought in familiar faces (Cordie Stumpf, and Mike O'Rourke ) from past novels (this book, along with Summer of Night and Children of the Night make up what Simmons calls his Elm Haven tryptich). But even the uninitiated can enjoy this fast-paced novel.

As usual, Simmons remains the literary guerrilla, exercising a penchant for didacticism (the power of nature and women; the destructiveness of mankind his greed) with a light touch, while keeping the wheels of suspense turning swiftly.

Part historical romance and travelogue, part suspense-thriller and black comedy, Fires of Eden is a heady mix filled with poetic prose and biting admonitions.