One can only wonder what Simmons will do next, now that he's shown us he can do everything the best writers in horror and science fiction can do." - The Philadelphia Inquirer

do you like long books? Both SK and DS are often accused of having poor editors, but I like these types of narratives that draw you into another world set in another time I made the comment about halfway through the book - When was the last time I saw a firefly? The last time I can remember - with any kind of certainty - was when I was six years old. My father had to explain to me the miracle of a living thing creating light without, well, anything. I was too young to grasp the concept, but I do remember my dad's words: The characters were well-developed, and even though there are blatantly obvious parallels between these kids and the kids in IT (a would-be writer, a kid with intense mommy issues... actually, i feel like that's a trope in most of these kids-in-peril-fighting-monsters stories. One always has to have serious mommy issues) they were all fully their own people, and you find yourself invested in them and their fates. Skilled writer par excellence Dan Simmons takes a subject straight from Stephen King land and runs with it... Simmons keeps the tension high." --"Locus"

The Subterranean Press 25th Anniversary Edition of Summer of Night will be printed on 80# Finch, and feature ten full-color original illustrations by David Palumbo. Old Central School still stood upright, holding its secrets and silences firmly within. Eighty-four years of chalkdust floated in the rare shafts of sunlight inside while the memories of more than eight decades of varnishings rose from the dark stairs and floors to tinge the trapped air with the mahogany scent of coffins." Blood-freezing scenarios… the true source of Simmons' terrifying vision lies in his uncanny ability to tap into that primal dread that every child knows and every adult denies; the monster under the bed, the darkness in the closet, the not-quite-human face at the window… If you are easily frightened, don't buy this book.” — Los Angeles Daily News Dan Simmons’ Summer of Night attempts to counterbalance the blithe air of a coming of age novel with the psychological horror of the Gothic tradition. Simmons sets his novel in the ’60s and deserves praise for his attention to historical detail and ability to capture the nostalgia associated with childhood and whimsical summer nights. However, his attention to detail is also cumbersome, resulting in a very slow-paced tale. The endless characterization and plot development diffuses the horror and creates expansive divides between textual action and torpor. They have to be scary - while BOY'S LIFE may be the least scary of the three, it succeeds as both horror and a brilliant drama, with a hint of 'magic' that takes you along for the ride.

It stands with the best of King and Straub in the traditional modern horror genre." "--Seattle Post Intelligencer "Simmons, winner of several prestigious awards for science fiction and horror ranks with the best the genre has to offer... The children are well drawn and affecting in their bravery. "Library Journal"

Yes. Summer of Night has a lot in common with Stephen King's It but I found it more focused and it also had 100% less underage gang-bangs than It. People who've read It know what I'm talking about. Anyway, Simmons had me nostalgic for my childhood summer vacations, when summer lasted a hundred years and days could be spent exploring the woods, reading, or whatever the hell else you wanted to do. An outstandingly eerie horror story about a group of Midwestern boys stalked by an ancient evil." -"Publishers Weekly" Even though I was 2 years old in 1960 (the year in which Summer of Night is set), I found Simmons evocation of the summer vacations we baby-boomers enjoyed markedly similar to those we experienced in Texas during the 1960's. I think that, as children, we were able to enjoy the simplicity of those years in a way that people of other generations could not. We hung between the past and the future: we still played the games our parents did as children but the Space Age and the Beatles promised us futures filled with amazing, undreamed of lives to come. But then, just look at Stephen King's IT. The popularity of Stranger Things. Regular coming-of-age stories like Bradbury was so fond but twisted into dark horrible screaming nightmare shapes. :)

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Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The creature's aversion to holy water is possibly a result of this. Look, I understand why folks would compare this unfavorably to IT, considering it a pale imitation, or at least like, written to cash in on ITs success, but... The novel begins where all coming-of-age horror stories probably should: the first day of summer vacation. The year is 1960, and our cast of characters is counting the minutes until the last schoolbell of the year sounds the call to unnumbered days of baseball at the park, swimming in the quarry, camping under the stars, and launching fireworks into the skies where Sputnik flew only a few years before. Old Central, their monolithic white elephant of a school, is scheduled to be torn down over the summer and the boys and girls of the Elm haven are all silently relieved that they won’t be returning to the nineteenth-century building. It stands with the best of King and Straub in the traditional modern horror genre." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Skilled writer par excellence Dan Simmons takes a subject straight from Stephen King land and runs with it Simmons keeps the tension high. "Locus"