Hyperion
The ideal entry point to Simmons's major science-fiction cycle and most acclaimed series.
Author guide
Dan Simmons Books in Order
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) was an American author whose work spans science fiction, horror, fantasy, historical fiction, thriller, and mystery. His major achievements include the Hyperion Cantos, the Ilium/Olympos cycle, the Joe Kurtz novels, and standalone works such as Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, The Terror, Drood, and The Abominable. He also published novellas, short-story collections, nonfiction, travel writing, poetry, and separately issued chapbooks.
science fictionhorrorfantasyhistorical fictionmysterythrillernonfictionpoetry
Catalog record updated .
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
Song of Kali
A concise introduction to his early horror and literary style.
Summer of Night
A strong entry point for his supernatural horror and connected Elm Haven fiction.
The Terror
A representative standalone historical horror novel.
Hardcase
The beginning of his tightly plotted Joe Kurtz crime series.
Read in order
Books by series
series · complete
Hyperion Cantos
A far-future science-fiction series concerning humanity, the Hegemony, the Time Tombs, and the Shrike.
- 1 Hyperion
Book 1 · novel · 1989
A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The…
- 2 The Fall of Hyperion
Book 2 · novel · 1990
The mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The Ousters are laying seige to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the…
- 3 Endymion
Book 3 · novel · 1996
Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest. Retrieving Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her is only the beginning. With hel from a…
- 4 The Rise of Endymion
Book 4 · novel · 1997
The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her…
- 1 Hardcase
Book 1 · novel · 2001
Ex-con Joe Kurtz is hired by a Buffalo mob boss to find a missing accountant.
- 2 Hard Freeze
Book 2 · novel · 2002
Kurtz must face the wrath of "Little Skag" Farino, the local Mafia don, and his vengeful sister Angelina while trying to track down a serial killer.
- 3 Hard as Nails
Book 3 · novel · 2003
Ex-PI Joe Kurtz's survival is on the line when an ambush leaves him badly wounded and his parole officer, Peg O'Toole, clinging to life. Their respective professions have ensured that neither suffers from a shortage of enemies, so…
duology · complete
Ilium/Olympos
A science-fiction duology blending the Trojan War, Shakespeare, and posthuman far-future civilizations.
- 1 Ilium
Book 1 · novel · 2003
From the author of the Hyperion Cantos -- one of the most acclaimed popular series in contemporary science fiction -- comes a powerful epic of high-tech gods, human heroes, total war, and the extraordinary transcendence of ordinary…
- 2 Olympos
Book 2 · novel · 2005
Beneath the gaze of the gods, the mighty armies of Greece and Troy met in fierce and glorious combat, scrupulously following the text set forth in Homer's timeless narrative. But that was before twenty-first-century scholar Thomas…
sequence · complete
Elm Haven
A connected sequence of supernatural fiction centered on Elm Haven, Illinois.
- 1 Summer of Night
Book 1 · novel · 1991
It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school,…
- 2 A Winter Haunting
Book 2 · novel · 2002
A once-respected college professor and novelist, Dale Stewart has sabotaged his career and his marriage -- and now darkness is closing in on him. In the last hours of Halloween he has returned to the dying town of Elm Haven, his boyhood…
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (20)
- Song of Kali
novel · 1985
Calcutta: a monstrous city of immense slums, disease, and misery, is clasped in the foetid embrace of an ancient cult. At its decaying core is the Goddess Kali: the dark mother of pain, four-armed and eternal, her song the sound of death…
- Carrion Comfort
novel · 1989
THE PAST... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil…
- Phases of Gravity
novel · 1989
A New York Times–bestselling author’s moving novel about an astronaut returning to Earth, and the small steps and giant leaps love requires. Richard Baedecker thinks his greatest challenge was walking on the moon, but then he meets a…
- Entropy's Bed at Midnight
novella · 1990
- Going After the Rubber Chicken
nonfiction · 1991
- Children of the Night
novel · 1992
An evil legacy comes to life in this classic and ultimately human novel about believable vampires, featuring a brand-new introduction by Dan Simmons. Children of the Night will take you to a place that no one knows—yet all of us fear. In…
- The Hollow Man
novel · 1992
Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy…
- Summer Sketches
nonfiction · 1992
- Fires of Eden
novel · 1994
Billionaire Byron Trumbo wants to sell his posh Hawaiian resort to a Japanese investor but must make it appear prosperous while the deal is being struck. Due to the high prices, guests have been scarce. Unfortunately, they are becoming…
- The Crook Factory
novel · 1999
It's the summer of 1942, and FBI agent Joe Lucas has come to Cuba at the behest of the Director to keep an eye on Ernest Hemingway in the Caribbean. Lucas thinks of it as a demotion--a babysitting job for a famous writer who has decided…
- Negative Spaces: Two Talks
nonfiction · 1999
- Darwin's Blade
novel · 2000
Darwin Minor is an expert in accident reconstruction, but a series of seemingly random, or artfully staged, fatal car wrecks has him puzzled. Why would anyone commit fraud at the cost of his own life?
- The Terror
novel · 2007
The men on board Her Britannic Majesty's Ships Terror and Erebus had every expectation of triumph. They were part of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition – as scientifically advanced an enterprise as had ever set forth – and theirs were…
- Muse of Fire
novella · 2008
In a remote future age when the human enterprise has all but ground to a halt. a wandering troupe of players is dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare to every accessible corner of the settled universe. When aliens take an…
- Drood
novel · 2009
On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens—at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the…
- Black Hills
novel · 2010
Paha Sapa, 'Black Hills', is a Red Indian shaman who as a young boy at the Battle of Little Bighorn takes the ghost of the dying General Custer into his own body. Sixty years later as an old man working as a dynamiter on Mount Rushmore,…
- Flashback
novel · 2011
America, 2036. Powerful magnate Hiroshi Nakamura needs ex-cop Nick Bottom's services, and, in particular, his memories. As head of the original investigation into the murder of Nakamura's son, Bottom's flashbacks hold the key to solving…
- The Abominable
novel · 2013
It's 1924 and the race to summit the world's highest mountain has been brought to a terrified pause by the shocking disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine high on the shoulder of Mt. Everest. By the following year, three…
- The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz
novella · 2013
- The Fifth Heart
novel · 2015
In 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Henry James come to America together to solve the mystery of the 1885 death of Clover Adams, wife of the esteemed historian Henry Adams--member of the Adams family that has given the United States two…
Poetry (1)
- Ruby/Gem S.T.R.E.A.M.M. Poetry
poetry · 2011
Other (5)
- Prayers to Broken Stones
collection · 1990
From a ghostly Civil War battlefield to a combat theme park in Vietnam, from the omnipotent brain of an autistic boy to a shocking story of psychic vampires, journey into a world of fear and mystery, a chilling twilight zone of the mind.…
- Banished Dreams
collection · 1990
- Lovedeath
collection · 1993
A father and daughter drive straight into a cosmic battle between love and laughter on one side and pain and death on the other... In the Asian flesh bazaars, a woman has the power to seduce both body and soul... A young Sioux on a vision…
- Worlds Enough & Time: Five Tales of Speculative Fiction
collection · 2002
An extraordinary artist with few rivals in his chosen arena, Dan Simmons possesses a restless talent that continually presses boundaries while tantalizing the mind and touching the soul. Now he offers us a superb quintet of novellas --…
- This Year's Class Picture
story · 2016
Frequently asked questions about Dan Simmons
Who was Dan Simmons, and what kind of writer was he?
Dan Simmons (1948–2026) was an American novelist and short-fiction writer whose work ranged across science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, historical fiction, noir crime, and literary fiction.
Sources: us.macmillan.com (opens in a new tab)amc.com (opens in a new tab)
Where was Dan Simmons born, and where did he study?
He was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948. He earned a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970 and a master’s degree in education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971.
What did Dan Simmons do before becoming a full-time author?
Simmons worked in elementary education for 18 years, teaching in Missouri, New York, and Colorado. He became a full-time writer in 1987.
Sources: amc.com (opens in a new tab)nebulas.sfwa.org (opens in a new tab)
What influenced Dan Simmons’s fiction?
His fiction drew on literary, mythological, and popular-culture sources. Hyperion echoes The Canterbury Tales, while The Terror consciously recalls Moby-Dick, Frankenstein, and the 1951 film The Thing.
Which major awards did Dan Simmons win?
Simmons won the Hugo Award for Hyperion and received multiple Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker awards. He was also named a Grand Master by the World Horror Convention in 2013.
Sources: theguardian.com (opens in a new tab)us.macmillan.com (opens in a new tab)