

11-11-13: A 2013 Interview with Dan Simmons



Click image for audio link.

"Tibet, in those days, was truly unknown..."



— Dan Simmons







When I first interviewed Dan, I had just started, and he was very accommodating. At the time I used a very different style of creating my interviews than I do today, with more scripted questions. This time, his tour, alas, did not bring him to Northern California, so I drove down from Santa Cruz to LA, and grabbed a hotel near NPR West so I could talk to him.



Since we both arrived early, we started early — and ran long. Obviously, in a book like 'The Abominable,' there's a lot that we can talk about that isn't just going over the plot but getting the backstory of the story. Dan's a writer who has a great understanding of how he does what he does, so it is always a pleasure to talk to him about it.



But then, what I must admit I was really interested in as well was not just 'The Abominable' but as well 'Flashback,' a book that seemed custom-designed to make a certain large segment of readers' heads explode. I'll have a review in the next couple of days, but in the interim, I really liked this novel because it made me so horrifically uncomfortable. We're surrounded by, drowning, in really, enjoyable apocalypses. Even something like 'The Walking Dead,' a quality work to be sure, looks not too bad. Good an evil are pretty apparent, but human and otherwise.



On the other hand, 'Flashback' makes me cringe in much the same way I might imagine that '1984' made Orwell's contemporaries cringe. It plays on the failure of all so many hold in such esteem, and does so with a verve and a firm imagination. It would be easy to think that it's a political novel and it is. But it's not, to my mind, operating with an agenda of contraceptive prevention. It's simply world building to poke a stick in a fire and make sure his plot and characters can cook nicely. And it was definitely something I wanted to hear Simmons talk about — and talk he did.



When we looked up, it was past time to finish. [Many thanks are due to the engineers at NPR West, Dan's publishers and the man himself for giving me such a generous slice of time.] I had over an hour of audio and it proved to be a no-brainer edit. Put a log in the fire, or turn up the heater in your car and get ready for Dan Simmons capital-A Adventure by following I've been speaking with Dan Simmons for more than a few years now, and I consider it as much an honor now as I did on my first outing. This time around, we're here to talk about ' The Abominable ' and ' Flashback .' It feels more like an opportunity to chat with an old friend about books we love.When I first interviewed Dan, I had just started, and he was very accommodating. At the time I used a very different style of creating my interviews than I do today, with more scripted questions. This time, his tour, alas, did not bring him to Northern California, so I drove down from Santa Cruz to LA, and grabbed a hotel near NPR West so I could talk to him.Since we both arrived early, we started early — and ran long. Obviously, in a book like 'The Abominable,' there's a lot that we can talk about that isn't just going over the plot but getting the backstory of the story. Dan's a writer who has a great understanding of how he does what he does, so it is always a pleasure to talk to him about it.But then, what I must admit I was really interested in as well was not just 'The Abominable' but as well 'Flashback,' a book that seemed custom-designed to make a certain large segment of readers' heads explode. I'll have a review in the next couple of days, but in the interim, I really liked this novel because it made me so horrifically uncomfortable. We're surrounded by, drowning, in really, enjoyable apocalypses. Even something like 'The Walking Dead,' a quality work to be sure, looks not too bad. Good an evil are pretty apparent, but human and otherwise.On the other hand, 'Flashback' makes me cringe in much the same way I might imagine that '1984' made Orwell's contemporaries cringe. It plays on the failure of all so many hold in such esteem, and does so with a verve and a firm imagination. It would be easy to think that it's a political novel and it is. But it's not, to my mind, operating with an agenda of contraceptive prevention. It's simply world building to poke a stick in a fire and make sure his plot and characters can cook nicely. And it was definitely something I wanted to hear Simmons talk about — and talk he did.When we looked up, it was past time to finish. [Many thanks are due to the engineers at NPR West, Dan's publishers and the man himself for giving me such a generous slice of time.] I had over an hour of audio and it proved to be a no-brainer edit. Put a log in the fire, or turn up the heater in your car and get ready for Dan Simmons capital-A Adventure by following this link to the MP3 audio file



