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Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

3.85 · rating details · 2,732 ratings · 241 reviews

“CARRION COMFORT is one of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century. Simple as that.” --Stephen King

"Epic in scale and scope but intimately disturbing, CARRION COMFORT spans the ages to rewrite history and tug at the very fabric of reality. A nightmarish chronicle of predator and prey that will shatter your world view forever. A true classic." -

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“CARRION COMFORT is one of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century. Simple as that.” --Stephen King

"CARRION COMFORT is one of the scariest books ever written. Whenever I get the question asked Who's your favorite author? my answer is always Dan Simmons." --James Rollins

"One of the few major reinventions of the vampire concept, on a par with Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. --David Morrell

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 far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…

THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…

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Paperback, 800 pages

Published November 24th 2009 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published 1989)

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Sep 13, 2011

mark monday rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: horrortime

this is a briskly-paced supernatural thriller about mind control and controlling the world around us. it is also about as one-dimensional as they come, despite the potential of the multi-leveled subject matter and the breadth of the narrative (from World War 2 Germany to present-day Hollywood, and dozens of locales in between). the novel and several of the characters are obsessed with chess, which makes for some intriguing action. although it includes several wonderfully creepy set-pieces, overa...more

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Jul 03, 2011

Maciek rated it

Shelves: own-in-paperback, owned-books, horror, big-tomes, read-in-2011

Carrion Comfort is a beast of a book. My copy clocks in at 800 pages, and to be fair to mr. Simmons he kept the pace burning throughout the whole text.

There's much to enjoy in Carrion Comfort, and not the least of its good aspects is the premise. In this particular work Simmons tackles on one of the most famous horror creatures - the vampire. What makes it different from almost all other vampire ficton is his approach to the subject.

Carrion Comfort is concerned with mind...moreCarrion Comfort is a beast of a book. My copy clocks in at 800 pages, and to be fair to mr. Simmons he kept the pace burning throughout the whole text.

There's much to enjoy in Carrion Comfort, and not the least of its good aspects is the premise. In this particular work Simmons tackles on one of the most famous horror creatures - the vampire. What makes it different from almost all other vampire ficton is his approach to the subject.

Carrion Comfort is concerned with mind vampires, people who can enter the consciousness of any person and control their actions completely, like a puppeteer. Complete control, one from which there is no defense mental or physical, is certainly a frightening subject, and the opening set in 1942 Chelmno is pretty much stellar.

The novel spans many years and locations, from WW2 Poland and surroundings to the 1980 USA. The WW2 pieces are seen in retrospect, and are certainly the best part of the novel; the obsession with chess that some characters have couldn't have been used in a better way. Simmons presents a scene that truly is horrifying and memorable in its intensity and eeriness.

However, aside from the general premise and the few WW2 portions, Carrion Comfort is surprisingly short on the horror factor; most of the novel reads like a 80's thriller, complete with black helicopters, secret agents, explosives and multiple shoot outs, which occupy most of its pages. The characters are interesting (especially the elderly Melanie Fuller) but never fascinating, as they ought to be in a novel of such scope and ambition. The allusions to real people are certainly a nice touch, giving the novel some realism amidst all these bullets.

Overall, the books is compulsively readable, but rarely leaves anything unseen, and throughout its enormous lenght the reader will be exposed to as much action as he or she can take. The frenetic, Hollywood-like action can get a bit boring at times, and the true potential of the novel never really surfaces. Still, for such a huge tome it's a breezingly fast read, much more enjoyable that the plodding Summer of Night, although the book certainly did not need to be 800 pages long.(less)

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Jan 11, 2009

Tressa rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: horror

The print of this large paperback is so small, I imagine that if it were in hardback, I wouldn't be able to pick it up and read it. I think this book, while a good read with some fantastic, scary parts in it, could have used with some serious editing.

Some of Carrion Comfort gets a little tedious and repetitious. How many times do I have to read yet another scenario where anyone barely involved with the vampires loses his/her life in a horrible way?

I must say that some o...more

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Feb 12, 2010

Stephen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: to-re-read, award-nominee-bram-stoker, award-winner-bram-stoker, award-nominee-british-fantasy, award-winner-british-fantasy, multiple-award-nominee, multiple-award-winners, award-nominee-world-fantasy, fang-bangers, award-nominee-locus, award-winner-locus, 1980-1989, x-filing-and-secret-histories

4.5 stars. Dan Simmons can write a great book no matter what genre he is writing in. His Hyperion Cantos is on my list of "All Time Favorite" science fiction series and now he has written one of the best Vampire novels ever. Original, scary and brilliant......and LOOOOONG

Winner: Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel (1990)
Winner: Locus Award for Best Horror Novel (1990)
Winner: British Fantasy Award for Best Novel (1990)
Nominee: World Fantasy Award for B...more

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Jan 17, 2009

Susan rated it

· review of another edition

Picked it up because I enjoyed The Terror so much. This pales in comparison. As vampire books go, the analogy is a stretch. Mind-control and physical possession just don't read the same as blood sucking and wooden stakes to me. As well written as parts of the book were, it has a bad case of an 80's action flick script. Maybe it was all the bullet volley and gratuitous bombing of historic lairs and callous men in slacks. Ehh. In any case, I will still look for the best of his books, but this does...more

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Oct 25, 2011

Gaurav Sethi rated it

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Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons is a sprawling work of horror. It spans fifty years of history: WWII up until the early 1980s. It has a wide caste of characters: Nazi war criminals, television evangelists, petty gangland thugs, an aging psychiatrist, and beautiful young woman who is in over her head. Intrigued? This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not a quick read (800 pgs), it’s a summer read that will take you a few weeks to devour, but that’s ok. You’ll love certain characters and love...moreCarrion Comfort by Dan Simmons is a sprawling work of horror. It spans fifty years of history: WWII up until the early 1980s. It has a wide caste of characters: Nazi war criminals, television evangelists, petty gangland thugs, an aging psychiatrist, and beautiful young woman who is in over her head. Intrigued? This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not a quick read (800 pgs), it’s a summer read that will take you a few weeks to devour, but that’s ok. You’ll love certain characters and love to hate others.

◦Mind control
◦Nazis
◦Chess Games w/Human pieces
◦Politics
◦Explosions
◦Car Chases
That’s just a short list of some of what makes up this novel. It’s difficult to talk about the over-all narrative without giving too much away. Basically, a young Jewish boy experiences the horrors of the Holocaust only to find that there are things much worse than Nazis - mainly - Nazis who have the ability to enter your mind and control your body. This young man grows up and spends his entire life attempting to hunt down the young Oberst who took control of him. Saul Laski soon finds out that it is not just the one man who has this power, but a large group of villains involved in a conspiracy that will take you from Charleston to Jerusalem.

It was nice to read such a long and heavy work of fiction. 800 pages provides the reader with plenty of time to know certain characters, and not just the good guys, there are some villains that you learn to love. It is a dark and gruesome story filled with torture, murder, and the body count is high by the end of the book.

Definitely worth reading. One thing I love is that Mr. Simmons has a very strong hand when it comes to history. The book takes place in a number of time periods and all across the world. The southern United States, the Jewish state of Isreal, and Germany are all alive and brilliantly described, one gets the sense that you are in these particular places and time periods.

I do not have any real complaints with this work, even the length (while long) seems appropriate for the story to play itself out. A very dark novel with a cast of characters that are brilliantly written. They feel like friends that you’ve met at a coffee-house who are telling you the most awesome ghost-story of all time.

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May 16, 2011

Vegantrav rated it

I was simply browsing the stacks of my local public library when a title leapt out at me from the sea of books: it was Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort, and I was drawn to the title because it is taken from a poem by one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Thus intrigued by the title, I pulled the novel from the shelf, and there I saw a blurb from Stephen King: “Carrion Comfort is one of the three greatest horror novels of the twentieth century. Simple as that.” With such a recommendat...moreI was simply browsing the stacks of my local public library when a title leapt out at me from the sea of books: it was Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort, and I was drawn to the title because it is taken from a poem by one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Thus intrigued by the title, I pulled the novel from the shelf, and there I saw a blurb from Stephen King: “Carrion Comfort is one of the three greatest horror novels of the twentieth century. Simple as that.” With such a recommendation from King, how could I not check it out?

So it was with great enthusiasm that I began reading. After trudging through 200 pages, however, I began to wonder: “So, when, exactly, does the horror begin?” Another 100 pages, and I still was not even remotely frightened by anything in Carrion Comfort, but by this point in time I had already invested time in reading through 300 pages, and I felt it would be too much of a waste not to read on to the bitter end of the 767 pages. It is not until the last 200 or so pages that the novel really takes off and captivates the readers’ interest once and for all, but getting to that point is a bit of a chore: I hate to say it, but there are just too many boring, meandering passages in the first 500 pages; yes, there is much that is interesting, but this book really could have done with some heavy editing.

As I sit here after reading this massive tome, I can say that Stephen King and I definitely do not agree on what constitutes a great horror novel. The main problem with this novel—besides its being unnecessarily long—is that it is incredible: incredible not in the “wow! this is amazing” sense but in the “this is just not even remotely believable” sense. The villains in Carrion Comfort are mind vampires: men and women who use mind control to make other people execute their bidding: basically, the mind vampires possess their victims' bodies and use their victims to enrich themselves, to murder other people, and to control governments and politicians. Pitted against the mind vampires are the two main protagonists, an aging psychologist and Holocaust survivor, Saul Laski, and a young graduate student, Natalie Preston, both of whom, in various ways have been victimized by the mind vampires.

******SPOILER ALERT******

Saul and Natalie’s eventual conquest (or near conquest: the epilogue reveals that one of the mind vampires survives and is plotting even greater evil) of the mind vampires is beyond belief even in a work of fantasy fiction. In the closing chapters, Saul is alone and naked (yes, naked) on an island just off the coast of South Carolina, an island controlled by the mind vampires. The mind vampires are aware that Saul is on the island, so they send their security patrols after him: this consists of dozens of machine-gun wielding men, but Saul initially manages to elude capture despite being shot twice. Wounded, losing blood rapidly, naked, and close to losing consciousness, Saul makes his way to the mansion were the mind vampires are playing their own version of “The World’s Most Dangerous Game.” Saul is promptly captured. The mind vampires could easily kill him right away, but, of course, they don't. (Otherwise, the novel would come to a very poor, dull end.)

In the last hours of his captivity, Saul confronts the main mind vampire, a former Nazi who had victimized Saul during World War II. Somehow, Saul is able to overcome the Nazi’s mind vampire powers through some nearly inexplicable process: Saul has self-hypnotized himself and is able to evoke REM sleep in himself automatically when the Nazi tries to control his mind, and this blunts the Nazi's powers: exactly why and how this is such an obstacle to the Nazi, whom the novel has portrayed as a masterful mind vampire with powers far greater than most of the other mind vampires, is never fully explained. Anyway, Saul uses his self-hypnosis and self-induced REM sleep to get close enough to the Nazi to strangle the Nazi to death. Now, the Nazi is an old man, but he is not much older than Saul, and Saul has already been shot twice and has been bleeding badly for several hours, yet the Nazi cannot fight off Saul. And even one of the Nazi’s henchmen is unable to pull Saul off his master or just shoot Saul. So Saul is able to kill the main mind vampire.

In the meantime, while Saul is alone on the island, Natalie is back in South Carolina playing mind games with another mind vampire, a wicked old lady mind vampire, and also carrying out her and Saul’s prearranged plan to bring down all the mind vampires. Part of this convoluted scheme involves getting the old lady a mind vampire to control a Navy captain and induce him to attack the mind vampires’ island. While the Navy captain is attacking the island, Natalie and two of her associates fly a small Cessna airplane onto the mind vampires’ island in the middle of the night during a ferocious storm, and they manage somehow to land, despite being fired at by three different missiles from the rogue Navy captain who is controlled by the old lady mind vampire, on the island, pick up Saul, and then take off again in the middle of the storm and escape to freedom. Yes, everything about this air rescue in the middle of the night during a raging storm and while taking fire from a warship is completely believable.

One other aspect of this novel is completely ludicrous: Saul is the only non-mind vampire who is initially aware of the mind vampires’ powers. When he first tells Natalie (this is before Natalie herself is victimized by a mind vampire) and various other characters about the mind vampires and when Natalie in turn tells still others, these people accept the story of the mind vampires’ powers with little to no skepticism. As a reader, I could not help asking myself, “Why do these people believe this? It’s completely ridiculous! No rational person would find this story even remotely believable.” And yet time and again throughout the novel, the story of the mind vampires’ powers is accepted with little to no evidence and almost no skeptical push-back. But it is a work of fiction, so perhaps I am being too harsh.

This novel is simply incredible. Still, I cannot deny that the last 200 pages were quite exciting and interesting, and I turned the pages with eager anticipation as to what would happen next. Even as I kept saying to myself, “Now, this is just ridiculous”, I still kept reading because I could not foresee how Simmons would extricate Saul and Natalie from their troubles.

Overall, this novel has many, many problems, and if I had known, in advance, that it really would not be all that scary—you led me astray, Mr. King!—I would not have taken the time to read all 767 pages. Yet I was entertained, and so I cannot refrain from giving it a 3-star rating.
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Jul 11, 2011

Arvind bhan rated it

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carrion comfort
by
dan simmons

I used to be a great fan of horror novels and movies during school and early college days in the eighties so imagine my surprise when i see this book of which i have no idea topping a list of the greatest horror novels of all times on good reads. It was placed above dracula,stand,it etc etc.on the list.
So obviously I had to read it.
It is entertaining and engrossing but not really a horror novel.
It is more on the lines of Rob...more

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Apr 16, 2010

Ori rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: good-yarns

First, let me say this is not a vampire book. In various blurbs for this book other authors call this a "new take" or and "reinvention" of the vampire horror novel. It's not. It has much more in common with Stephen King's yarns about telepathy than it does with Salem's Lot.

Second, I do judge books by their covers, and I have to say that my cover, the one from the 2009, 20th anniversary edition, is much cooler and more evocative than the one you see on goodreads...more

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Nov 29, 2009

Christy rated it

Shelves: horror, science-fiction-and-fantasy, 20th-century-american-lit

Meh. I have really enjoyed some of Dan Simmons' other books, but this one didn't quite work for me. It is *way* too long, has more characters than is really necessary (I found this really distracting at times), and includes too many action-movie sequences.

The premise is interesting and so are several of the characters, but I had hoped for something that would delve a little deeper into psychology and into the issues he raises early on about violence and humanity. This holds the ...more

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Jul 27, 2011

Dave Sag rated it

· review of another edition

This is a very early novel by the brilliant Dan Simmons and the edition I read was the 30th anniversary edition so it was also interesting to read the author's notes at the beginning (something Mr Simmons almost never does otherwise).

The plot of the book concerns people who have an ability to control others - meat puppet style - and the struggle between them and the people caught up in their maelstrom of violence. The book is, in essence, a long essay on the nature of dominance and violence bu...more

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Dec 31, 2008

Chris rated it

· review of another edition

It was a good book but a bit too long. It probably should have been broken down into two novels. I put off reading this book for several years because of its length but finally decided to tackle it. As it stands, Carrion Comfort is divided into 3 parts, or Books. For me, it lost momentum at the beginning of Book 3. The end of Book 2 was fast-paced, loaded with lots of action, and packed an emotional wallop at the loss of a major character (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it). Then Book 3 picks ...more

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Jul 27, 2011

Dan rated it

· review of another edition

Having read Simmons' Drood earlier this year and enjoyed it quite a bit, despite the fact that the book was overlong by a couple hundred pages, I decided to try another Simmons novel. Carrion Comfort is his first, and received high praise from a number of respected sources. That convinced me to pick it up.

I am not going to get into a plot review of the book. I will say that there are a number of good ideas present, and some genuinely creepy moments. However, these get lost in a sea...more

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Jul 30, 2010

Shawn rated it

· review of another edition

A book that garners high praise from Stephen King (he calls it one of the three best horror novels of the 20th century) and Guillermo del Toro (calls it a true classic that will shatter your worldview) and the praise is well-deserved. Carrion Comfort twists the convention of vampire fiction, creating mind vampires that feast upon the thoughts and deaths of the their victims. The novel gets its title and epigraphs from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem 'Carrion Comfort' and the main characters in the n...more

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Feb 16, 2011

Maggy Mistake rated it

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La premessa era buona: i Vampiri Mentali; L'autore anche : quel Dan Simmons che ho scoperto tre/quattro mesi fa. E quindi mi sono messa in modalità "wow" ed ho iniziato a leggere questo bel tomo di quasi mille pagine. Le recensioni non erano male ma, più che recensioni, in italiano si trovavano delle presentazioni. E allora si parte e come sempre l'autore è un buon tratteggiatore di personaggi e si destreggia tra protagonisti e co. e anche l'ambientazione è buona e il libro è cupo abba...more

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Feb 21, 2011

T. L. Barrett rated it

· review of another edition

How do people get away with all the horrible things they do? Why do some people seem to have an insane amount of gravity around them, causing others to follow them beyond reason and safety? Why is there so many tragedies where man inexplicably turns himself on his fellow man? Dan Simmons's epic horror novel, Carrion Comfort, provides some disturbing answers to these questions in a suspenseful and twisted fashion.

Set in 1980-81 (and published in 1989), Carrion Comfort features a world...moreHow do people get away with all the horrible things they do? Why do some people seem to have an insane amount of gravity around them, causing others to follow them beyond reason and safety? Why is there so many tragedies where man inexplicably turns himself on his fellow man? Dan Simmons's epic horror novel, Carrion Comfort, provides some disturbing answers to these questions in a suspenseful and twisted fashion.

Set in 1980-81 (and published in 1989), Carrion Comfort features a world where some men (and a couple women) were born with the innate ability to control other people's minds and then feed off the psychic energy released when they kill or commit suicide. If that isn't disturbing enough, they gather together in tense conspiracies and play games with human lives as their chess pieces. Caught in the middle of these games between politicians, billionaires, Hollywood producers and television evangelists (all "mind-vampires") are a holocaust survivor, a southern sheriff and a beautiful young African-American woman.

I was fully enthralled by this masterwork of twisting plot lines, scheming villains and hapless, yet stouthearted heroes, with only one real complaint: the length. I am not saying this book is not worth the read, nor am I saying Dan Simmons doesn't know how to keep his reader's interests (just the opposite), but Carrion Comfort is an 884 page book. Around page 600 the reader begins to feel it, like a track and field runner about to hit his or her "wall". I believe I know why this happens and I believe that it happens because of quite positive and complimentary reasons.

1. Dan Simmons really knows how to create characters that are believable. When it comes to the protagonists, they are flawed, yet plucky folks who are faced with unremitting horror. We begin to feel the bleak existential malaise for them, as they struggle through one horrible situation after another. In this novel, Dan Simmons, did well in choosing a holocaust survivor as a central protagonist. If you have read Dan Simmons's Summer of Night (or just about any other book he has written), then you know just how brutal Mr. Simmons can be to his characters. He is perhaps one of the few real horror writers out there who can deliver no promises to you, the reader that your favorite character will survive even to the second half of the novel. Just warning you...

2. Dan Simmons is a master at shifting perspective, and I for one enjoy this kind of writing: writing that allows you many perspectives on the epic events unfolding before us. In this novel a great deal (perhaps the majority) of the time is spent in the perspective of these mind vampires. We begin to see so clearly from their perspective that we are drawn into their fiendish ambitions and morality begins to fade to gray, when we are carried along in the minds of the most vicious minds imaginable. How often have you wondered, what could be going through the heads of the some of the most powerful and dangerous people on the planet? Dan Simmons answers this question in adept fashion. As the answer begins to settle in, prepare yourself for a twisting ride of terror.

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Jun 07, 2011

Jonathan Cullen rated it

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Carrion Comfort is a run-away helicopter bolted precariously to a run-away train heading for a narrow cliff that stands above a valley of molten lava. This thing is fast-paced.

I enjoyed the mix of, and choice of, perspectives. They were meaningful. My opinion of at least one character shifted rather dramatically at some point and it was only a function of the chosen perspective, which is nice. I'm a sucker for evil in that indifference-to-human-life kind of way so I was already hooke...more

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Dec 12, 2010

Evan rated it

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I'm surprised this hasn't been made into a movie. Not a vampire book, exactly, but a fantasy horror thriller with international intrigue, murder plots under investigation, crooked cabal conspiracies, "black helicopters", etc. But doesn't have a 1980's feel that most from its era does. Without spoiling, it's about mind-vampires (those who control the minds of others) for their own bent purposes. Most resort to murder for pleasure using their pawns, while others merely exploit their powe...more

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Oct 14, 2010

Michael Mangold rated it

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A juicy steak needing to be cut free of excess fat. There are some truly thrilling scenes and memorable monsters of the all-too-human variety, but the bloated prose gets bogged down in the boring lives of the novel's mere mortals.

The Most-Dangerous-Gamesque premise, also reminiscent of Star Trek's "Plato's Stepchildren," examines (once again) power corrupting absolutely. The most entertaining aspects surprisingly come from the over-the-top portrayal of Melanie Fuller, a del...more

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Nov 15, 2011

Allen Massey rated it

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Shelves: audio

This is very different book from Dan Simmons. I have read and enjoyed his science fiction (Hyperion series, Ilium and Olympos). Before this book I had never read any of his horror writing. I am very glad I gave this book a chance.

Simmons is jut a great story teller and it shows in Carrion Comfort. This is a very long story with lots of characters and lots of character development. Several reviews have complaining that the book was too long and would have benefited from some edit...more

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Jun 17, 2011

Dianna rated it

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I began reading Dan Simmons’s CARRION COMFORT three months ago; this is telling because it usually takes me no longer than two or three weeks to finish a book. Fairly, CARRION COMFORT is a biggie – 765 pages, but that’s not the reason it took me so long. When I read something that does not consume my every undisciplined waking hour, I start on something else and, if the second choice does the trick, I leave the first until I’m done with the second. I read two other books while trying to read th...more

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Dec 02, 2011

Nerine Dorman rated it

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I can well understand why Stephen King says this is one of the three most important horror novels of the 20th century. I took my time with this novel, taking it a few chapters a day, and was drawn into the world of those with the Ability, and the unlikely pair who sought to put an end to their casual cruelty. Simmons balances a huge cast and drags readers through a mire of human tragedy. This is a harrowing, bloody read and I feel enriched for having encountered this literary giant. My edition h...more

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Nov 29, 2010

Robert rated it

Shelves: supernatural-horror, espionage-thriller

This was the second novel Dan Simmons wrote, immediately after Song of Kali. It was not his second published novel, however. Read the introduction to this edition to find out why; it makes a good story on its own, except for the really abrupt ending.

Simmons' genre-hopping tendencies start showing up right here - supposedly a horror story, this reads more like his take on a Robert Ludlum thriller - but with psychic, mind-controlling bad guys. It certainly is a page-turner, which is a ...moreThis was the second novel Dan Simmons wrote, immediately after Song of Kali. It was not his second published novel, however. Read the introduction to this edition to find out why; it makes a good story on its own, except for the really abrupt ending.

Simmons' genre-hopping tendencies start showing up right here - supposedly a horror story, this reads more like his take on a Robert Ludlum thriller - but with psychic, mind-controlling bad guys. It certainly is a page-turner, which is a good thing given its length, though there is a slow patch right at the beginning of the End Game. Taken along with all the rest of Simmons' output it only strengthens my opinion that this author can turn his hand to any genre and produce competent work.

So - End Game? - what's that all about? There's a chess theme running throughout the novel, which is divided into three sections, Opening, Middle Game and End Game. It's an inextricable part of the novel but towards the end becomes overt and slows the pace at a time when one would expect the opposite. On the other hand, the device solves some serious plot problems in a believable way. I'd be curious as to whether the end-game depicted in the book is considered well played by serious chess players.

One of the protagonists is Jewish and has a tattoo on his arm...this can be a cheap trick by an author in order to gain immediate sympathy and moral authority for the character but in this case such accusations would be false; this book is essentially about the Holocaust and what caused it; that most important of questions, what would you have done? Would you have followed orders and slaughtered Jews by the millions? Would you have done what ever it took to survive as a Jew in the camps, including tacit collaboration, by working for the Nazis? Why is it possible for industrial genocide to take place? Simmons is saying, in a very exaggerated fashion, that dominance of will by a minority or even an individual can cause all of this, though his "mind vampires" are not intended as a completely literal explanation.

Simmons is brave and suggests that the history of the modern state of Israel is not a black-and-white thing and asks what should one be prepared to do to route out evil? How many "innocents" have to die before it becomes morally untenable to take decisive action against a mass murderer who will continue and escalate his activities? Is revenge a moral justification? Is inaction morally justified? Should you involve others in what you know is a deadly conflict? The book does not necessarily answer all these questions - the idea is to make the reader think about them.

The "bad guys" in this book are bad indeed, but one of them is given a 1st person voice and she comes over most strongly as an utterly foul and increasingly deranged character because of it. Sharing her thoughts made me feel unclean - she's an appalling, disgusting creature. It would be easy to call her a monster, not human - but that is a cop out: her bigotry and evil are entirely human and that is what we have to face up to. Humanity has this potential.

This is a good book and thought-provoking but it isn't perfect: it is perhaps too long by 50-100p, the chess theme isn't terribly original or clever and I don't like the very end, though to explain why would add spoilers. Is there any unnecessary literary name dropping? Yes - this time Simmons' favourite "junk" writers are name-checked. These are mainly thriller writers - including Ludlum.(less)

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Feb 15, 2010

Lonnie rated it

A goodreads giveaway that I was hesitant to start because of it’s size.

Long story short… not this time. My usual criteria rating on goodreads is did it flow well and did I care what happened next. Carrion Comfort does not make this an easy rating. At times I was engrossed, excited on the edge of me seat flicking pages so fast I was concerned I would tear them out of the book. At other times I noticed I had read 5 pages in 3 days. With all the 5’s I gave sections and all the 1’s ...more

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Mar 11, 2009

Patty rated it

· review of another edition

This was the best, most entertaining "vampire" book I've ever read, except it's really not a "vampire" book at all. From the excellent, meaty character introduction of the first few pages, I was hooked in quickly and read it ever spare chance I got. It's true what they said in the reviews, that Dan defies categorization and yet turns out work like this that is (strangely) both familiar and fresh. I loved every word, character, and I thought about the conspiratorial and psy...more

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Jul 29, 2011

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: dark, contemporary, read-in-2011, ipad-reads

Carrion Comfort is dirty, gritty, violent and bone chilling at parts. Its needless length and meandering plot that sometimes dips into being almost completely stagnant, however, balances this nicely. Carrion Comfort could have used a strict editor, which would have helped get rid of many aspects of the plot that just weren’t useful to the reader at all. This would have changed Carrion Comfort from being an entertaining read to a tightly wound, nicely paced, perfectly plotted, bone chilling work ...more

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Nov 26, 2010

Russ rated it

· review of another edition

I'd recently re-read "The Terror," one of Simmons's gargantuan (and excellent) historical horror novels, and decided to delve back a little further. Meh. Carrion Comfort is just as long and not quite as good, relying more on stock characters and traditional horror setups. A tale of "psychic vampires," Carrion Comfort's good guys are very good, its bad guys are very bad, and there's all sorts of carnage and mayhem. There are also Nazi ties and a professorly concentration camp ...more

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Feb 19, 2010

Celeste Thayer rated it

· review of another edition

I started reading this on a recommendation from a friend, and I have to admit that it's way out of my typical genre. I would have given it a higher score if it were something I had finished.

The characters are interesting enough...I just don't resonate with the typical Southern (i.e. Deep South) american cop or black woman or the imported Holocaust survivor that are the main characters. The villains are interesting psychic vampires, but again, I don't resonate with them either - two ...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Marie-Eve rated it

· review of another edition

J'ai vraiment adoré ce livre, qui est assez bien écrit pour que ressortent en moi des pensées paranoïaques de théories de la conspiration! Plus sérieusement, ce livre m'a tenu en haleine du début à la fin en exploitant une idée que je n'avais vu nulle part ailleurs auparavant; ces genre de vampire psychiques qui réussissent à utiliser des humains afin d'assouvir leur soif de violence, de sang et de mort. Je suis très heureuse d'avoir emprunté cette version complète à la bibliothèque car je crois...more

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Jan 28, 2010

Celeste rated it

· review of another edition

This book is the most original story about humanity and lack of humanity that I have read in years. If you like Stephen King books or long books with a great deal of violence (physical and psychological), this one is for you. This is one of those stories that just keeps on going, but I honestly do not know where i would have recommended that he end it sooner. I gave it 4 stars because the writing style is sophisticated and interesting. The plot is disturbing, and there have been few times tha...more

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About Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in...moreDan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.

Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years -- 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York -- one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher -- and 14 years in Colorado.

ABOUT DAN
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His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.

Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."

Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado -- in the same town where he taught for 14 years -- with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker -- their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike -- a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels -- was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.(less)

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