Dan Simmons obit

Dan Simmons, Celebrated Author of Hyperion, Dies at 77 from Stroke

 

He was not on the list.

Celebrated author Dan Simmons has died. He was 77 years old.

A resident of Longmont, Colorado, Simmons died with his wife and daughter by his side, his obituary shares. According to a friend's post on X (formerly Twitter), he passed away from a stroke Saturday, Feb. 21.

Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948. He taught elementary school in Missouri, New York, and Colorado. One of the most impactful things he did as schoolteacher was to help create and teach a districtwide program for gifted students; it was the first of its kind and led to Simmons being named a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year Award.

“Every day after lunch, Dan told his students a daily installment of an epic tale that started on the first day of school,” his obituary shares. “As they listened, the students would color illustrations that he’d drawn for them. When the story finally came to an end on the last day of school, many recall being reduced to tears. This story would go on to become Dan’s Hyperion cantos.”

Perhaps his biggest claim to fame was his writing. Over the course of his life, he authored more than 30 science fiction novels and short story collections that have been translated into at least 20 languages.

His debut novel, Song of Kali, won the 1986 World Fantasy Award, while his 1989 sci-fi debut, Hyperion, won the Hugo Award. Further book awards include the Shirley Jackson Award and Bram Stoker awards.

Simmons’ 2007 novel The Terror got the small-screen treatement with a critically acclaimed limited series on AMC, released in 2018.

Since his passing, tributes have poured in.

One from fellow writer David Morrell reads, “My dear friend & incomparable author Dan Simmons died Saturday from a stroke at age 77. He defied literary norms, exploring historical fiction, horror, crime & other genres.

Born in Peoria, Illinois, Simmons started writing stories as a child with the goal of mesmerizing his audience with his story telling Simmons received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970 and, in 1971, a Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis.

Simmons soon started writing short stories, although his career did not take off until 1982, when, through Harlan Ellison's help, Simmons was invited to the Milford workshop, which Ellison considered to be "the best SF writing workshop in the world". Simmons considered Ellison as a mentor, friend, and the reason he pursued writing full-time. Simmons' short story "The River Styx Runs Upstream" was published and awarded first prize in a Twilight Zone Magazine story competition, and he was taken on as a client by Ellison's agent, Richard Curtis. Simmons's first novel, Song of Kali, was released in 1985.

The Terror (2007) crosses the bridge between horror and historical fiction. It is a fictionalized account of Sir John Franklin and his expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, become icebound the first winter, and the captains and crew struggle to survive while being stalked across an Arctic landscape by a monster. The novel was adapted into a ten-part television series.

The Abominable (2013) recounts a mid-1920s attempt on Mount Everest by five climbers—two British, one French, one Sherpa, and one American (the narrator)—to recover the body of a cousin of one of the British characters.

In January 2004, it was announced that the screenplay he wrote for his novels Ilium and Olympos would be made into a film by Digital Domain and Barnet Bain Films, with Simmons acting as executive producer. Ilium is described as an "epic tale that spans 5,000 years and sweeps across the entire solar system, including themes and characters from Homer's Iliad and Shakespeare's The Tempest."

In 2008, Guillermo del Toro was scheduled to direct a film adaptation of Drood for Universal Pictures. As of December 2017, the project is still listed as "in development".

In 2009, Scott Derrickson was set to direct Hyperion Cantos for Warner Bros. and Graham King, with Trevor Sands penning a script adapting Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion into one film. In 2011, actor Bradley Cooper expressed interest in taking over the adaptation. In 2015, it was announced that TV channel Syfy would produce a miniseries based on the Hyperion Cantos with the involvement of Cooper and King. As of May 2017, the project was still "in development" at Syfy. On November 1, 2021, Cooper and King restarted the feature film adaptation at Warner Bros., with Tom Spezialy set to write the script.