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  The Complete Short Fiction

  Dan Simmons

  Cover

  Jerry eBooks

  Title Page

  About Dan Simmons

  Bibliography

  Short Fiction Bibliography: chronological

  Short Fiction Bibliography: alphabetical

  Fiction Series

  Epigraph

  1982

  THE RIVER STYX RUNS UPSTREAM

  EYES I DARE NOT MEET IN DREAMS

  1983

  CARRION COMFORT (Part One)

  CARRION COMFORT (Conclusion)

  REMEMBERING SIRI

  1985

  VEXED TO NIGHTMARE, BY A ROCKING CRADLE

  1987

  E TICKET TO NAMLAND

  1988

  TWO MINUTES FORTY-FIVE SECONDS

  METASTASIS

  VANNI FUCCI IS ALIVE AND WELL, AND LIVING IN HELL

  IVERSON’S PIT

  1989

  SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT, TWO BITS

  1990

  DYING IS EASY, COMEDY IS HARD

  ENTROPY’S BED AT MIDNIGHT

  BANISHED DREAMS

  1991

  THE OFFERING

  THE DEATH OF THE CENTAUR

  THE COUNSELOR

  ALL DRACULA’S CHILDREN

  MY PRIVATE MEMOIRS OF THE HOFFER STIGMATA PANDEMIC

  1992

  THIS YEAR’S CLASS PICTURE

  ELM HAVEN, IL

  ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAX

  1993

  DEATH IN BANGKOK

  HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLY

  DYING IN BANGKOK

  SLEEPING WITH TEETH WOMEN

  FLASHBACK

  THE GREAT LOVER

  1994

  MY COPSA MICAS

  1995

  LOOKING FOR KELLY DAHL

  1999

  ORPHANS OF THE HELIX

  2000

  MADAME BOVARY, C’EST MOI

  2001

  THE NINTH OF AV

  ON K2 WITH KANAKAREDES

  2002

  THE END OF GRAVITY

  2006

  THE TIME TRAVELER

  2007

  MUSE OF FIRE

  2009

  THE GUIDING NOSE OF ULFÄNT BANDERŌZ

  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 fiction, journalism and art.

  Dan received his Master’s 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.

  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. He sometimes writes 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.

  Dan is one of the few novelists whose work spans the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, historical fiction, noir crime fiction, and mainstream literary fiction. His books are published in 27 foreign counties as well as the U.S. and Canada.

  In 1995, Dan’s alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education and writing.

  Many of Dan’s books and stories have been optioned for film, including Song of Kali, Drood, The Crook Factory, and others. In 1990, Dan Simmons adapted his own short-story “Metastasis” as the teleplay “The Offering” for the television series Monsters. Some, such as the four Hyperion novels and single Hyperion-universe novella “Orphans of the Helix”, and Carrion Comfort have been purchased (the Hyperion books by Warner Brothers and Graham King Films, Carrion Comfort by European filmmaker Casta Gavras’s company) and are in pre-production. Casta Gavras’s son has been put at the helm of the French production of Carrion Comfort.

  In 2018, The Terror was adapted as an AMC TV 10 episode limited series, with Dan Simmons acting as an Executive Producer. Overall, the limited series received generally positive reviews.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Novels

  Song of Kali (1985)

  Phases of Gravity (1989)

  Carrion Comfort (1989)

  Hyperion (1989)

  The Fall of Hyperion (1990)

  Entropy’s Bed at Midnight (1990)

  Summer of Night (1991)

  Children of the Night (1992)

  The Hollow Man (1992)

  Fires of Eden (1994)

  Endymion (1996)

  The Rise of Endymion (1997)

  The Crook Factory (1999)

  Darwin’s Blade (2000)

  Hardcase (2001)

  A Winter Haunting (2002)

  Hard Freeze (2002)

  Ilium (2003)

  Hard as Nails (2003)

  Olympos (2005)

  Song of Kali: 20th Anniversary Edition (2005)

  The Terror (2007)

  Drood (2009)

  Black Hills (2010)

  Flashback (2011)

  The Abominable (2013)

  The Fifth Heart (2015)

  Omega Canyon (2019)

  Serials

  Carrion Comfort, Omni, September-October 1983

  Collections

  Prayers to Broken Stones (1991)

  Summer Sketches (1992)

  Lovedeath (1993)

  Worlds Enough & Time (2002)

  Chapbooks

  Entropy’s Bed at Midnight (1990)

  Banished Dreams (1990)

  Muse of Fire (2008)

  The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz (2013)

  This Year’s Class Picture (2015)

  Nonfiction

  “The Satyr”, Wabash College Press, circa 1960s

  “Read This”, New York Review of Science Fiction, 1989

  “Determine Your Censorship Quotient”, Gauntlet Magazine, 1990

  “Banished Dreams” (1990)

  “Going After the Rubber Chicken: Three Guest of Honor Speeches” (1991)

  “Childhood’s End” (1991)

  Summer Sketches (1992)

  “This Man Will Scare You, And He Should” (1992)

  “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics of Poppy” (1993)

  “Introduction to Cujo” (1994)

  “Introduction to I Am Legend” (1995)

  Negative Spaces (1999)

  “Jack Vance: Dragon Master”, JACK VANCE: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography, 2000

  Negative Spaces (2000)

  “Madame Bovary C’est Moi”, Nature, 2000

  “Colorado Voices Columns in The Denver Post”, The Denver Post, 2001

  SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY

  CHRONOLOGICAL

  1982

  The River Styx Runs Upstream, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, April 1982

  Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams, Omni, September 1982

  1983

  Carrion Comfort (Part One), Omni, September 1983

  Carrion Comfort (Conclusion), Omni, October 1983

  Remembering Siri, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December 1983

  1985

  Vexed To Nightmare By a Rocking Cradle, Mile High Futures, November 1985

  1987

  E-Ticket to Namland, Omni, November 1987

  1988

  Two Minutes Forty Five Seconds, Omni, April 1988

  Metastasis, Night Visions 5, May 1988

  Vanni Fucci Is Alive and Well and Living In Hell, Night Visions 5, May 1988

  Iverson’s Pits, Night Visions 5, May
1988

  1989

  Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites, Masques III, October 1989

  1990

  Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard, The Further Adventures of The Joker, February 1990

  Entropy’s Bed at Midnight, Limited edition/numbered chapbook, March 1990

  Banished Dreams, Limited edition/numbered chapbook, December 1990

  1991

  The Offering, Prayers to Broken Stones, January 1991

  The Death of the Centaur, Prayers to Broken Stones, January 1991

  The Counselor, Obsessions, May 1991

  All Dracula’s Children, The Ultimate Dracula, October 1991

  My Private Memoirs of the Hoffer Stigmata Pandemic, Masques IV, October 1991

  1992

  This Year’s Class Picture, Still Dead, August 1992

  Elm Haven, IL, Freak Show, September 1992

  One Small Step For Max, Omni Best Science Fiction Two, November 1992

  1993

  Death in Bangkok, Playboy, June 1993

  Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, Lovedeath, November 1993

  Dying in Bangkok, Lovedeath, November 1993

  Sleeping with Teeth Women, Lovedeath, November 1993

  Flashback, Lovedeath, November 1993

  The Great Lover, Lovedeath, November 1993

  1994

  My Copsa Micas, The Earth Strikes Back: New Tales of Ecological Horror, December 1994

  1995

  Looking For Kelly Dahl, High Fantastic: Colorado’s Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction, July 1995

  1999

  Orphans of the Helix, Far Horizons, May 1999

  2000

  Madame Bovary, C’est Moi, Nature, September, 2000

  2001

  The Ninth of Av, Destination 3001, January 2001

  On K2 with Kanakaredes, Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction, December 2001

  2002

  The End of Gravity, Worlds Enough and Time, March 2002

  2006

  The Time Traveler, dansimmons.com, April 2006

  2007

  Muse of Fire, The New Space Opera, June 2007

  2009

  The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz, Songs of the Dying Earth, October 2009

  SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ALPHABETICAL

  A

  All Dracula’s Children, The Ultimate Dracula, October 1991

  B

  Banished Dreams, Limited edition/numbered chapbook, December 1990

  C

  Carrion Comfort (Part One), Omni, September 1983

  Carrion Comfort (Conclusion), Omni, October 1983

  The Counselor, Obsessions, May 1991

  D

  Death in Bangkok, Playboy, June 1993

  The Death of the Centaur, Prayers to Broken Stones, January 1991

  Dying in Bangkok, Lovedeath, November 1993

  Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard, The Further Adventures of The Joker, February 1990

  E

  Elm Haven, IL, Freak Show, September 1992

  The End of Gravity, Worlds Enough and Time, March 2002

  Entropy’s Bed at Midnight, Limited edition/numbered chapbook, March 1990

  E-Ticket to Namland, Omni, November 1987

  Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams, Omni, September 1982

  F

  Flashback, Lovedeath, November 1993

  G

  The Great Lover, Lovedeath, November 1993

  The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz, Songs of the Dying Earth, October 2009

  H

  Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, Lovedeath, November 1993

  I

  Iverson’s Pits, Night Visions 5, May 1988

  L

  Looking For Kelly Dahl, High Fantastic: Colorado’s Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction, July 1995

  M

  Madame Bovary, C’est Moi, Nature, September, 2000

  Metastasis, Night Visions 5, May 1988

  Muse of Fire, The New Space Opera, June 2007

  My Copsa Micas, The Earth Strikes Back: New Tales of Ecological Horror, December 1994

  My Private Memoirs of the Hoffer Stigmata Pandemic, Masques IV, October 1991

  N

  The Ninth of Av, Destination 3001, January 2001

  O

  The Offering, Prayers to Broken Stones, January 1991

  On K2 with Kanakaredes, Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction, December 2001

  One Small Step For Max, Omni Best Science Fiction Two, November 1992

  Orphans of the Helix, Far Horizons, May 1999

  R

  Remembering Siri, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December 1983

  The River Styx Runs Upstream, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, April 1982

  S

  Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites, Masques III, October 1989

  Sleeping with Teeth Women, Lovedeath, November 1993

  T

  This Year’s Class Picture, Still Dead, August 1992

  The Time Traveler, dansimmons.com, April 2006

  Two Minutes Forty Five Seconds, Omni, April 1988

  V

  Vanni Fucci Is Alive and Well and Living In Hell, Night Visions 5, May 1988

  Vexed To Nightmare By a Rocking Cradle, Mile High Futures, November 1985

  FICTION SERIES

  [C] = Collection

  [O] = Omnibus

  [SF] = Short Story/Novelette

  Hyperion Cantos

  Hyperion

  The Fall of Hyperion

  Hyperion Cantos [O]

  The Death of the Centaur [SF]

  Endymion

  The Rise of Endymion

  Orphans of the Helix [SF]

  The Endymion Omnibus [O]

  Ilium/Olympos

  Ilium

  Olympos

  Joe Kurtz

  Hardcase

  Hard Freeze

  Hard as Nails

  Seasons of Horror

  Dale's Dream [SF]

  Kevin's Dream [SF]

  Mike's Dream [SF]

  Banished Dreams [C]

  Summer of Night

  Children of the Night

  A Winter Haunting

  “Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation.”

  1982

  THE RIVER STYX RUNS UPSTREAM

  IT WAS GOOD TO HAVE MOTHER HOME AGAIN, AT FIRST. YOU COULD ALMOST MAKE BELIEVE SHE WASN’T DEAD.

  What thou loves well remains

  the rest is dross

  What thou love’s well shall not be raft

  from thee

  What thou love’s well is thy

  true heritage . . .

  —Ezra Pound

  Canto LXXXI

  I loved my mother very much. After her funeral, after the coffin was lowered, the family went home and waited for her return.

  I was only eight at the time. Of the required ceremony I remember little. I recall that the collar of the previous year’s shirt was far too tight and that the unaccustomed tie was like a noose around my neck. I remember that the June day was too beautiful for such a solemn gathering. I remember Uncle Will’s heavy drinking that morning and the bottle of Jack Daniels he pulled out as we drove home from the funeral. I remember my father’s face.

  The afternoon was too long. I had no role to play in the family’s gathering that day, and the adults ignored me. I found myself wandering from room to room with a warm glass of Kool-Aid, until finally I escaped to the backyard. Even that familiar landscape of play and seclusion was ruined by the glimpse of pale, fat faces staring out from the neighbor’s windows. They were waiting. Hoping for a glimpse. I felt like shouting, throwing rocks at them. Instead I sat down on the old tractor tire we used as a sandbox. Very deliberately I poured the red Kool-Aid into the sand and watched the spreading stain digging a small pit.

  They’re digging her up now.

  I ran to the swing set and angrily began to pump my legs against the bare soil. The swing creaked with rust, and one leg of the frame rose out of the ground. No, they’ve already done that, stupid. Now they’re hooking her up to big machines. Will they pump the blood back into her?

  I thought of bottles hanging. I remembered the fat, red ticks that clung to our dog in the summer. Angry, I swung high, kicking up hard even when there was no more height to be gained.

  Do her fingers twitch first? Or do her eyes just slide open like an owl waking up?

  I reached the high point of my arc and jumped. For a second I was weightless and I hung above the earth like Superman, like a spirit flying from its body. Then gravity claimed me and I fell heavily on my hands and knees. I had scraped my palms and put grass stain on my right knee. Mother would be angry.