A Winter Haunting [Paperback]

Dan Simmons (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: HarperTorch (2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380817160
• ISBN-13: 978-0380817160
• ASIN: B0028I8VUI
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,417,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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 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.

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.
Many of Dan's books and stories have been optioned for film, including SONG OF KALI, DROOD, THE CROOK FACTORY, and others. 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. Director Scott Derrickson ("The Day the Earth Stood Stood Still") has been announced as the director for the Hyperion movie and Casta Gavras's son has been put at the helm of the French production of Carrion Comfort. Current discussions for other possible options include THE TERROR. Dan's hardboiled Joe Kurtz novels are currently being looked as the basis for a possible cable TV series.
In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education and writing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a sequel, March 25, 2003

By 

Richard Stoehr "Idle Rich" (Bremerton, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Winter Haunting (Hardcover)

I think that Stephen King tried to do this in "It," and I think he and Peter Straub tried it again in "Black House." Whether this is true or not, neither book succeeds in the way that "A Winter Haunting" succeeds. Here, Simmons gives us what we so rarely see in horror fiction - the psychological and emotional aftermath of a horrific experience.

Simmons also takes the standard genre elements and turns them on their collective head, all the while telling a good story that keeps you reading. "A Winter Haunting" is an admirable novel, and I can't imagine a more fitting continuation of its predecessor, "Summer of Night."

I re-read "Summer of Night" just prior to this book, to have the story fresh in my head. I don't think that it's strictly necessary to read the older book to appreciate "A Winter Haunting," but I would have to say that knowing what happens in "Summer of Night" definitely adds several important perspectives to the events of the later book.

Dan Simmons has made a career out of writing excellent novels in multiple genres, and "Summer of Night" was no exception; one of the great modern horror novels. As in most such books, the story ends when the evil is defeated. "A Winter Haunting" reminds us that, in real life, the story never really ends there. Those who endure after suffering loss and trauma have to live with what has happened, have to deal with it as best they can.

Dale Stewart, in "A Winter Haunting," has dealt with the horrific events of his childhood by not dealing with them - by shutting them out, by refusing to even remember them. A writer now, as well as a college professor, Dale is also the survivor of a failed marriage and a failed affair with one of his students. The books he has written thus far are formulaic adventure stories. He is visiting the town where he grew up, living in the house of his friend who died in the summer of 1960, in order to try and gain something intangible that he feels he has lost, and to write a new sort of story about that long-lost summer that he cannot remember.

In returning to Elm Haven, the town where he grew up, Dale confronts a few of his old childhood fears as well as many of his new, "adult," ones. What is really interesting about this is that we come to see that many of the troubles he has suffered as an adult are at least partially a result of that terrible summer in 1960, which he has never faced and dealt with directly. In "A Winter Haunting" we get to see what most horror novels never show us: we see what happens to someone who confronts evil and lives to tell the tale. There are no pat conclusions or pithy observations in "A Winter Haunting" - just an implied truth that sometimes memories are too terrible to be relived, and that some stories take a long time to tell.

Though "A Winter Haunting" is a sequel to "Summer of Night," as I read it I got more of a feeling of remembrance from the book. It builds upon the events of the earlier story, but it also deviates from them quite dramatically in tone and theme. It's not a nostalgic novel at all. In fact, it's almost anti-nostalgia. As Dale tries desperately hard to create memories of a summer he can't remember, even as he confronts new terrors both real and spiritual, we are led to the conclusion that some things simply cannot - or should not - be recalled with fondness.

In "A Winter Haunting" we are reminded that horrible events have consequences beyond the events themselves. They can exact a psychological toll that can take a lifetime or more to overcome. Once again Simmons has given me a pleasant surprise; not because he has written yet another fine novel (that's an expectation by now), but because he has explored original territory in the horror genre. And he has staked his claim well.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Summer of Night becomes chilling Winter of mind games., January 21, 2003

By 

Chadwick H. Saxelid "Bookworm" (Concord, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Winter Haunting (Hardcover)

Forty years, a failed marriage, affair, and suicide attempt later, Dale Stewart returns to his hometown and rents out the farm where of his childhood friend Duane had lived. He hopes to write a novel about the mysterious events of the almost forgotten summer of 1960, when Duane died. But strange and disturbing phenomenon, black dogs, neo-nazis, and old friends and enemies continually distract him. Unlike some reviewers, I love what Simmons has done in A Winter Haunting - which is write a classic, literate ghost story that both plays by the rules while intellectually reinventing them without breaking or denying them. Simmons has both Dale Stewart and the reader wondering about Dale's sanity. What exactly does Dale's failed affair with Clare Two Hearts have to do with the events at the farmhouse? Is Dale leaving himself notes? Is any of this really happening at all? And just who is haunting who? Questions a pedestrian and special effects laden spook story would not have the reader asking as the events unfold. A Winter Haunting is a classic chiller that expands on the psychological complexity of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House with stunning power. Highly recommended.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Winter of Discontent, May 16, 2003

By 

Kristin Munson (Wakefield, RI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Winter Haunting (Mass Market Paperback)

Winter Haunting is an interesting take on the horror genre. It takes your standard ghost story and injects a dose academia, it's just the dose is more than is healthy given the anemic page count. There are simply too many offset quotes and not enough scariness and suspense.

Dale is not exactly cut from the most sympathy-inducing length of cloth. Yes, he's losing his grip and his happy family but he's also a pretentious, obssesive adulterer who has brought most of his problems on himself. It's also hard to believe that someone who references so many literary and historical quotes and facts is only capable of writing a series of cliched and inaccurate western novels. Most professors are required to be published in academic periodicals and the ones that do write mainstream stuff usually choose something nonfiction in their chosen field.

So much time is spent talking and vaguely reminiscing about Dale's '60s childhood and the book he's trying to write about it that it really gets to the point where you want to ask the author why he didn't just tell that story instead of this one; it sounds much more interesting. But of course Simmons already has and it was called Summer of Night; the problem, is nowhere on the covers or the interiors is there any mention that is in any way related to another novel. The only reason I know was because after I'd finished it I came here and read it in other reviews. So many things might make so much more sense if these were read in order, not to mention the space he could have used to enhance this plot rather then rehashing stuff from the old one.

In Simmon's defense, he finds a pretty ingenious way to switch back and forth from first to third person in having the narrator be the spiritual remains of Duane hovering around. Duane occasionally injects his own opinions but for the most part tells the story as it happens while he watches. Being a 'ghost' he can also read Dale's thoughts and serve as a fully omniscient narrator.

The ending really comes off as something the author came up with out of boredom, having pretty much written himself into a corner; it explains very little of what's been happening and what ends are tied up leave more questions then they answer. This is not necessarily a bad thing as Dale is obviously becoming increasingly unhinged by the day and what's real and what's just in his head is debateable but the wrap-up muddies the issue with the fact that he receives physical injuries and is able to touch things that later turn out not to have existed.

Which is not to say that there aren't some disconcerting scares to be had; the empty radios that continue to broadcast, mysterious scrabblings in the basement, faces that push against the plastic of the closed off second floor and a black bulldog that gradually increases in both size and number provide some much-needed chills and mystery to what is initially just Dale's pity party. But none of these phenomenon are really explained and since Dale isn't the only witness he can't be imagining everything; there is too much mystery and not enough resolution.

This book resides squarely in the middle of the Amazon scale, it's not so good as some horror or supernatural novels I've read but it does make me want to give Summer of Night a try.