Fires of Eden (Paperback)

by Dan Simmons (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A talking hog with a bad attitude and a hungry humanoid with a shark's mouth in his hunchback are but two of the many loopy touches that Simmons (Lovedeath) puts into this fractured horror novel. There's also an unusual dual narration: a third-person account of the occult revenge wreaked on a ritzy but politically incorrect Hawaiian resort, and a first-person chronicle, drawn from a 19th-century diary, of similar troubles witnessed by the diarist, Lorena Stewart, and her traveling companion, the young Mark Twain. For all its eccentricities, though, the book is unlikely to add to Simmons's clutch of awards (Hugo, Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, etc.), because at heart it's powered by an utterly conventional horror premise-that nature will bite back when bitten-and because its dominant, present-time plot is peopled by cartoonish types. Chief among these is Byron Trumbo, the Trump-like tycoon who has so offended Hawaiian islanders with his sprawling resort carved into wilderness terrain that some have called upon ancient Hawaiian gods (hog and co.) and the giant volcanoes they control to destroy the resort. Simmons generates moderate suspense as Stewart's descendant and others race to save lives and souls from erupting volcanoes and malevolent gods, but not enough to avoid the reader's feeling that he should have shoehorned the entire story into the Twain segments, whose deft period charms more aptly suit the antiquated themes, characters and pyrotechnics on display. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Billionaire Byron Trumbo wants to sell his posh Hawaiian resort to a Japanese investor but must make it appear prosperous while the deal is being struck. Due to the high prices, guests have been scarce. Unfortunately, they are becoming even scarcer as someone or something is kidnapping and murdering them. Drawn by the sketchy news accounts, Eleanor Perry has come to Mauna Pele on a sort of pilgrimage, using her aunt Kidder's 1866 travel diary as a guidebook. The events Kidder chronicled-tales of demons conjured up to rid the island of missionaries-seem to parallel the current events. As volcanoes erupt and vengeful gods and demons become more violent, Eleanor and her fellow guest, the indomitable Cordie Stumpf, attempt to get to the bottom of things. Simmons (Children of the Night, LJ 7/92) is well known for his science fiction and horror writing, and this new work is as rich in Hawaiian mythology as it is in suspense. For most popular collections.
A.M.B. Amantia, Population Action International, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harpercollins (Mm); Reprint edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061056146
• ISBN-13: 978-0061056147
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #316,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't tick off the goddess, April 4, 2001

By	Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If Simmons wasn't such a darn good writer this probably could have been an absurdly silly book, all the warning signs are there. Giant talking god animals, people dropping like flies, nature rebelling against man's injustice to it, stuff like that. And yet Simmons pulls it all together and manages to make something good of it. The setting here is appropriately Hawaii at a hotel that billionaire Bryan Tumbo is trying to desperately sell to the Japanese, unfortunately for him, his few guests keep dying off, killed by some utterly sadistic and vaguely supernatural forces. Into this mess come our heroes and as things escalate (as you know they will) the puny humans trying to stay alive around the erupting volcanoes becomes a backdrop for the conflict of god versus god. And really it all works. Simmons has a knack for making even the patently silly (giant talking pigs with eight eyes) sincerely frightening and while the book probably isn't horror so much as old time adventure (it's pretty scary toward the beginning but once you know what's going on the fright factor goes away) with a bit of a feminist slant you're having too much of a grand old time to really care. Even better he intersperses the narrative with another narrative taken from someone's diary about similar events in 1866, featuring none other than Samuel Clemens (psst . . . Mark Twain) who Simmons writes so well that if he didn't talk like that, he should have. The diary also gives Simmons the opportunity to create twice the suspense by flashing back and forth between the two (though less so in the diary, she's obviously writing it after it's all over so you know she has to live to write it). Of course the story feels more suited for the old fashioned nineteenth century setting but Simmons' gift for description (especially of the contrast between the lush Hawaiian surroundings and the primal violence of the volcano) and his ability to immerse you in that setting. Events get so over the top after a while that you have no choice but to be swept away with it and his plotting is as deft as ever. And while I thought the climax lacked a bit in suspense it's still entertaining as all heck. Yeah it won't win him any awards but that's not the point here, he's just out to spin a good yarn and that's what we got...Track it down if you can to see an excellent author cutting loose and having some (admittedly well researched) fun with a story.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not his best, but still good, June 11, 2000

By	Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Knowing what I know of the writing of Dan Simmons, I expected this to be a science-fiction novel when I picked it up a couple of years ago. I never even read the synopsis, and promptly forgot I owned it. Turns out I was about as far off as i could be. I wouldn't exactly call it fantasy, and I wouldn't exactly call it horror, and I wouldn't exactly call it an environmental novel (though that's probably closest to the truth, with shades of such ecodisaster scenarios Prophecy, the Godzilla movies, and suchlike running through it). It has aspects of all of them, but never turns into a full-blown anything, preferring to defy categorization like many of Simmons' best books do.

Byron Trumbo is a billionaire with an attitude, a pending divorce, two young lovers who don't know about each other, and a money-pit Hawaiian resort he's trying to palm off on a group of Japanese investors who want to make it into a golf club. The problem is, people keep disappearing at Mauna Pele, and pieces of them turn up at the worst possible times. Add to this two intrepid adventurers who have come to Mauna Pele for different reasons (spoilers, again...) and who band together to try and solve the murders, an overly curious treehugger art curator who was hired after threatening to sue Trumbo for bulldozing over duck ponds, a crazed, murderous Hawaiian separatist, and a dimwitted pair of security guards, and the scene is set for a rollicking good time. All of the major characters are well-done and believable, if a little over the top sometimes (while I'm not usually one to balk at such things, the seemingly constant use of profanity in the book threw me for a loop; I could have done with less of it). Add cuts where we read sections of the main character's great-great-aunt's diary; the main character, Eleanor, is following in her aunt's footsteps, recreating a journey Aunt Kidder took with Samuel Clemens to the volcanoes on the Big Island (back when Americans knew Hawaii as the Sandwich Islands).

This was one of the conceits that annoyed me in the book, and it wouldn't have annoyed me if it hadn't been done so many times: we find ourselves at a cliffhanger and the diary narration takes over again. The first time, I liked it. The second time, I liked it. The third time, I liked it a little less. And so on. However, that was the only real mark against the novel, and I have to say it certainly held my interest up to the very last page. Definitely worth looking out for.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cheeky thriller that spans two centuried, January 13, 1998

By	Howard Paul Burgess (Bryan, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Fires of Eden gain points for sheer nerve. There's a story about awful things happening at a tropical resort, and it seems awfully familiar- although I was pleased that a goodly number of characters survive the carnage, instead of the one or two who usually live to see the dawn in stories like this. But at the heart of the novel is a journal which recounts a rousing adventure in which one of the main characters is Mr. Samuel Clemens. Ever since "Ragtime" came out in the 70's writers have felt free to have characters from history come into their novels and do their bidding. Mr. Clemens is a very believable character, and the adventures he has a century before the comtemporary action of "Fires of Eden" are, as a reviewer of his day might have said, a ripping yarn.