Today marks the publication date of a new Dan Simmons novel so astonishing it’s almost impossible for me to articulate it – and I have spent several decades articulating the achievements of my client Dan Simmons.

The books is Black Hills, published by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. Here is an excerpt of a starred review from Publishers Weekly:

Hugo-winner Simmons, the author of such acclaimed space operas as Hyperion and Olympos as well as Drood, an intriguing riff on Dickens’s unfinished last novel, displays the impressive breath of his imagination in this historical novel with a supernatural slant. In the author’s retelling of Custer’s last stand at the Little Big Horn in 1876, the dying general’s ghost enters the body of Paha Sapa, a 10-year-old Sioux warrior who’s able to see both the past and the future by touching people. The action leaps around in time to illustrate the arc of Sapa’s life, but focuses on 1936, when, as a septuagenarian, he plots to blow up the monuments on Mount Rushmore in time for a visit to the site by FDR to atone for his role in constructing the stone likenesses. In his ability to create complex characters and pair them with suspenseful situations, Simmons stands almost unmatched among his contemporaries.

E-Reads carries two vintage Dan Simmons novels, Song of Kali and Phases of Gravity.

Richard Curtis

Here is Simmons himself to introduce his book to you.