Books Read: The Hollow Man
Apr. 20th, 2003 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aJust finished reading The Hollow Man, by Dan Simmons.
It's a SF/horror book that I'd been hearing good things about for years. Since I thought Simmon's Hyperion series was absolutely brilliant (though I still have to read the fourth book), when I saw this tome sitting on the used shelf at Moe's the other week I was quick to snap it up. Unfortunately, I don't feel like it lived up to the hype.
The book tracks the protagonist's spiral downward following the death of his wife. It's on the one hand riveting reading, because Simmons knows how to pace things to keep suspense going. But, on the other hand, it's all episodic and unlikely. This poor man falls afoul of first the mob, then a serial killer while travelling the US following his wife's death. What are the odds of that?
Now, there's a SF angle to this, which is that the man is telepathic. And there's a metaphysical angle to it too, which is that our protagonist is also a mathematician who's uncovered formulae implying the universe ultimately is controlled by its observers, which is to say us. Though it's never outright stated, it's implied that telepathy exists so that the multitude of minds upon this planet can together maintain a consistent view of the universe.
Now, perhaps Simmons intended the protagonist's descent into horror to be a meaningful exploration of his feelings upon his wife's death. Perhaps we're meant to believe that Bremen creates the hell that he lives through the same quantum observer effect that he's solving in his mathematics.
Perhaps ...
In reality though, the suspense ultimately falls flat and the book bogs down into a quagmire of mathematical and metaphysical babbling by the end. I read the last 50 pages or so simply to get them over with and was greatly underwhelmed by the ending.
I felt like Simmons had some interesting and meaningful ideas that he was trying to explore in the Hollow Man, but that ultimately the presentation fell flat. For a more interesting insight into similar ideas, I prefered Passage, by Connie Willis, though I felt like that book went too metaphysical too, in the last 20% or so of the book.
First Line: Bremen left the hospital and his dying wife and drove east to the sea.
It's a SF/horror book that I'd been hearing good things about for years. Since I thought Simmon's Hyperion series was absolutely brilliant (though I still have to read the fourth book), when I saw this tome sitting on the used shelf at Moe's the other week I was quick to snap it up. Unfortunately, I don't feel like it lived up to the hype.
The book tracks the protagonist's spiral downward following the death of his wife. It's on the one hand riveting reading, because Simmons knows how to pace things to keep suspense going. But, on the other hand, it's all episodic and unlikely. This poor man falls afoul of first the mob, then a serial killer while travelling the US following his wife's death. What are the odds of that?
Now, there's a SF angle to this, which is that the man is telepathic. And there's a metaphysical angle to it too, which is that our protagonist is also a mathematician who's uncovered formulae implying the universe ultimately is controlled by its observers, which is to say us. Though it's never outright stated, it's implied that telepathy exists so that the multitude of minds upon this planet can together maintain a consistent view of the universe.
Now, perhaps Simmons intended the protagonist's descent into horror to be a meaningful exploration of his feelings upon his wife's death. Perhaps we're meant to believe that Bremen creates the hell that he lives through the same quantum observer effect that he's solving in his mathematics.
Perhaps ...
In reality though, the suspense ultimately falls flat and the book bogs down into a quagmire of mathematical and metaphysical babbling by the end. I read the last 50 pages or so simply to get them over with and was greatly underwhelmed by the ending.
I felt like Simmons had some interesting and meaningful ideas that he was trying to explore in the Hollow Man, but that ultimately the presentation fell flat. For a more interesting insight into similar ideas, I prefered Passage, by Connie Willis, though I felt like that book went too metaphysical too, in the last 20% or so of the book.
First Line: Bremen left the hospital and his dying wife and drove east to the sea.
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Date: 2003-04-20 09:02 pm (UTC)