Summer Of Night

Summer Of Night

by Dan Simmons

Summer Of Night Dan Simmons St Martins Griffin 2011 (first published in 1992) 528 Pages ISBN 978-0312550677 While I thoroughly enjoyed IT (and let’s face it; Stephen King is THE giant of modern horror and deservedly so), I have always found Dan Simmons’ Summer Of Night to be the superior novel. It’s all here; kids facing a horror that targets them specifically and refuses to play nice; the thing under the bed; the face at the window; the walking dead; and…that terrifying rendering truck. I loved this novel at the same time as it terrified me. Perhaps because it terrified me. Don’t get too attached to the kids here. Simmons serves notice that they are definitely not safe. When I first read this novel, I lived a few blocks from a school that reminded me so much of the school that plays a large part in these goings on, and I grew up a few miles from a cemetery reminiscent of the one presented here. I won’t even pretend to say that this novel along with Something Wicked weren’t significant influences on me when I wrote Brothers. The influence of both is obvious. Masterful stuff.