DAN SIMMONS

My friend and author client Dan Simmons passed away on February 21, 2026 in Longmont, Colorado at age 77. He had battled numerous afflictions in the last years of his life but never let them impede his determination to produce his astounding works.

Simmons defied literary norms by writing across genres and defying pressure to conform to formulaic novels. He wrote 31 groundbreaking novels and story collections in historical fiction, horror, hard-boiled crime, and speculative fiction, and explored topics ranging from Ernest Hemingway’s World War II Cuban spy ring to mountain climbing in the Himalayas to ice-bound ships in the Arctic.

Harlan Ellison brought Simmons to my attention after the 34 year old writer won first prize in a short story competition. But even Harlan’s hyperbole (“You’ve got to represent this fantastic writer! Here’s the number! Call now! Don’t screw this up!”) inadequately described Simmons’ brilliance. His first novel, Song of Kali, won the World Fantasy Award. Hyperion, the first saga in what was to become a classic science fiction quartet, won the Hugo, science fiction’s highest honor. His heart-stopping horror thriller The Terror won the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award and was made into a ten-part television mini-series. Over the next twenty-five years he was to collect innumerable awards in multiple genres.

Simmons’s versatility gave his publishers fits. For the sake of branding, they urged him to keep to one genre, but Dan followed his bliss and wrote whatever seized his imagination. I once suggested to him he might do better by sticking consistently to one category or another, and he let me know with both barrels that his job was to write ‘em and mine to sell ‘em. I never made that mistake again.

We became tight friends, a rare blend of personal and professional. Whenever he came to New York we explored stories, characters and publishing gossip long into the night over a bottle of fine 25-year-old malt whiskey, and snatches of our colloquies showed up in his books. So strong was our bond that he honored me by dedicating a book to me.

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Richard Curtis’s latest book, Digital Inc., Inside The Transformation of Publishing from Print to E-Books, now on sale.