The Hollow Man

by Dan Simmons

Overview

Jeremy Bremen has a secret.  All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds.  He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own.  For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge.  But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity.  Now Jeremy is on the run—from his mind, from his past, from himself—hoping to find peace in isolation.  Instead he witnesses an act of brutality that propels him on a treacherous trek across a dark and dangerous America.  From a fantasy theme park to the lair of a killer to a sterile hospital room in St. Louis, he follows a voice that is calling him to witness the stunning mystery at the heart of mortality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553563504
Publisher:	Random House Worlds
Publication date:	09/01/1993
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	307,777
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.82(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Dan Simmons, a full-time public school teacher until 1987, is one of the few writers who consistently work across genres, producing novels described as science fiction, horror, fantasy, and mainstream fiction, while winning major awards in all these fields. His first novel, Song of Kali, won the World Fantasy Award; his first science fiction novel, Hyperion, won the Hugo Award. His other novels and short fiction have been honored with numerous awards, including nine Locus Awards, four Bram Stoker Awards, the French Prix Cosmos 2000, the British SF Association Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. In 1995, Wabash College presented Simmons with an honorary doctorate in humane letters for his work in fiction and education. He lives in Colorado along the Front Range of the Rockies.

Read an Excerpt

Shadow at Evening
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Hollow Man"
by .
Copyright © 1993 Dan Simmons.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

Stephen King

The Hollow Man is totally alive and brilliantly focused. Although Simmons is very clearly his own man -- no writer in American popular fiction has been able to mix the real and the unreal in quite the same proportions.

Harlan Ellison

Dan Simmons is a breathtaking writer.

Editorial Reviews

Hugo Award winner Simmons returns to science fiction after a pair of horror novels ( Summer of Night ; Children of the Night ) with this impressive and thoughtful novel about the pain and the power of telepathy. Jeremy and Gail were made sad and lonely by their ability to read others' minds, until they found each other. Married, they grew closer than any non-telepathic couple ever could. But when Gail dies, Jeremy goes over the edge. He finds himself inundated with ``neurobabble,'' unable to keep out the roaring ocean of other thoughts that surrounds him. Drowning in despair, he begins a journey meant to resemble bear an unmistak able resemblance to that of Dante in his Divine Comedy --he flees his job, friends and home; runs afoul of gangsters in Florida; lives homeless in Denver; and uses his telepathy to win his way to wealth in Las Vegas. Simmons is at his best during Jeremy's descent into despair, searching for relief from the neurobabble and flirting with suicide. Blending chaos theory, quantum physics and neuroscience, Simmons constructs a vague but intriguing scientific explanation of telepathy. The power-of-love happy ending may leave some readers unsatisified, since it doesn't resolve some of the book's bleaker issues, but Simmons's novel remains an engrossing look at a well-worn concept. of telepathy. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The untimely death of telepath Gail Bremen casts husband Jeremy adrift on a tidal wave of unfiltered thoughts. Jeremy's struggle to come to terms with his life and his wife's death leads him to a young boy lost in his own mental nightmare. The author of the award-winning Hyperion (Doubleday, 1989) and The Fall of Hyperion ( LJ 3/15/90) demonstrates his facility with atmosphere in this sf/fantasy blend that penetrates the mind's landscape. Recommended for large fiction or sf collections.

Library Journal