by Eric (Sword) Beaty

Created on: April 22, 2009

Drood
Dan Simmons

If you're looking for a book this year that will drag you in, no holds barred, chew you up and spit you out as well as make you wish you had written it; look no further than Drood (HC / Little, Brown and Company / Feb 2009 / $26.99 / ISBN 0316007021 ) by Dan Simmons. This is my first encounter with a book by Mr. Simmons and I must say that even though it started out sort of on the slow side, by the middle of the book I was totally sucked into the world he created for me, the reader. The version I enjoyed was the audio version read by John Lee; in a word, brilliant!

The book is about the relationship between that well-known and beloved genius Charles Dickens, his not so well known companion William "Wilkie" Collins, and a mysterious character by the name Drood - a vampirish, snake-like, ghastly man whom Dickens encounters after miraculously surviving the infamous Staplehurst accident of 1865. The title comes from that of Dickens' final unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; unfinished because Dickens died suddenly five years to the day of the accident, in fact while in the midst of writing it. The events of the book encompass these five years during and after the Staplehurst accident. Simmons actually tries to convince us that Drood himself became Dickens' inspiration for The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

What's so enchanting about Drood is that, since it's an historical novel, everything Simmons says through the characters of Dickens, Collins and countless others who draw our attention so subtly leads us to believe that much of the fiction that takes place in the novel actually happened. This is what good storytelling is supposed to do; draw you in and make you forget you're reading a story at all.

Wilkie Collins refers to Charles Dickens as "The Inimitable", which means unable to imitate or copy. While reading, you begin to see that Collins actually addresses him as such in a disdaining, condescending tone. Collins is, in fact, the true villain of the story and has it out for Dickens from the start. He begins by stating his thesis: Did Charles Dickens conspire to murder Edwin Dickenson and then attempt to dissolve his remains in a pit of quicklime? Quicklime does indeed have its place the story, but in much more sinister ways than this.

There is such a large amount of detail to cover that I would have to write a story of my own to even scratch the surface. There are mistresses, conspirators, detectives, betrayals, murders, and even drugs. Collins

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