A Book from the Ether: Song of Kali, by Dan Simmons

I know I already threw a book out there by Dan Simmons, but I felt compelled to present another.  I can already hear all you Buzzards squawking, "We get it!  You like Dan Simmons.  If given the opportunity, you would volunteer to brush his hair and beard while exchanging childhood stories."  Well, despite this being true, this is not why I chose Song of Kali for this Book from the Ether posting.



The reason, however, is due to a world-traveling family member who is currently spending a few months in the Indian mountain town of Manali.  Song of Kali takes place in early 80's Calcutta.  Now, India is a big country and I imagine Manali is quite different from Calcutta.  For that matter, I imagine the Calcutta of 30 years ago is different from that of today.  Still, it seems an appropriate time to discuss this great book.  (Also, for that world traveler, being that one of your past haunts was Thailand, take a look at my last post, Escape!, where I discuss The Windup Girl, which takes place in a future Bangkok.)

Song of Kali won The World Fantasy Award in 1986.  The story centers on Robert Luzcak, who, accompanied by his wife and child, is sent to Calcutta by his magazine to locate recently written poetry by a writer thought to have been dead for a number of years.  As the story effectively unweaves, leading deeper into the dark side of Calcutta, Luscak becomes embroiled in events that seem to lead to one thing: a cult that worships Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction.

This was Simmons' first book and, though it is by no means my favorite of his works, it is still well written and effectively creates a frightening world in the streets of Calcutta.  The following are professional critiques taken from Amazon:

Horror critic Edward Bryant calls Song of Kali "an exactingly constructed, brutal, and uncompromising study of the degree to which an evil place may permeate and steep all that makes us human" and writes that it embodies "the stance of a psychologically violent novel about a violent society as a defensible and indisputably moral work of art." --Fiona Webster



"The best novel in the genre I can remember. Dan Simmons is brilliant!" --Dean R. Koontz

"Song of Kali is as harrowing and ghoulish as anyone could wish. Simmons makes the stuff of nightmares very real indeed." --Locus

"Dan Simmons understands terror and what it does to readers. Where Stephen King flinches, Simmons doesn't." --Edward Byrant, Mile High Futures

"An absolutely harrowing experience." --F. Paul Wilson (author of The Keep)