I have been a big fan of Dan Simmons's work since I first ran across his Hyperion. The Hyperion Cantos, as the four-volume set is known, is a big-canvas space opera work, but one that is particularly literate, drawing liberally on the spirit of Keats as well as the structure and feel of the Canterbury Tales.

The first book in that group, Hyperion deservedly won both the Hugo and the Locus for best sci-fi novel in 1990.

I likewise devoured his Ilium and Olympos cycle, big on Homer, but also drawing on Shakespeare and Proust, of all people.

Simmons also is a renowned horror author. I thought it time to delve into that side of his work when I picked up a copy of this book some months ago.

Well, I'm not sure that "horror" is quite the right word for this book. But, wow, it has been engaging. Simmons has fictionalized the backstory to Dickens' last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, telling the tale through the perspective of Dickens' longtime friend and frequent collaborator, the now-mostly forgotten Wilkie Collins.

The book is a fascinating study in upper(ish)-class Victorian England. Simmons appears to have thoroughly researched Dickens and Collins (although I admit that I know little of either, so mebbe not?), such that he weaves an intimate portrait of Dickens as seen through a close collaborator's eyes. That collaborator happens to be a laudanum addict and, by mid-book, an opium addict, which adds its own mysterious fog to the veracity of the narrator's perspective. The detail -- of London, of daily life, of the lives and careers of Dickens and Collins -- is rich and believable.

I'm "only" 400+ pages in to this dense, twisting, 775-page tale. But I'm thoroughly entertained and engaged. (and, sorry, but even though I know that knowing the ending won't ruin a good story, I haven't peeked ahead).

What are you reading?