Song of Kali

This won a World Fantasy award, what, two decades ago? It wasn't particularly scary in the horror sense of the word. It was descriptively, delightfully disturbing, though. Dan Simmons seems to favour description; he kicks it old school, frankly, which I really like, and he revels in the things he knows and has studied, which I can relate to.

Thing about this book is...it's really good and making one disturbed. All the things about Kali and how terrible she is, very disturbing. But what is even more disturbing is the sheer squalor of Calcutta in the 70's. And the things that the main character, Robert Luczak, goes through in trying to get a story about a supposedly dead poet. It's not ghosts and demons and Sadako scary. It's humans being humans that make this book scary. Humans living in filth and either accepting it or being forced to. Humans doing horrible things to other humans. And that's essentially what this book is about. The Age of Kali, which wreaks havoc and destruction.

So, yeah, I totally enjoyed this book. Now, perhaps, on to ‘Drood.'