Dan Simmons, who has died aged 77, was a versatile, prolific and genre-stretching writer whose work embraced the definition of SF as speculative, rather than simply science, fiction. In fact, before he wrote the four massive space opera novels that became known as the Hyperion Cantos, he had already made his name as a writer of horror. His first novel, Song of Kali (1985), won the World Fantasy award; his next, Carrion Comfort (1989), won the Bram Stoker, Locus and British Fantasy awards.
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were originally one novel. Divided into two, each won a Locus award, while Hyperion also captured a Hugo, and Fall of Hyperion the British Science Fiction Association prize. His two Endymion novels, again originally one book (1996), finished the Hyperion series.
