What do you think?
Rate this book
Black Hills
When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life.
Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills.
In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.
Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills.
In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.
487 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Dan Simmons
316 books12.4k followersDan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.
ABOUT DAN
Biographic Sketch
His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.
Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."
Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado—in the same town where he taught for 14 years—with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker—their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike—a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels—was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.
ABOUT DAN
Biographic Sketch
His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.
Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."
Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado—in the same town where he taught for 14 years—with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker—their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike—a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels—was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 464 reviews
March 18, 2010
When will Dan Simmons come up with some original ideas? This latest is about a Lakota (Sioux) Indian named Paha Sapa (which means Black Hills) who has the psychic ability to read a person’s memories and get a glimpse of their future by touching them. After trying to count coup on a dying soldier at the Little Big Horn, he ends up with the spirit of George Custer inhabiting his consciousness. This puts Paha Sapa at odds with Crazy Horse, whose memories he also absorbs, and forces him to run away and start his vision quest. After a terrifying vision of his people’s future, Paha Sapa tries to return to warn the Lakota, only to be blocked by circumstances that will lead him through a life of loss and regret that culminates with him attempting to sabotage the carving of Mount Rushmore.
Yeah, like we haven’t read THAT story a thousand times already….
Seriously, someone needs to put an ice pack on Dan Simmons head because I’m relatively sure that the guy's brains have got be cooking. Normal writers are not meant to shift from horror to crime to sci-fi and then start packaging elements of all of them into meticulously researched historical fiction. It was hard enough to keep up when he just stuck to mind-bending sci-fi like Ilium and Olympus, but this is just crazy.
The story of Paha Sapa and his life will suck any reader in. Plus there’s an amazing amount of detail that’s in this book regarding everything from the Lakota way of life and language, Custer’s life (and surprisingly freaky sexual escapades with his wife), the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the carving of Mt. Rushmore, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chicago World’s Fair.
In fact, there’s a little too much detail in this one. Reading the section where Paha Sapa visits the Brooklyn Bridge and is remembering all he was told about its construction by a friend made me realize that Simmons could have written an entire book about just the building of the bridge. And while it’s all interesting and well written, it’s just completely overwhelming after a while.
That’s too bad because there is a really great and touching story with a terrific main character here, but it all tends to get obscured by everything that’s going on. Simmons is an incredible writer, but he really doesn’t need to put every idea he has into one book.
I need a nap.
Yeah, like we haven’t read THAT story a thousand times already….
Seriously, someone needs to put an ice pack on Dan Simmons head because I’m relatively sure that the guy's brains have got be cooking. Normal writers are not meant to shift from horror to crime to sci-fi and then start packaging elements of all of them into meticulously researched historical fiction. It was hard enough to keep up when he just stuck to mind-bending sci-fi like Ilium and Olympus, but this is just crazy.
The story of Paha Sapa and his life will suck any reader in. Plus there’s an amazing amount of detail that’s in this book regarding everything from the Lakota way of life and language, Custer’s life (and surprisingly freaky sexual escapades with his wife), the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the carving of Mt. Rushmore, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chicago World’s Fair.
In fact, there’s a little too much detail in this one. Reading the section where Paha Sapa visits the Brooklyn Bridge and is remembering all he was told about its construction by a friend made me realize that Simmons could have written an entire book about just the building of the bridge. And while it’s all interesting and well written, it’s just completely overwhelming after a while.
That’s too bad because there is a really great and touching story with a terrific main character here, but it all tends to get obscured by everything that’s going on. Simmons is an incredible writer, but he really doesn’t need to put every idea he has into one book.
I need a nap.
February 6, 2017
I'm not sure why I finished listening to this but every time I thought I was at a dead end it would turn back onto Fascination Street. (Maybe not the same street The Cure sang about. That would require further tiresome research.)
I love Simmons but, like his genres, my ratings are all over the place. This gets somewhere between one and five stars. At half the length of masterpieces like The Terror and The Abominable, it felt twice as long.
He could have shaved a hundred pages by sticking with English. The Sioux spoke Sioux. I get it. Unless there's a complicated translation of something specific I don't it's necessary to offer everything in both languages. I also learned from The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America that the Chicago fair was boring enough to not deserve multiple pages on the fucking Ferris wheel. Ever been on one as a kid? Remember wanting it to end so you could get on a real roller coaster?
Yeah, it was fifty cents to ride it. Fascinating. Let's talk about it.
I didn't hate all of it. Most of it, probably, but the rest of it was fabulous. The dynamite shaving of Mount Rushmore was of particular interest to me but detailed enough that those parts will probably piss people off too.
I defer to one of my previous reviews of his work where I complain that he's always hit or miss for me. (Fucking Simmons!!!)
I'm gonna settle for a simultaneous one and five star rating. You'll either love it or throw things in frustration. Good luck to you all.
I love Simmons but, like his genres, my ratings are all over the place. This gets somewhere between one and five stars. At half the length of masterpieces like The Terror and The Abominable, it felt twice as long.
He could have shaved a hundred pages by sticking with English. The Sioux spoke Sioux. I get it. Unless there's a complicated translation of something specific I don't it's necessary to offer everything in both languages. I also learned from The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America that the Chicago fair was boring enough to not deserve multiple pages on the fucking Ferris wheel. Ever been on one as a kid? Remember wanting it to end so you could get on a real roller coaster?
Yeah, it was fifty cents to ride it. Fascinating. Let's talk about it.
I didn't hate all of it. Most of it, probably, but the rest of it was fabulous. The dynamite shaving of Mount Rushmore was of particular interest to me but detailed enough that those parts will probably piss people off too.
I defer to one of my previous reviews of his work where I complain that he's always hit or miss for me. (Fucking Simmons!!!)
I'm gonna settle for a simultaneous one and five star rating. You'll either love it or throw things in frustration. Good luck to you all.
April 21, 2015
The beauty of Dan Simmons is how well he transcends genre. Not content to just be a science-fiction novelist, or a horror novelist, or a crime novelist, or a historical ficiton novelist, he does a bit of dabbling in all of those genres. And that's the thing: he doesn't just dabble. He kicks each genre square in the ass.
Simmons is such a damn fine writer that his work can be enjoyed as the beautiful works of art they are, regardless of the genre. In fact, the genre of each individual work is irrelevant. I read everything this man publishes because I love his work, but there really is something for everybody in the vault of Simmons novels.
My wife asked me about halfway through this novel if I thought it was better than Drood (his most recent novel, which I raved about on this very site). And I don't think it is, but I also believe that it might be. It's a different sort of novel, impossible to classify alongside a work as dreary and dark as Drood. Black Hills is also neither as good as or better than Hyperion, or Carrion Comfort, or Fires of Eden, or The Terror. Simmons doesn't seem to be out to defeat himself, though. He just seems to want to write beautiful novels that don't necessarily all fit on the same shelf at the library.
Dammit, I love Dan Simmons! And Black Hills is no exception. I'm not going to spoil anything. Readers should experience the story being told here for themselves. I will say, though, that it's quite remarkable the way that Mr. Simmons can take a story about a man who plots to destroy Mt. Rushmore and make a reader care. Everyone knows that Mt. Rushmore isn't going to get destroyed at the ending, but the writing still manages to give the idea an incredible amount of tension. This one is more about the journey. It's the journey of a flawed and sad and wonderfully inspiring man.
Simmons is such a damn fine writer that his work can be enjoyed as the beautiful works of art they are, regardless of the genre. In fact, the genre of each individual work is irrelevant. I read everything this man publishes because I love his work, but there really is something for everybody in the vault of Simmons novels.
My wife asked me about halfway through this novel if I thought it was better than Drood (his most recent novel, which I raved about on this very site). And I don't think it is, but I also believe that it might be. It's a different sort of novel, impossible to classify alongside a work as dreary and dark as Drood. Black Hills is also neither as good as or better than Hyperion, or Carrion Comfort, or Fires of Eden, or The Terror. Simmons doesn't seem to be out to defeat himself, though. He just seems to want to write beautiful novels that don't necessarily all fit on the same shelf at the library.
Dammit, I love Dan Simmons! And Black Hills is no exception. I'm not going to spoil anything. Readers should experience the story being told here for themselves. I will say, though, that it's quite remarkable the way that Mr. Simmons can take a story about a man who plots to destroy Mt. Rushmore and make a reader care. Everyone knows that Mt. Rushmore isn't going to get destroyed at the ending, but the writing still manages to give the idea an incredible amount of tension. This one is more about the journey. It's the journey of a flawed and sad and wonderfully inspiring man.
July 17, 2020
It's been almost a full year since I've read my first Simmons novel, Summer of Night. Black Hills will mark my seventh Simmons read. Contrary to popular opinion, this one ranks as one of my favorites by him.
I can easily see why people would think that this is boring, and for a number of reasons. Folks may not have much interest in Native American culture. Or can get bored with historical fiction when they want that SCI-FI fix. I can also say that there was not a whole lot suspense. But for me, Black Hills packed quite an emotional punch.
I feel like this book was something personal, almost spiritual to Simmons. It was more than just a story about an Indian boy and the ghost of Custer. It was more than just a story about carving into Mount Rushmore. Black Hills, I think, was a coming-of-age novel while also being a coming-of-old-age (since the timelines flipped back and forth between Paha Sapa as a 10 year old boy and as a 70 year old man). Simmons really outlined Native American culture that was seen through the lens of an innocent child who was suddenly thrust into adult situations and had to make adult decisions. We follow Paha Sapa throughout his lifetime as he grows and finds work, develops relationships, and adjusts (or does he?) to the white man's world. The Natural-Free-Human-Being living amongst the Wasichu Fat-Takers.
So yea, I really enjoyed this one. It took a little bit at the beginning, but I found myself quite immersed into the story. It was pretty grand scale, from Midwestern landscapes to big skies and prairies. This would make for a very visual experience, if ever turned into a film.
**I also enjoyed the tie-in to 'The Fifth Heart' which was written after Black Hills
I can easily see why people would think that this is boring, and for a number of reasons. Folks may not have much interest in Native American culture. Or can get bored with historical fiction when they want that SCI-FI fix. I can also say that there was not a whole lot suspense. But for me, Black Hills packed quite an emotional punch.
I feel like this book was something personal, almost spiritual to Simmons. It was more than just a story about an Indian boy and the ghost of Custer. It was more than just a story about carving into Mount Rushmore. Black Hills, I think, was a coming-of-age novel while also being a coming-of-old-age (since the timelines flipped back and forth between Paha Sapa as a 10 year old boy and as a 70 year old man). Simmons really outlined Native American culture that was seen through the lens of an innocent child who was suddenly thrust into adult situations and had to make adult decisions. We follow Paha Sapa throughout his lifetime as he grows and finds work, develops relationships, and adjusts (or does he?) to the white man's world. The Natural-Free-Human-Being living amongst the Wasichu Fat-Takers.
So yea, I really enjoyed this one. It took a little bit at the beginning, but I found myself quite immersed into the story. It was pretty grand scale, from Midwestern landscapes to big skies and prairies. This would make for a very visual experience, if ever turned into a film.
**I also enjoyed the tie-in to 'The Fifth Heart' which was written after Black Hills
March 25, 2010
I am so glad I listened to the audiobook of Black Hills instead of trying to read it. It's so dense and convoluted that I don't think I would have made it through the print version. Plus, it was pretty cool listening to the two readers. The one who narrates all of Paha Sapa's experiences sounds like a Lakota. He does a great job with all the Lakota words and phrases that would have just fouled me up royally if I had been trying to read it. The reader who does Custer's ghost sounds sufficiently 19th century.
The problems I had with this book were also some of the things I liked. Black Hills has a ton of historical information covering 80 years of South Dakota and US history. I learned about the Lakota and how they related to other Plains tribes; I learned about the carving of Mount Rushmore; I learned everything I need to know about dynamite; I learned the history of headlights on Harley Davidson motorcycles; I learned more about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge than was ever covered on Modern Marvels; I learned everything there is to know about the Chicago World's Fair; and I learned that George Armstrong Custer was a horny guy and his wife was the original Cosmo girl. (The scenes where Custer's ghost is reminiscing about his sex life with Libby were extremely uncomfortable. Paha Sapa rightfully calls them pornographic.) There's a lot more history in Black Hills, but I think that's enough for one review.
My biggest issue about this book is that it rambled. It went back and forth between historical periods without much rhyme or reason. Sometimes, a scene in Paha Sapa's early life is told in present tense, other times it's a flashback. Throw into the mix the fact that Paha Sapa sometimes gets people's forward (future) memories when he touches them, and you get a narrative that is more than non-lineal.
As he did with The Terror, Simmons dragged the ending out way too long. There were at least 3 places before the actual end when the book should have and could have ended. As in The Terror, there is an extended dream sequence near the end that really doesn't make much sense and actually detracts from everything that came before. There was also a pointlessly long epilogue and 20 minutes of acknowledgments that I didn't bother to listen to.
There's a lot of great stuff in Black Hills, but it sure would have benefited from some serious editing.
The problems I had with this book were also some of the things I liked. Black Hills has a ton of historical information covering 80 years of South Dakota and US history. I learned about the Lakota and how they related to other Plains tribes; I learned about the carving of Mount Rushmore; I learned everything I need to know about dynamite; I learned the history of headlights on Harley Davidson motorcycles; I learned more about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge than was ever covered on Modern Marvels; I learned everything there is to know about the Chicago World's Fair; and I learned that George Armstrong Custer was a horny guy and his wife was the original Cosmo girl. (The scenes where Custer's ghost is reminiscing about his sex life with Libby were extremely uncomfortable. Paha Sapa rightfully calls them pornographic.) There's a lot more history in Black Hills, but I think that's enough for one review.
My biggest issue about this book is that it rambled. It went back and forth between historical periods without much rhyme or reason. Sometimes, a scene in Paha Sapa's early life is told in present tense, other times it's a flashback. Throw into the mix the fact that Paha Sapa sometimes gets people's forward (future) memories when he touches them, and you get a narrative that is more than non-lineal.
As he did with The Terror, Simmons dragged the ending out way too long. There were at least 3 places before the actual end when the book should have and could have ended. As in The Terror, there is an extended dream sequence near the end that really doesn't make much sense and actually detracts from everything that came before. There was also a pointlessly long epilogue and 20 minutes of acknowledgments that I didn't bother to listen to.
There's a lot of great stuff in Black Hills, but it sure would have benefited from some serious editing.
April 21, 2024
There's no one out there that can quite frame a narrative like Dan Simmons. To date, I think this is my fifth or sixth by the author and I will continue to seek him out. Simular to Drood, in that I doubt I'll revisit, but it was an engaging and wholly original yarn.
December 16, 2018
16/12 - I can't remember ever being quite so relieved to have finally finished a book. Usually bad books get to be quite fun to read because I can post hilarious status updates showcasing the horrendous editing, writing, dialogue, etc., but Black Hills didn't have most of that, it was just really, REALLY boring and slow. I hated about 97% of the minutes I spent reading this - skimmed from somewhere in the 200s, skipped Custer's sex scene reminiscences (grossest and most awkward I've read in a long time) after the first one, but it still took me 55 days to finish it (thank goodness the library's understanding and no one else felt a desire to read it) and I'll tell you it was truly a struggle.
I felt no connection with Paha Sapa (main character) whatsoever; found the descriptions of the Lakota ceremonies too long and too numerous; wanted to like Rain, but because of the way the plot kept jumping between three different timelines where she was in Paha Sapa's life I didn't get a chance to know her properly; found the construction (or I suppose destruction) of Mount Rushmore to be of vague interest as I barely know anything about it (didn't even know it's in South Dakota, always thought it was in Washington State), but that interest waned as the timeline jumped around and I was buried under minute details about the process of blasting bits of rock off the mountain in order to allow men to carve the faces with hand tools. There were only two instances where I thought "This is honestly interesting." - when Simmons was discussing the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the epilogue which was pure fact about Paha Sapa's descendants and his son Robert's wife's family's escape from Nazi Europe. I think this would have been a much better book as a biography of Paha Sapa showing only what is known of his life, rather than making so much weird stuff up (Paha Sapa's childhood vision of the creation of Mount Rushmore by the Fat Takers was sooo long that I ended up skipping most of the second half because I kept falling asleep while reading it).
I would only recommend this to those really devoted to knowing everything there is to know about dynamite blasting in the 1930s, those who are interested in reading Custer's intimate letters to his wife Libbie, and those who are fascinated by the day-to-day life of a Lakota boy in the late 1800s. Also probably not a good idea to choose this as your first Simmons book (like I did) because I have it on good authority that it doesn't show him at anywhere near his best.
I felt no connection with Paha Sapa (main character) whatsoever; found the descriptions of the Lakota ceremonies too long and too numerous; wanted to like Rain, but because of the way the plot kept jumping between three different timelines where she was in Paha Sapa's life I didn't get a chance to know her properly; found the construction (or I suppose destruction) of Mount Rushmore to be of vague interest as I barely know anything about it (didn't even know it's in South Dakota, always thought it was in Washington State), but that interest waned as the timeline jumped around and I was buried under minute details about the process of blasting bits of rock off the mountain in order to allow men to carve the faces with hand tools. There were only two instances where I thought "This is honestly interesting." - when Simmons was discussing the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the epilogue which was pure fact about Paha Sapa's descendants and his son Robert's wife's family's escape from Nazi Europe. I think this would have been a much better book as a biography of Paha Sapa showing only what is known of his life, rather than making so much weird stuff up (Paha Sapa's childhood vision of the creation of Mount Rushmore by the Fat Takers was sooo long that I ended up skipping most of the second half because I kept falling asleep while reading it).
I would only recommend this to those really devoted to knowing everything there is to know about dynamite blasting in the 1930s, those who are interested in reading Custer's intimate letters to his wife Libbie, and those who are fascinated by the day-to-day life of a Lakota boy in the late 1800s. Also probably not a good idea to choose this as your first Simmons book (like I did) because I have it on good authority that it doesn't show him at anywhere near his best.
December 30, 2018
As usual his need to show off his research is in abundance, but here it stifles the story rather than revealing motivation, and chunks of exposition appear just when things were getting interesting. Still, he's a magical writer when he lets his imagination soar, and parts of this, in particular the sections dealing with the protagonist's spiritual quests really soar.
It's not in the same upper bracket as The Terror or Carrion Comfort, not as gripping as Drood, and hasn't got the thrills of The Abominable, but it held my attention, although I could have done without knowing quite so much about General Custer's sex life.
It's not in the same upper bracket as The Terror or Carrion Comfort, not as gripping as Drood, and hasn't got the thrills of The Abominable, but it held my attention, although I could have done without knowing quite so much about General Custer's sex life.
June 25, 2011
Having demonstrated that he can write successfully in any genre he chooses, Simmons plainly wanted a greater challenge, so he decided to create his own: the historical horror/supernatural genre. The Terror and Drood showed just how ambitious an idea this is and neither is perfect. For this, his third entry in his own genre, Simmons makes his own life easier by not using the first person voice of a Brit and thus avoiding all the problems of writing British English when you are an American English speaker - then makes it harder again by making the narrator a Lakota Indian and having to deal with a language that is not remotely like English...
So Paha Sapa (Black Hills) tells his life story and a remarkable life it is, what with being at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (or Greasy Grass in Lakota), inhabited by the ghost of Custer and the memories of Crazy Horse (who is pretty crazy), a participant in Buffalo Bill Hicock's Wild West Show, a powder-man at the Mt. Rushmore sculpting and a man prone to visions when at spiritually important locations.
Through the voices of various people, the visions and direct experiences of Paha Sapa, Simmons is able to tell the tale of the final destruction of the plains Indians' way of life, starting with the Pyrhhic victory of the Greasy Bighorn (or Little Grass, or something) and the subsequent environmental degradation caused mainly by cattle ranching but this is no simple monument to a dead culture. Simons points out that the Lakota were violent, stealing women and horses from neighbouring tribes, having gained their territory by ousting the people who were there when they arrived...which might remind one of what the European settlers did. Other tribes were much the same. They were not, despite their religion, "in harmony with nature" either, having apparently hunted to extinction various paleo-megafauna (which is a just fabulous word) of the North American plains. The Lakota called themselves Human Beings and every other racial grouping were not proper people...most other tribes' languages made the same distinction for their tribe...
Where is Simmons going with all this? Only so far as to say, oh look - the Plains Indians were human too, and prone to the same foibles, crimes and passions as everyone else. They were certainly sinned against but they were sinners too. Which raises the question, what's the difference between a bunch of tribes with essentially the same technology, philosophy and religion warring with each other for territory and a completely alien culture coming along and doing the same thing but to all the tribes at once? It feels like there is one. The book forces you to think over questions of cultural relativism, colonialism and evangelism. Here is a classic "Outside Context Problem" as discussed in Iain Banks' Excession. However, Simmons hasn't discussed the same topic over and again ad nauseum so it isn't annoying...
It's an impressive feat, as were drood and the Terror but they were both flawed; is Black Hills? Unfortunately, yes it is. The problems are all in the "Paha goes to New York City" chapter where Simmons goes completely crackers and starts writing like Dan Brown! By which I mean that he insists on pouring every tedious statistic about the dimensions, weight, shoe and hat-size of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had serious flash-backs to the Louvre scene at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code. Also the shakes, sweats and a fever. The horror!
Listen guys! Readers do not care what the length, breadth, height and weight of any famous building or engineering work is, expressed to three significant figures and dumped on them all at once like, well like a 597 metre long, 1.27 metric tonne, 3.14cm diameter coil of steel cable. (See? And I just made those figures up 'cos they just don't matter.) All of this ruins an impressive, evocative story about how the caissons for the bridge were made fast on bedrock below the mud of the Hudson. So, authors, having done the work to discover a fact is not sufficient reason for putting said fact in the book. If it doesn't advance the story, help set the scene or aid the subtext, leave it out.
Paha Sapa has three visions in the book. One is very bleak indeed and comes true. Another has his ancestors exhorting Paha Sapa to take action to save his people. He has a completely false notion of what this action should be. Can he save his people? The third vision is a prophecy: the plains will be restored to something like their former glory and neo-Indians will live there, within a newly rebuilt eco-system, resuscitated after clinical death by climate change and mono-culture farming.
I don't share Simmons' optimism but it's worth reading about it.
So Paha Sapa (Black Hills) tells his life story and a remarkable life it is, what with being at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (or Greasy Grass in Lakota), inhabited by the ghost of Custer and the memories of Crazy Horse (who is pretty crazy), a participant in Buffalo Bill Hicock's Wild West Show, a powder-man at the Mt. Rushmore sculpting and a man prone to visions when at spiritually important locations.
Through the voices of various people, the visions and direct experiences of Paha Sapa, Simmons is able to tell the tale of the final destruction of the plains Indians' way of life, starting with the Pyrhhic victory of the Greasy Bighorn (or Little Grass, or something) and the subsequent environmental degradation caused mainly by cattle ranching but this is no simple monument to a dead culture. Simons points out that the Lakota were violent, stealing women and horses from neighbouring tribes, having gained their territory by ousting the people who were there when they arrived...which might remind one of what the European settlers did. Other tribes were much the same. They were not, despite their religion, "in harmony with nature" either, having apparently hunted to extinction various paleo-megafauna (which is a just fabulous word) of the North American plains. The Lakota called themselves Human Beings and every other racial grouping were not proper people...most other tribes' languages made the same distinction for their tribe...
Where is Simmons going with all this? Only so far as to say, oh look - the Plains Indians were human too, and prone to the same foibles, crimes and passions as everyone else. They were certainly sinned against but they were sinners too. Which raises the question, what's the difference between a bunch of tribes with essentially the same technology, philosophy and religion warring with each other for territory and a completely alien culture coming along and doing the same thing but to all the tribes at once? It feels like there is one. The book forces you to think over questions of cultural relativism, colonialism and evangelism. Here is a classic "Outside Context Problem" as discussed in Iain Banks' Excession. However, Simmons hasn't discussed the same topic over and again ad nauseum so it isn't annoying...
It's an impressive feat, as were drood and the Terror but they were both flawed; is Black Hills? Unfortunately, yes it is. The problems are all in the "Paha goes to New York City" chapter where Simmons goes completely crackers and starts writing like Dan Brown! By which I mean that he insists on pouring every tedious statistic about the dimensions, weight, shoe and hat-size of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had serious flash-backs to the Louvre scene at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code. Also the shakes, sweats and a fever. The horror!
Listen guys! Readers do not care what the length, breadth, height and weight of any famous building or engineering work is, expressed to three significant figures and dumped on them all at once like, well like a 597 metre long, 1.27 metric tonne, 3.14cm diameter coil of steel cable. (See? And I just made those figures up 'cos they just don't matter.) All of this ruins an impressive, evocative story about how the caissons for the bridge were made fast on bedrock below the mud of the Hudson. So, authors, having done the work to discover a fact is not sufficient reason for putting said fact in the book. If it doesn't advance the story, help set the scene or aid the subtext, leave it out.
Paha Sapa has three visions in the book. One is very bleak indeed and comes true. Another has his ancestors exhorting Paha Sapa to take action to save his people. He has a completely false notion of what this action should be. Can he save his people? The third vision is a prophecy: the plains will be restored to something like their former glory and neo-Indians will live there, within a newly rebuilt eco-system, resuscitated after clinical death by climate change and mono-culture farming.
I don't share Simmons' optimism but it's worth reading about it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 6, 2010
This sets the bar pretty high for the rest of the 2010 releases I read. It's also my first chance reading a Dan Simmons novel, and I think I'll be reading a lot more of his work in the years to come. This is a coming-of-age tale, with a love story, with a dash of the supernatural, and a kind of requiem for the Native American ancestry. I dare say anyone who reads this book will be contemplating it long after they've set it down.
September 7, 2011
Three and a half stars.
Black Hills is another intelligent marathon of a book by Dan Simmons. It's actually a bit shorter than his last two, The Terror and Drood, at 500+ pages. It is also not quite as good at his last two novels but still an entertaining and impressive read. In Black Hills, Ten year old Sioux Indian Paha Saba touches General Custer at Little Big horn at the time of Custer's death and causes the boy to be haunted by his spirit. The novel follows Paha Saba throughout his life culminating in what may be his destiny at Mount Rushmore.
I found Saha Saba to be a worthy protagonist in this epic tale and instantly likeable. Yet the way Simmons tells this story is quite fragmented. He slips from one period of time to another and back. I felt I didn't have all the information I needed at times to have empathy for Paha Saba and therefore some of the book dragged. Also Custer's "ghost-voice" was not all that significant at times and often over-shadowed by Paha Saba's other psychic abilities which were more germane to the plot. Custer was also a bit of a whiner, unfortunately. As usual, Simmon's incredible research makes the novel real, especially in his depiction of tribal life and life in the Western frontier. I also found the background on the making of Mount Rushmore fascinating. Not so much the building of the Brooklyn Bride since it seemed to be research for research's sake and not all that important to the rest of the narration. Mostly though, I found the bigger-than-life Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum to be a bigger catalyst to the tale than the elusive Custer. When Borglum takes center stage, so to speak, the room lights up. By the end of the novel, I found Black Hills to be very moving, get-out-your-handkerchief material.
Overall it is a fitting addition for your collection if you like either fantasy or fictional works about American history. If not on the par with most of Simmons' other books it is still way above most literary fantasies.
Black Hills is another intelligent marathon of a book by Dan Simmons. It's actually a bit shorter than his last two, The Terror and Drood, at 500+ pages. It is also not quite as good at his last two novels but still an entertaining and impressive read. In Black Hills, Ten year old Sioux Indian Paha Saba touches General Custer at Little Big horn at the time of Custer's death and causes the boy to be haunted by his spirit. The novel follows Paha Saba throughout his life culminating in what may be his destiny at Mount Rushmore.
I found Saha Saba to be a worthy protagonist in this epic tale and instantly likeable. Yet the way Simmons tells this story is quite fragmented. He slips from one period of time to another and back. I felt I didn't have all the information I needed at times to have empathy for Paha Saba and therefore some of the book dragged. Also Custer's "ghost-voice" was not all that significant at times and often over-shadowed by Paha Saba's other psychic abilities which were more germane to the plot. Custer was also a bit of a whiner, unfortunately. As usual, Simmon's incredible research makes the novel real, especially in his depiction of tribal life and life in the Western frontier. I also found the background on the making of Mount Rushmore fascinating. Not so much the building of the Brooklyn Bride since it seemed to be research for research's sake and not all that important to the rest of the narration. Mostly though, I found the bigger-than-life Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum to be a bigger catalyst to the tale than the elusive Custer. When Borglum takes center stage, so to speak, the room lights up. By the end of the novel, I found Black Hills to be very moving, get-out-your-handkerchief material.
Overall it is a fitting addition for your collection if you like either fantasy or fictional works about American history. If not on the par with most of Simmons' other books it is still way above most literary fantasies.
May 23, 2010
I'll still read everything Simmons writes, but this one was, for me, just OK. For the last few years I've marveled at Simmons' ability to write so much, so quickly, about such a range of topics. And yes, I understand that an author of Simmons' prominence will (may?) have a research assistant or two helping out. But at several times during Black Hills I was reminded of Mark Twain's apology to a friend that he wrote him a long letter "because he didn't have time to write a short one." There were pages of material in this book - almost always details of historic events or places - that served no other function than to convey that Simmons (or a researcher) had dug out these (sometimes) interesting facts and were conveying them to us. In my view, they didn't move the plot forward or make the characters more believable or the places more real. They simply added to the heft of the manuscript.
But like I said, I'll still be there to buy the next one.
January 5, 2024
Kolejna książka, którą podliczyłem jeśli chodzi o liczbę spędzonych nad nią dni i średnią liczbę stron na jedno „posiedzenie”. Wyszły 62 strony dziennie. Dlaczego o tym piszę? Ponieważ lektura tej powieści dłużyła mi się niemiłosiernie. Gdyby nie recenzenckie zobowiązanie to nie doczytałbym do końca. Choć to nie jest zła powieść. Dan Simmons włożył mnóstwo wysiłku w budowę tła społecznego i historycznego. Trzecia gwiazda tylko za to. Jednak to było za mało. Główny wątek był dla mnie po prostu nieciekawy. Przeczytacie opis z okładki i w zasadzie tego i tylko tego możecie się spodziewać. Dopiero posłowie autora mnie zaciekawiło. Jesli od niego zaczniecie lekturę to może wytworzyć w was mylne wrażenie odnośnie tego, o czym jest ta powieść. To nudna fabuła doskonale osadzona w epoce, o której opowiada.
June 12, 2020
Black Hills has some of the best character work Dan Simmons has done. Paha Sapa is an incredible character. I had the benefit of listening to this while on vacation in the Black Hills. That experience made the book come alive on a whole other dimension
I liked this novel much more than the first time I read it (see original review below). 95% of it is easily 5 stars, but because of two flaws - one major, one minor - I'm leaving my rating at 4. The more significant of the two is the Custer character. I love his and Paha Sapa's interactions but the early chapters where he's monologuing to his wife about their sex life has all the subtlety of the puppet sex scene in Team America. The tone clashes so hard with the rest of the book that the whole story gets knocked off the rails whenever one of those chapters come up. Dan Simmons is one of the smartest authors out there; it boggles the mind that he wrote something that dumb
The second, more minor, flaw is that the book doesn't know when to quit. I'm fine with the flash forward section at the end, but then we get an epilogue that mostly pertains to characters we just met a few pages before. Not the end of the world, but still an odd choice.
I still highly recommend the novel. Those flaws aren't fatal. They just put the book in the category of qualified masterpiece.
There are a lot of references to other Simmons' novels. Here's what I noticed:
-A crossover with The Fifth Heart (even more impressive given that that novel wasn't published for another five years!)
-The Hollow Man references towards the end as well as in the Custer character. Custer's theory on what he is in Paha Sapa essentially mirrors what happens in The Hollow Man
-Lots of time tides references in the flash forward
***Original Review from 2/22/10***
I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, the subject matter really isn't something that interests me. If this hadn't been a Dan Simmons novel there's no way I would have picked this up. On the other hand, the writing is spectacular. The characterizations are great, the prose is poetic and the history is fascinating. Even though I didn't care for the overall subject matter, I was completely caught up in the story just because of how well written it is.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the first 400 pages. Then in the last 80 everything gets turned on it's head. The writing takes a dive. It's not terrible by any means, but there are some contrived character choices and the prose loses its intimacy and poetry. However, the content gets a lot more interesting. What Simmons has to say at the end of the book is very engaging and thought provoking.
So I guess I can't win with this one. It's either so-so content with lights out writing or so-so writing with great content. The bottom line: it's Dan Simmons and you should read it. Even his less than great books are still pretty terrific.
I liked this novel much more than the first time I read it (see original review below). 95% of it is easily 5 stars, but because of two flaws - one major, one minor - I'm leaving my rating at 4. The more significant of the two is the Custer character. I love his and Paha Sapa's interactions but the early chapters where he's monologuing to his wife about their sex life has all the subtlety of the puppet sex scene in Team America. The tone clashes so hard with the rest of the book that the whole story gets knocked off the rails whenever one of those chapters come up. Dan Simmons is one of the smartest authors out there; it boggles the mind that he wrote something that dumb
The second, more minor, flaw is that the book doesn't know when to quit. I'm fine with the flash forward section at the end, but then we get an epilogue that mostly pertains to characters we just met a few pages before. Not the end of the world, but still an odd choice.
I still highly recommend the novel. Those flaws aren't fatal. They just put the book in the category of qualified masterpiece.
There are a lot of references to other Simmons' novels. Here's what I noticed:
-A crossover with The Fifth Heart (even more impressive given that that novel wasn't published for another five years!)
-The Hollow Man references towards the end as well as in the Custer character. Custer's theory on what he is in Paha Sapa essentially mirrors what happens in The Hollow Man
-Lots of time tides references in the flash forward
***Original Review from 2/22/10***
I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, the subject matter really isn't something that interests me. If this hadn't been a Dan Simmons novel there's no way I would have picked this up. On the other hand, the writing is spectacular. The characterizations are great, the prose is poetic and the history is fascinating. Even though I didn't care for the overall subject matter, I was completely caught up in the story just because of how well written it is.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the first 400 pages. Then in the last 80 everything gets turned on it's head. The writing takes a dive. It's not terrible by any means, but there are some contrived character choices and the prose loses its intimacy and poetry. However, the content gets a lot more interesting. What Simmons has to say at the end of the book is very engaging and thought provoking.
So I guess I can't win with this one. It's either so-so content with lights out writing or so-so writing with great content. The bottom line: it's Dan Simmons and you should read it. Even his less than great books are still pretty terrific.
September 21, 2022
This book was a mix of entertaining, confusion, boredom and kinky (hello Custer and his wife TMI).
It was an interesting perspective and I thought Paha Sapa was a very likeable character. There were some very interesting scenes with the reservation life like the Fasting ritual. There were other cultural stories that I really enjoyed and wished there was more of.
Some parts had too much technical detail. There was a long drawn out chapter about a bridge he was helping with. Simmons went through so much detail I had to speed through because I didn't understand the point or cared.
I also had a hard time following the timeline as it jumped around a lot. Since this was essentially the story of Paha Sapa, I think it would have been less confusing to just start from the beginning and not jump around.
Still worth the read as I really liked the main character (Paha Sapa) and his perspective in life.
It was an interesting perspective and I thought Paha Sapa was a very likeable character. There were some very interesting scenes with the reservation life like the Fasting ritual. There were other cultural stories that I really enjoyed and wished there was more of.
Some parts had too much technical detail. There was a long drawn out chapter about a bridge he was helping with. Simmons went through so much detail I had to speed through because I didn't understand the point or cared.
I also had a hard time following the timeline as it jumped around a lot. Since this was essentially the story of Paha Sapa, I think it would have been less confusing to just start from the beginning and not jump around.
Still worth the read as I really liked the main character (Paha Sapa) and his perspective in life.
July 7, 2024
I read again a longest book by Simmons aside from Drood. Yeah it may seems to long winded story and aside being historical fiction with supernatural elements. I shall say Dan Simmons loves to write chunkers liked this.
It was story of Paha Sapa an indian possessed with powers that may talk ghosts. Talking with those ghosts from his past changes his life to the roots of his bloodline. Paha Sapa also granted by Six Grandfathers a power called Vision that can foresaw situations that may or may not happened in the future. The story also retells I think about the building of Mount Rushmore and the genealogy of Paha Sapa.
My problem only here was the hopping of stories from present time to past and it always makes my head confused when a story jumps in different situations. Sometimes it may work for me and all the times not at all especially in a historical fiction novels.
All in all I gave this 4 stars.
It was story of Paha Sapa an indian possessed with powers that may talk ghosts. Talking with those ghosts from his past changes his life to the roots of his bloodline. Paha Sapa also granted by Six Grandfathers a power called Vision that can foresaw situations that may or may not happened in the future. The story also retells I think about the building of Mount Rushmore and the genealogy of Paha Sapa.
My problem only here was the hopping of stories from present time to past and it always makes my head confused when a story jumps in different situations. Sometimes it may work for me and all the times not at all especially in a historical fiction novels.
All in all I gave this 4 stars.
December 3, 2022
3.5 stars
Not a bad book actually, the character development was very good and the stuff involving Native American culture, the stuff that took place during the Battle of Little Bighorn in particular, were the best parts.
The stuff I wasn’t a fan of was the over detailed history of Mt. Rushmore and General Custer’s weird kinky sex stories… yeah this books includes that. Overall not a bad book, there was a lot of stuff I liked, and I lot of stuff I sped through to get to the good stuff.
Not a bad book actually, the character development was very good and the stuff involving Native American culture, the stuff that took place during the Battle of Little Bighorn in particular, were the best parts.
The stuff I wasn’t a fan of was the over detailed history of Mt. Rushmore and General Custer’s weird kinky sex stories… yeah this books includes that. Overall not a bad book, there was a lot of stuff I liked, and I lot of stuff I sped through to get to the good stuff.
April 21, 2020
A 5* book to me is a book that must fulfill the following four criteria:
- The writing style must be fluent, easy to follow. "Resumability" is a by-product of said style and weighs the heaviest among these four. Don't switch point of view characters inside of the same paragraph.
- The flow of the plot - or action of the book if you will - must impress me. Don't just have your characters sit around in a room doing nothing but talking. Don't skip from one setting to another inside of the same paragraph.
- I need characters with personality. You should clearly tell the difference between them, rarely mistake one for another. Having huge "Dramatis personae" sections at the beginning of a book are usually a bad sign (yes Steven Erkison, I mean you).
- Originality. This does not necessarily need to be a new concept like time travel was in The Time Machine or the submarine was in 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas or the Kwizath Haderach in Dune. It could be an original character, scene or plot twist. Something to make you remember this book a year after you're read it.
Obviously, a personal "je ne said quoi" factor always comes into play when thinking about books and relaxes some of the above rules, but never all of them.
On to the matter (book) at hand then:
Dan Simmons' style is already established as one of my favorites. No disappointments here. It still manages to impress me after having read more than 10 of his.
The plot is nicely woven between several time periods, sometimes going back and forth, as we follow the titular Lakota character from his boyhood in the 1870's into his aging years in the 1930's and meets various historical characters of the age. I really loved how the author blends historical fiction with non-fiction, at some points making it difficult to tell which parts are historically accurate and which made up.
The few characters that we meet are nothing short of amazing. I am now sorry the book was so short and I don't get to read more about Black Hills and his (rather unlucky) family. Even George Custer managed to wow me with his (probably fictitious) epistles to his wife.
As to originality, from an airplane view the concept you might glean from the book's synopsis might seem rather lame. "Young Sioux warrior is entered by ghost of George Custer.". Pff... right? Wrong! The book is actually full of original memorable scenes which will stay with me for a long time.
- The writing style must be fluent, easy to follow. "Resumability" is a by-product of said style and weighs the heaviest among these four. Don't switch point of view characters inside of the same paragraph.
- The flow of the plot - or action of the book if you will - must impress me. Don't just have your characters sit around in a room doing nothing but talking. Don't skip from one setting to another inside of the same paragraph.
- I need characters with personality. You should clearly tell the difference between them, rarely mistake one for another. Having huge "Dramatis personae" sections at the beginning of a book are usually a bad sign (yes Steven Erkison, I mean you).
- Originality. This does not necessarily need to be a new concept like time travel was in The Time Machine or the submarine was in 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas or the Kwizath Haderach in Dune. It could be an original character, scene or plot twist. Something to make you remember this book a year after you're read it.
Obviously, a personal "je ne said quoi" factor always comes into play when thinking about books and relaxes some of the above rules, but never all of them.
On to the matter (book) at hand then:
Dan Simmons' style is already established as one of my favorites. No disappointments here. It still manages to impress me after having read more than 10 of his.
The plot is nicely woven between several time periods, sometimes going back and forth, as we follow the titular Lakota character from his boyhood in the 1870's into his aging years in the 1930's and meets various historical characters of the age. I really loved how the author blends historical fiction with non-fiction, at some points making it difficult to tell which parts are historically accurate and which made up.
The few characters that we meet are nothing short of amazing. I am now sorry the book was so short and I don't get to read more about Black Hills and his (rather unlucky) family. Even George Custer managed to wow me with his (probably fictitious) epistles to his wife.
As to originality, from an airplane view the concept you might glean from the book's synopsis might seem rather lame. "Young Sioux warrior is entered by ghost of George Custer.". Pff... right? Wrong! The book is actually full of original memorable scenes which will stay with me for a long time.
October 27, 2023
Jak często wychodzisz ze swojej czytelniczej strefy komfortu? Nie lubię za bardzo tego określenia, ale ostatnio zaskoczyłam samą siebie i tym razem bardzo ono do mnie pasuje😅 tak! Wyszłam poza strefę komfortu, sięgnęłam po zupełną dla mnie nowość
Tematyka rdzennych Indian do tej pory była mi kompletnie nie znana, nie przypominam sobie bym w przeszłości sięgała po coś podobnego. Ale helloł! To przecież Dan Simmons!😁 Autor, którego darzę nie tylko sympatią ale i zaufaniem, którego nie da się wcisnąć w jeden schemat, czy gatunek. Dodatkowo skusiła mnie myśl, że ten tytuł został wydany u nas po raz pierwszy. Decyzja była więc prosta.
Po raz kolejny zostałam zaskoczona, gdyż autor nie trzyma się utartych schematów, nie da się przewidzieć jaka będzie kolejna jego książka, jaką fabułę tym razem zaserwuje.
Głównym bohaterem tym razem jest Siuks Paha Sapa, czyli właśnie tytułowe Czarne góry. Posiada niesamowity dar - dotykając innego człowieka może poznać jego myśli oraz wspomnienia. Tak właśnie było, gdy dotknął podczas bitwy umierającego generała Custera. Od tej pory jego duch wszedł w umysł Indianina i towarzyszy mu całe życie. Według wierzeń, będzie nawiedzony dopóki nie pozwoli duchowy odejść. W końcu nadchodzi już taki moment...
Powiem szczerze, że jestem w szoku jak bardzo ta historia mi się podobała. To połączenie przygody, historii i mnóstwa rozważań, również filozoficznych, psychologicznych. Tej powieści nie da się wsadzić w żadne ramy, jest niejednoznaczna, a przy tym ciekawa i wciągająca. Czytanie wymaga skupienia, to nie jest jedna z lektur do pochłonięcia na raz, jednak naprawdę warta przeczytania. Simmons idealnie uchwycił tamte czasy, ja nie wiem jak on to robi. A chociaż występuje tutaj motyw opętania, nie jest to typowa groza. Główny bohater, jak i całe wydarzenia dookoła tchną życiową mądrością dlatego to powolne tempo mi nie przeszkadzało, pozwoliło natomiast mocniej wszystko przemyśleć, wejść w tą historię na całego.
Bardzo mocno polecam!
Tematyka rdzennych Indian do tej pory była mi kompletnie nie znana, nie przypominam sobie bym w przeszłości sięgała po coś podobnego. Ale helloł! To przecież Dan Simmons!😁 Autor, którego darzę nie tylko sympatią ale i zaufaniem, którego nie da się wcisnąć w jeden schemat, czy gatunek. Dodatkowo skusiła mnie myśl, że ten tytuł został wydany u nas po raz pierwszy. Decyzja była więc prosta.
Po raz kolejny zostałam zaskoczona, gdyż autor nie trzyma się utartych schematów, nie da się przewidzieć jaka będzie kolejna jego książka, jaką fabułę tym razem zaserwuje.
Głównym bohaterem tym razem jest Siuks Paha Sapa, czyli właśnie tytułowe Czarne góry. Posiada niesamowity dar - dotykając innego człowieka może poznać jego myśli oraz wspomnienia. Tak właśnie było, gdy dotknął podczas bitwy umierającego generała Custera. Od tej pory jego duch wszedł w umysł Indianina i towarzyszy mu całe życie. Według wierzeń, będzie nawiedzony dopóki nie pozwoli duchowy odejść. W końcu nadchodzi już taki moment...
Powiem szczerze, że jestem w szoku jak bardzo ta historia mi się podobała. To połączenie przygody, historii i mnóstwa rozważań, również filozoficznych, psychologicznych. Tej powieści nie da się wsadzić w żadne ramy, jest niejednoznaczna, a przy tym ciekawa i wciągająca. Czytanie wymaga skupienia, to nie jest jedna z lektur do pochłonięcia na raz, jednak naprawdę warta przeczytania. Simmons idealnie uchwycił tamte czasy, ja nie wiem jak on to robi. A chociaż występuje tutaj motyw opętania, nie jest to typowa groza. Główny bohater, jak i całe wydarzenia dookoła tchną życiową mądrością dlatego to powolne tempo mi nie przeszkadzało, pozwoliło natomiast mocniej wszystko przemyśleć, wejść w tą historię na całego.
Bardzo mocno polecam!
September 7, 2015
Dan Simmons wrote my all-time favorite book, "Summer of Night." So why has it taken me so long to get to this one? I don't know- because I wasted a lot of time reading lesser writers when I could have been enjoying the spectacular epic story of Paha Sapa, Lakota. To be honest, I was dumb. I let the genre label "historical fiction" keep me away. I'm not necessarily "into" historical fiction, nor do I particularly seek out stories of Native Americans, so I finally picked this up for only one reason- it was written by Dan Simmons. What I got was historical fiction, adventure, ghost story, mystery and suspense all rolled into one.
I don't write "reviews" that regurgitate the story. I just like to tell you whether or not a book is worth your time and imagination. And I'm telling you, this one is. Whatever your interests are, Simmons' writing will make you care about Paha Sapa's story, and understand that history itself is dependent upon one's perspective. We never really "know" it; but we can learn more by understanding more perspectives. The story is both sad and hopeful and endlessly fascinating with its insight into U.S. History and its speculation about the future. I've been to the Black Hills many times... I can't wait to go back now that I've read this book.
I don't write "reviews" that regurgitate the story. I just like to tell you whether or not a book is worth your time and imagination. And I'm telling you, this one is. Whatever your interests are, Simmons' writing will make you care about Paha Sapa's story, and understand that history itself is dependent upon one's perspective. We never really "know" it; but we can learn more by understanding more perspectives. The story is both sad and hopeful and endlessly fascinating with its insight into U.S. History and its speculation about the future. I've been to the Black Hills many times... I can't wait to go back now that I've read this book.
April 13, 2012
This book was a real disappointment. Dan Simmons wrote one of my most favorite books ever: The Terror. Black Hills, on the other hand, seemed to go on and on, delving into detail no matter how trivial and not in service of forwarding the plot. I liked some of the characters well enough, and truly enjoyed the descriptions of what it was like living in Plains Indians' society before most tribes were killed off or forced onto reservations. As others have commented in reviews of this book, many of the interweavings of the thoughts of George Armstrong Custer seemed off point, especially some of the very odd-almost soft porn-ramblings about his relationship (and relations) with his wife Libby. A further complaint includes the sometimes gratuitous moving back and forth across decades versus using a more linear narrative style which would have been easier to follow. I have two more Simmons books on my shelf: Carrion Comfort and Drood. Guess I'll give the former a try once I've recovered from reading Black Hills. Hope CC will be as fabulous as The Terror was.
August 20, 2013
Maybe it's me.
I haven't found any good long novels in a while--and maybe that's a me problem. Maybe I just don't like them anymore, even though I loved Dan Simmons' Terror and Summer of Night when I read them. Maybe. But I think there's enough problems with this story that it's the book's problem, not mine.
In my experience, Simmons is an uneven writer. I still think of the Terror as one of my favorite stories. But I Carrion Comfort was an interesting novella stretched over 700 pages, A Winter's Haunting a failed experiment, and I could not even finish Song of Kali. I hope that Black Hills would at least be engaging. The outline of the story seems as though it would be:
A Lakota Indian who can sometimes see the future is possessed by the ghost of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He vows revenge on the 'fat takers'--those whites who stole everything from his people--by getting a job on the crew sculpting Mount Rushmore and then blowing it up in front of FDR.
Alas, it is not engaging. At all.
A large part of the problem is the book's structure. The story flits back and forth in time, from 1876, when Paha Sapa is infected and goes on a vision quest, to 1893, when he spends some time at the World Fair in Chicago, to his times in New York, when he helped build the Brooklyn Bridge and met Custer's widow, to 1936, when he is dying of cancer and racing to blow up the nascent Mount Rushmore.
The trouble with this structure is that it drains the story of any suspense. Sure, Paha Sapa encounters a howling tornado on the Dust Bowl--but we already know he survives, because we met him years later. Sure, he meets a woman at the Chicago Fair, but whether he marries her or not, we know that he is alone again when we actually care about his struggles. These constant trips through time do not seem integral to the story as much as chances for Simmons to due set pieces based on his extensive historical research.
Which brings us to another problem. The research is not well integrated into the book. At times, it almost seems as though what Simmons wanted to write was a book of history but for some reason chose to make it fiction. There are elaborate paragraphs devoted to explaining just how Paha Sapa was at the write place to read T.S. Elliott and so could accurately quote him, or how some other character had just happened to read one of Einstein's scientific papers (in the original German, though the student was a high school student), and how it changed his religious views. At times, it is easier to skim between the dialog and just ignore the intervening parts because it is all historical detail, mostly undigested and irrelevant tot he story.
But the dialog, too, is not the conversations of normal human beings. Half of the time, it is done just as positioning, to let us know, again, we are in historical times. The other half of the dialog sounds anachronistic. Simmons builds elaborate sentences in order to use the actual Lakota words. (Paha Sapa means Black Hills). But this just reinforces the distance between the modern vocabulary he uses and the historical setting.
This distance is especially clear in the sections voiced by Custer. He sounds like someone trying to sound like Custer. It is unintentionally funny--moreso since the first few times we hear Custer talking, he is basically telling his life as a bodice-ripper. (It's almost as though Simmons wanted to write a contemporary romance novel.) Campy to the extreme. I think it is supposed to tie in with a symbolic meaning to the story that Simmons started with at the beginning of the book, but then left behind. The Black Hills, Paha Sapa says, are the 'cunt' of the world. And it is made extremely clear that Custer likes Libbie's vagina. But what's the point of the parallel.
But the real disappointment in Custer's ghost is that there is no point to it. Mostly Paha Sapa ignores it. It doesn't haunt or torment him. It is just there. To no effect.
The most unforgivable sin, however, is the ending. Total deus ex machina. Completely out of left field. Indeed, the book breaks apart at the end, suddenly pointing toward a different view of history--that the Native Americans were as bad as the whites, killing each other, wiping out the continent's megafauna. But these are thrown in and don't carry the emotional weight of what came before (such as it was). They seem part of another story.
What is most fascinating to me are it is possible to see some of the same elements here--good and bad--that were present in books by Simmons I liked: the lonely, hard-scrabble man, the fiery, sexual woman who awakens him, the necessary brush with the primeval forces of nature. Cliched those these may be, they can work if put into an actual story, but that's not what is presented here. Disappointing.
I haven't found any good long novels in a while--and maybe that's a me problem. Maybe I just don't like them anymore, even though I loved Dan Simmons' Terror and Summer of Night when I read them. Maybe. But I think there's enough problems with this story that it's the book's problem, not mine.
In my experience, Simmons is an uneven writer. I still think of the Terror as one of my favorite stories. But I Carrion Comfort was an interesting novella stretched over 700 pages, A Winter's Haunting a failed experiment, and I could not even finish Song of Kali. I hope that Black Hills would at least be engaging. The outline of the story seems as though it would be:
A Lakota Indian who can sometimes see the future is possessed by the ghost of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He vows revenge on the 'fat takers'--those whites who stole everything from his people--by getting a job on the crew sculpting Mount Rushmore and then blowing it up in front of FDR.
Alas, it is not engaging. At all.
A large part of the problem is the book's structure. The story flits back and forth in time, from 1876, when Paha Sapa is infected and goes on a vision quest, to 1893, when he spends some time at the World Fair in Chicago, to his times in New York, when he helped build the Brooklyn Bridge and met Custer's widow, to 1936, when he is dying of cancer and racing to blow up the nascent Mount Rushmore.
The trouble with this structure is that it drains the story of any suspense. Sure, Paha Sapa encounters a howling tornado on the Dust Bowl--but we already know he survives, because we met him years later. Sure, he meets a woman at the Chicago Fair, but whether he marries her or not, we know that he is alone again when we actually care about his struggles. These constant trips through time do not seem integral to the story as much as chances for Simmons to due set pieces based on his extensive historical research.
Which brings us to another problem. The research is not well integrated into the book. At times, it almost seems as though what Simmons wanted to write was a book of history but for some reason chose to make it fiction. There are elaborate paragraphs devoted to explaining just how Paha Sapa was at the write place to read T.S. Elliott and so could accurately quote him, or how some other character had just happened to read one of Einstein's scientific papers (in the original German, though the student was a high school student), and how it changed his religious views. At times, it is easier to skim between the dialog and just ignore the intervening parts because it is all historical detail, mostly undigested and irrelevant tot he story.
But the dialog, too, is not the conversations of normal human beings. Half of the time, it is done just as positioning, to let us know, again, we are in historical times. The other half of the dialog sounds anachronistic. Simmons builds elaborate sentences in order to use the actual Lakota words. (Paha Sapa means Black Hills). But this just reinforces the distance between the modern vocabulary he uses and the historical setting.
This distance is especially clear in the sections voiced by Custer. He sounds like someone trying to sound like Custer. It is unintentionally funny--moreso since the first few times we hear Custer talking, he is basically telling his life as a bodice-ripper. (It's almost as though Simmons wanted to write a contemporary romance novel.) Campy to the extreme. I think it is supposed to tie in with a symbolic meaning to the story that Simmons started with at the beginning of the book, but then left behind. The Black Hills, Paha Sapa says, are the 'cunt' of the world. And it is made extremely clear that Custer likes Libbie's vagina. But what's the point of the parallel.
But the real disappointment in Custer's ghost is that there is no point to it. Mostly Paha Sapa ignores it. It doesn't haunt or torment him. It is just there. To no effect.
The most unforgivable sin, however, is the ending. Total deus ex machina. Completely out of left field. Indeed, the book breaks apart at the end, suddenly pointing toward a different view of history--that the Native Americans were as bad as the whites, killing each other, wiping out the continent's megafauna. But these are thrown in and don't carry the emotional weight of what came before (such as it was). They seem part of another story.
What is most fascinating to me are it is possible to see some of the same elements here--good and bad--that were present in books by Simmons I liked: the lonely, hard-scrabble man, the fiery, sexual woman who awakens him, the necessary brush with the primeval forces of nature. Cliched those these may be, they can work if put into an actual story, but that's not what is presented here. Disappointing.
December 2, 2022
This one kept me engaged throughout the story, even if it should have been edited down more. Elements of the story are placed together in interesting ways. My only caveat was the erotic letters between General Custer and his wife. These couple of sections could be easily skipped, still.
July 19, 2016
After reading most of the works the Dan Simmons has read, I have come to believe that he can do no wrong.
I would read a grocery list if he published it.
Every time I grab another one of his books, there are always those little quips at the beginning from authors and newspapers and other publications touting the book, but I have little faith in them because how many authors just have their publishers pay for that thing to be done?
But all of Simmons's praise is deserved. All reviews by me on Simmons are probably going to read the same. Awe of the book, extreme praise for the author to the point where I just want everyone to read SOMETHING by Simmons. Anything. Just pick one out and go for it. This guy has won awards in more geners than most authors even know exist!
Black Hills is no exception. You walk into the book with a vague intro in the book cover and don't really know what you are in store for. By the end of the book you are not only entertained, you are educated, and most amazing of all, driven to go see the Black Hills(again) for yourself!
Having grown up fairly close to the Black Hills myself in Western Nebraksa, we frequently went to the Black Hills for vacation or Rapid City for sporting events, during which we would always make trips to the popular places in the area. However, I learned more in the NOVEL from Simmons than I have spending 30-40 days of my life there over the years!
Simmons has been gifted with the blessing of telling a story. Such a believable story interwoven with actual events that when you are finished, you can't tell where the fictional parts of the story even were.
Simmons is a Master, I hope he never dies, and Black Hills is like every other book I have read of his: AMAZING!!
I would read a grocery list if he published it.
Every time I grab another one of his books, there are always those little quips at the beginning from authors and newspapers and other publications touting the book, but I have little faith in them because how many authors just have their publishers pay for that thing to be done?
But all of Simmons's praise is deserved. All reviews by me on Simmons are probably going to read the same. Awe of the book, extreme praise for the author to the point where I just want everyone to read SOMETHING by Simmons. Anything. Just pick one out and go for it. This guy has won awards in more geners than most authors even know exist!
Black Hills is no exception. You walk into the book with a vague intro in the book cover and don't really know what you are in store for. By the end of the book you are not only entertained, you are educated, and most amazing of all, driven to go see the Black Hills(again) for yourself!
Having grown up fairly close to the Black Hills myself in Western Nebraksa, we frequently went to the Black Hills for vacation or Rapid City for sporting events, during which we would always make trips to the popular places in the area. However, I learned more in the NOVEL from Simmons than I have spending 30-40 days of my life there over the years!
Simmons has been gifted with the blessing of telling a story. Such a believable story interwoven with actual events that when you are finished, you can't tell where the fictional parts of the story even were.
Simmons is a Master, I hope he never dies, and Black Hills is like every other book I have read of his: AMAZING!!
November 4, 2011
I stuck this out because of my interest in Native Americans and the settlement of the west, but was I rewarded for my perseverance? No! Apparently Dan Simmons has many loyal fans--I gleaned this from reading some of the Goodreads online reviews-- I will not be one of them. Regurgitated history combined with metaphysical speculation, cardboard cutout characters combined with an overly complicated plot-- how does this guy sell books? The highly imagined life of one Sioux, Paha Sapa ("Black Hills" in Lakota) who manages to be present at all the major events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The book opens as Paha Sapa works as a "powderman" on the making of the Mt. Rushmore monument. He plans to blow it up as revenge upon the wasichu (white men, "fat takers") who have despoiled the Black Hills. Through flashbacks and flashforwards we follow his life as he loses his tribe's sacred pipe, is afflicted with the ghost of George Armstrong Custer and Custer's pornographic memories, falls in love with a part-Indian woman who dies young, has a son who dies young, discovers that he has a granddaughter who is half-Jewish on the eve of WWII, and is given a vision of the future that includes the "re-wilding" of the Great Plains with Paleolithic plants and animals as well as the restoration of the Indian tribes to keep the natural balance of predator to prey. Some people are apparently charmed by Simmons-- I find him tedious and overblown. I hate pedantic, preachy historical novels. Boo hiss phooey.
April 4, 2010
One of my favorite books by Dan Simmons. I love the mix of historical fiction and magical realism that he's been doing lately and this is maybe the best of the bunch. The historical subjects are probably what sets this one apart a bit from the others for me. I'm a bit of an American history buff so I really enjoyed reading about the Black Hills, the Lakota people, Custer, and Mount Rushmore.
Like the last few Simmons books, I wasn't crazy about the ending. However, as a big Neal Stephenson fan, I'm used to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion*. "It's the journey, not the destination."
* This doesn't include Anathem, which was awesome.
Like the last few Simmons books, I wasn't crazy about the ending. However, as a big Neal Stephenson fan, I'm used to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion*. "It's the journey, not the destination."
* This doesn't include Anathem, which was awesome.
March 19, 2011
I love Simmons but this book was tough to get through. It was well-written as usual but, where the historical aspect worked so well in The Terror and Drood, it mostly served just to drag the story to a grinding halt in many places and killed any flow that would start to develop. There was never any continuity in the book, and too often it felt as if I was getting nothing more than a history lesson instead of a movement of the plot. I have no problem with learning history in my fiction, but it has to fit in with the flow of the book. That just didn't happen here. A disappointment.
June 29, 2010
Simmons has reduced, effectively, from his recent 'war-and-peace' length works (Drood, The Terror). It's a beautiful novel, almost a great-american-novel contender, blends some classical themes and moves from dystopia to utopia-image with a compelling image of what could be for America.
January 9, 2024
Są autorzy, których każda książka zasługuje na miano dzieła literackiego. W moim odczuciu takim wyjątkowym pisarzem tworzącym z rozmachem wykraczające poza ramy gatunku, wielowątkowe, piękne powieści jest Dan Simmons, który niezależnie do tego czy idzie w horror, powieść historyczną, science-fiction, czy kryminał czyni to fenomenalnie.
W tym roku z przyjemnością pochłonęłam już dwa tomiszcza spod pióra Autora – „Trupią otuchę” i „Piąty kier” – w obłędnych wydaniach od Wydawnictwa Vesper, a dziś przyszedł czas na trzeci. „Czarne góry” to powieść historyczna sięgająca końca XIX i początku XX wieku w Ameryce. Czasy krwawych walk pomiędzy osadnikami i rdzennymi mieszkańcami tych ziem. Zagarniania kolejnych terytoriów, pozbawiania Indian ich tożsamości, kultury i zwyczajów.
Na zachodzące zmiany patrzymy oczami Paha Sapy, Indianina, który dzięki swojemu darowi dostrzega nie tylko smutną dla jego ludu wizję przyszłości, ale i poczuwa się w obowiązku, by jej zapobiec. Towarzyszymy mu w drodze jego życia począwszy od czasu, gdy jako chłopiec uczestniczący w bitwie zostaje opanowany przez ducha generała Custera, a skończywszy na przyglądaniu się procesowi realizacji jednej z najbardziej spektakularnych rzeźb w skale Mount Rushmore.
W opowieści prowadzonej dość niespiesznie, z wieloma retrospekcjami i przemyśleniami głównego bohatera zmierzamy do konfrontacji, do tego jednego momentu, na który Paha Sapa czekał całe życie. Czy właściwie zinterpretował swą wizję z dzieciństwa o czterech niszczących wszystko olbrzymach?
Na tę powieść można patrzeć pod różnymi kątami i jak światło przechodzące przez pryzmat będzie mienić się wieloma barwami. Bo otrzymujemy historię nie tylko człowieka, ale i jego ludu, który krzywdził i był krzywdzony. Wchodzimy głęboko w świat wierzeń i rytuałów rdzennych mieszkańców Ameryki, ale też dostrzegamy perspektywę osadników za sprawą przemawiającego do Paha Sapy ducha generała Custera. Powstająca rzeźba twarzy czterech prezydentów dla jednych jest powodem do dumy, dla innych zbezczeszczeniem ich świętych miejsc.
To powieść niebywale melancholijna o nieuchronności tego, co nadchodzi, o życiu, w które wpisana jest strata - tożsamości, poczucia przynależności, rodziny. Ukazująca niezmienność ludzkiej natury mimo upływu tysięcy lat, ale i światełko nadziei. Czy płonnej?
W tym roku z przyjemnością pochłonęłam już dwa tomiszcza spod pióra Autora – „Trupią otuchę” i „Piąty kier” – w obłędnych wydaniach od Wydawnictwa Vesper, a dziś przyszedł czas na trzeci. „Czarne góry” to powieść historyczna sięgająca końca XIX i początku XX wieku w Ameryce. Czasy krwawych walk pomiędzy osadnikami i rdzennymi mieszkańcami tych ziem. Zagarniania kolejnych terytoriów, pozbawiania Indian ich tożsamości, kultury i zwyczajów.
Na zachodzące zmiany patrzymy oczami Paha Sapy, Indianina, który dzięki swojemu darowi dostrzega nie tylko smutną dla jego ludu wizję przyszłości, ale i poczuwa się w obowiązku, by jej zapobiec. Towarzyszymy mu w drodze jego życia począwszy od czasu, gdy jako chłopiec uczestniczący w bitwie zostaje opanowany przez ducha generała Custera, a skończywszy na przyglądaniu się procesowi realizacji jednej z najbardziej spektakularnych rzeźb w skale Mount Rushmore.
W opowieści prowadzonej dość niespiesznie, z wieloma retrospekcjami i przemyśleniami głównego bohatera zmierzamy do konfrontacji, do tego jednego momentu, na który Paha Sapa czekał całe życie. Czy właściwie zinterpretował swą wizję z dzieciństwa o czterech niszczących wszystko olbrzymach?
Na tę powieść można patrzeć pod różnymi kątami i jak światło przechodzące przez pryzmat będzie mienić się wieloma barwami. Bo otrzymujemy historię nie tylko człowieka, ale i jego ludu, który krzywdził i był krzywdzony. Wchodzimy głęboko w świat wierzeń i rytuałów rdzennych mieszkańców Ameryki, ale też dostrzegamy perspektywę osadników za sprawą przemawiającego do Paha Sapy ducha generała Custera. Powstająca rzeźba twarzy czterech prezydentów dla jednych jest powodem do dumy, dla innych zbezczeszczeniem ich świętych miejsc.
To powieść niebywale melancholijna o nieuchronności tego, co nadchodzi, o życiu, w które wpisana jest strata - tożsamości, poczucia przynależności, rodziny. Ukazująca niezmienność ludzkiej natury mimo upływu tysięcy lat, ale i światełko nadziei. Czy płonnej?
April 2, 2011
The main problem with "Black Hills" is that it's not as flat-out sensational as Dan Simmons' previous two novels, "The Terror" and "Drood." The secondary problem is Simmons' growing tendency to show off his research. The first gripe probably is a little unfair (three five-star novels in a row would be a lot to ask), the second quite legitimate but an ultimately minor complaint in another strong book from a man who clearly has become an American master.
"Black Hills" has nowhere near the the knife-edge adventure of "The Terror" nor the psychological suspense and creepiness of "Drood," both tales with a supernatural element or at least the appearance of it. Again, there is extra-worldly stuff in "Black Hills," a story that stretches from the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 to the 1930s (and well, well, beyond). With its story of the life of Native American Paha Sapa (his name means Black Hills in Lakota), inhabited by George Armstrong Custer's ghost as the 11-year-old counts coup at the moment of the Army officer's death, "Black Hills" reminds me of a more-accurate, less-funny "Little Big Man" fused with one of Tim Powers' great ghost possession/soul swapping yarns.
Paha Sapa, who can "talk" with Custer's ghost (once he learns English, that is) and has the ability sometimes to glimpse a person's future when touching him or her, grows up as the Native Americans' way of life and power fade with the white man's domination. Simmons juggles time, going from orphan Paha Sapa's youth with the Lakota (Sioux) and his interaction with his adoptive uncle Limps-a-Lot and historical Native figures such as Crazy Horse, to his time with Buffalo Bill Cody at a Wild West show near Chicago (far too brief), to his work as a powder man on the emerging Mount Rushmore monument; one could say he plays with time throughout. Paha Sapa, given a vision, as a boy, of four white giants rising from the Lakota's sacred Six Grandfathers (Rushmore) to chew and destroy, plans to blow up sculptor Gutzon Borglum's shrine to American presidents during President Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 visit at the unveiling of the Thomas Jefferson head.
Simmons' jumps around in time are not disorienting. He is covering a lot of years and a lot of territory, but he pulls it off. Paha Sapa has a few adventures among the Lakota (the Natural Free Human Beings) and other tribes, including their often disastrous encounters with whites. And we're privy to his visions of the Native Americans' spirit world and their fate. Not surprisingly, much is made of Native Americans' visions and spiritual power. But, like Little Big Man, Paha Sapa also becomes integrated into the white world. He falls in love with a woman only part Indian and works among whites at mines and at the Mount Rushmore project. Simmons is not telling us a straight adventure tale, but the story is moving and engrossing. The "voice" of Custer is effective; though we first hear his intense sexual longings as if told to his now-unreachable wife, his "conversations" with Paha Sapa come to be quite entertaining.
Thankfully, the author resists painting the Indians as infallible and hopelessly noble, and the whites simply as evil. His treatment of Custer, in contrast to Thomas Berger's in "Little Big Man," is even-handed. Simmons' quest for authenticity is obvious, from historical details to his liberal (to say the least) presentation of Lakota language. This generally is commendable, but sometimes the torrent of difficult-to-pronounce and read Native language can really screw with momentum. In addition, Simmons simply cannot resist throwing in as much historical research as he can. When Paha Sapa visits New York, there is a seven-page digression about one of Paha Sapa's friends and his work on the Brooklyn Bridge that simply doesn't add to the story but sure does let us know Simmons has been hitting the books.
Not everyone will love the way Simmons winds up the tale (I thought it was fine), and there is an epilogue that I found unnecessary. So, was "Black Hills," not quite up to Simmons' recent standard, a disappointment? No way. "Merely" very good is good enough.
"Black Hills" has nowhere near the the knife-edge adventure of "The Terror" nor the psychological suspense and creepiness of "Drood," both tales with a supernatural element or at least the appearance of it. Again, there is extra-worldly stuff in "Black Hills," a story that stretches from the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 to the 1930s (and well, well, beyond). With its story of the life of Native American Paha Sapa (his name means Black Hills in Lakota), inhabited by George Armstrong Custer's ghost as the 11-year-old counts coup at the moment of the Army officer's death, "Black Hills" reminds me of a more-accurate, less-funny "Little Big Man" fused with one of Tim Powers' great ghost possession/soul swapping yarns.
Paha Sapa, who can "talk" with Custer's ghost (once he learns English, that is) and has the ability sometimes to glimpse a person's future when touching him or her, grows up as the Native Americans' way of life and power fade with the white man's domination. Simmons juggles time, going from orphan Paha Sapa's youth with the Lakota (Sioux) and his interaction with his adoptive uncle Limps-a-Lot and historical Native figures such as Crazy Horse, to his time with Buffalo Bill Cody at a Wild West show near Chicago (far too brief), to his work as a powder man on the emerging Mount Rushmore monument; one could say he plays with time throughout. Paha Sapa, given a vision, as a boy, of four white giants rising from the Lakota's sacred Six Grandfathers (Rushmore) to chew and destroy, plans to blow up sculptor Gutzon Borglum's shrine to American presidents during President Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 visit at the unveiling of the Thomas Jefferson head.
Simmons' jumps around in time are not disorienting. He is covering a lot of years and a lot of territory, but he pulls it off. Paha Sapa has a few adventures among the Lakota (the Natural Free Human Beings) and other tribes, including their often disastrous encounters with whites. And we're privy to his visions of the Native Americans' spirit world and their fate. Not surprisingly, much is made of Native Americans' visions and spiritual power. But, like Little Big Man, Paha Sapa also becomes integrated into the white world. He falls in love with a woman only part Indian and works among whites at mines and at the Mount Rushmore project. Simmons is not telling us a straight adventure tale, but the story is moving and engrossing. The "voice" of Custer is effective; though we first hear his intense sexual longings as if told to his now-unreachable wife, his "conversations" with Paha Sapa come to be quite entertaining.
Thankfully, the author resists painting the Indians as infallible and hopelessly noble, and the whites simply as evil. His treatment of Custer, in contrast to Thomas Berger's in "Little Big Man," is even-handed. Simmons' quest for authenticity is obvious, from historical details to his liberal (to say the least) presentation of Lakota language. This generally is commendable, but sometimes the torrent of difficult-to-pronounce and read Native language can really screw with momentum. In addition, Simmons simply cannot resist throwing in as much historical research as he can. When Paha Sapa visits New York, there is a seven-page digression about one of Paha Sapa's friends and his work on the Brooklyn Bridge that simply doesn't add to the story but sure does let us know Simmons has been hitting the books.
Not everyone will love the way Simmons winds up the tale (I thought it was fine), and there is an epilogue that I found unnecessary. So, was "Black Hills," not quite up to Simmons' recent standard, a disappointment? No way. "Merely" very good is good enough.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 464 reviews