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Black Hills: A Novel |  | Author: Dan Simmons
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy Used: $8.99
as of 7/29/2010 22:33 CDT details
You Save: $17.00 (65%)
Seller: ces2
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 30826
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 031600698X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780316006989
ASIN: 031600698X
Publication Date: February 24, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
A Cool Spin on Historical Fiction July 12, 2010
Earthling (Fl, USA)
A Lakota Indian boy meets Custer at Little Big Horn. Custer dies as the boy named Paha Sapa is touching him and Custer's consciousness or essence transfers to the boy living in the recesses of his mind to annoy him from then on. Custer and the story follow Paha Sapa (which means Black Hills) through his life as America cleans up the last of the Indian and buffalo population to clear the way for progress American style. The story is unique the writing and characters are great. The historical settings of the Brooklyn Bridge and Mount Rushmore, where Sapa spends years working, were fascinating. A little slow moving at times and jumping back and forth through time periods created some anti-climactic moments. This was still a very worthwhile read. After Drood and now Black Hills I am a Simmons fan.
 Packed with twists, turns and intrigue June 18, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
BLACK HILLS receives a powerful dual narration by Erik Davies and Michael McConnohie and provides a fine tense thriller of psychological suspense blending history and the supernatural. Set on the American frontier in 1876, it tells of an uncanny psychic connection between a dying soldier and a pre-teen Sioux boy haunted by Custer's ghost-voice and his psychic abilities. His childhood vision offers pointers to a dangerous future in this fine story, packed with twists, turns and intrigue.
Exhibits the Endless Talents of its Author June 8, 2010
Bookreporter.com (New York, New York)
Dan Simmons continues to amaze me. He initially made his name in the horror genre writing classics like CARRION COMFORT and SUMMER OF NIGHT. He has since succeeded in several different genres, from science fiction to hard-boiled crime to historical mysteries. Most recently, he has re-imagined the ill-fated voyage of the HMS Terror and the doomed Franklin Expedition of 1845 in THE TERROR. In 2009, he had his biggest success to date with a novel that created a fictional backstory for Charles Dickens's last, unfinished work, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, with his bestseller DROOD.
With the release of BLACK HILLS, Simmons shows once again why he is one of the most diverse and important novelists of this generation. In the Sioux language, "Black Hills" literally translates to Paha Sapa. The dual importance of this name reflects the title character, a young Sioux warrior who resides with his tribe in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The novel's opening paragraph finds him feeling the ghost of the dying "wasicun" General George Custer leaping into his body amidst the tumult of the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn.
Paha Sapa counts coup upon the body of Custer at the moment the spirit leapt from one vessel to another. In the Native American tongue, counting coup is the winning of prestige in battle by acts of bravery in the face of the enemy. In the case of Paha Sapa, though he was not responsible for the death blow that claimed General Custer, he was the first Sioux there to stand over the body of the long-haired enemy of his tribe. Paha Sapa was no ordinary Sioux --- he possessed a unique power that allowed him to see the future and the death of those he touched. It was such a vision that caused him to be marked by the legendary warrior, Crazy Horse, and flee his Black Hills home to make a life for himself away from his people.
Paha Sapa does not understand how his power works; all he knows is that he now must travel the rest of his life with the ghost of General George Custer inhabiting his being and sharing his consciousness with this sworn enemy of his people. It does not help matters that he does not understand the wasicun (the literally translated "white man's") tongue and therefore cannot recognize the endless lamenting Custer speaks through his mind about his lost love, Libbie. The novel jumps around in time and devotes several chapters to Custer's laments involving his wife, told from within the deep recesses of Paha Sapa's mind.
As Paha Sapa eventually settles in amongst white society, he learns the English language and then can understand and interpret all that Custer's ghost has to say. Because of the additional vitality provided by the ghost of Custer, he leads an extraordinary life. The novel takes him from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the legendary town of Deadwood, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and eventually the construction of the national monument, Mount Rushmore, which is built upon the land of the Six Grandfathers in the heart of his Black Hills birthplace.
BLACK HILLS infuses history and fiction, and many legendary characters are included along the way. In particular, there is one very telling passage when Paha Sapa meets with Henry Adams, the American journalist who seems to be able to see through Paha Sapa's façade and recognizes the ghost rider he is carrying along with his own soul. He meets the woman who eventually becomes his wife, Rain, while at the Chicago "White City" World's Fair of 1893, and they take a ride on the new contraption called a Ferris wheel. Their marriage produces a son, Robert, who eventually dies on the battlefield in World War I representing the United States.
Tragically, Rain is struck down by illness early in her marriage to Paha Sapa, who now must raise Robert alone. He is constantly visited in dreams by Rain, and her wisdom --- marked by her partial Native American heritage --- guides him along in the same manner that Custer clings to the love and strength gathered from Libbie. It is when Paha Sapa, now considerably older, takes his manual labor skills and puts them to work for Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum that he believes he finds the end to the path his life has led him. He sees the construction of Mount Rushmore, depicting four of the United States' greatest presidents, upon the land of the Six Grandfathers in his Black Hills as a desecration of all that remains of his Sioux heritage. Driven by this feeling, he knows that he must bring down this monument and chooses to do so on a day when the fourth and final face (that of Theodore Roosevelt) is unveiled at a ceremony hosted by then-President Franklin Roosevelt.
Torn by his past and Sioux heritage and inevitably touched from the grave through the family he never knew he had --- that of his late son, Robert --- Paha Sapa eventually realizes what his true path is and recognizes what it will take to put both his and General Custer's souls at peace. Dan Simmons has created an epic story full of historical figures and events, and set them to life through one of the most unique narrators ever found in modern fiction. BLACK HILLS is a compelling and powerful read that continues to exhibit the endless talents of its author.
A good book in search of an ending June 7, 2010
W. V. Buckley (Kansas City, MO)
Now that Dan Simmons has moved into writing historical novels with a parnormal twist (The Terror, Drood) there seems to come a point halfway through his novels where I have to put them down and read something fast, light and insubstantial to clear my head before jumping back in to Simmons' occasionally dense prose and abundance of details. The good news about Black Hills is that I managed to make it straight through the novel without a break.
The bad news is that after enjoying the story, I was befuddled when I came to the end. And the end after that. And then the next end. And so on.
Simmons knows how to write novels, but if there's something he's weak on it's figuring out how to end a story. That weakness is fully on display in Black Hills, the story of a young Lakota boy who is "counting coup" on the dying soldiers at Custer's Last Stand and somehow picks up the ghost of the Custer who would be his constant companion for the next six decades.
The premise was intriguing and Simmons handled it well, jumping back and forth along Paha Sapa's life and the memories of Custer. Likewise, Simmons handled the settings very well - from the Black Hills at various times in history to the Chicago World's Fair to New York in the 1930s where Paha Sapa and his unwilling companion meet the aged widow of Custer to the Mount Rushmore monument where Paha Sapa works setting charges and plans to destroy the sculpture.
But as the book spins out the last threads of the story it seems as though Simmons loses faith in his story and begins hurling endings at the reader in the hope that something will stick. Granted, if Simmons had stopped with the first "ending" most readers would have considered it weak (if not a complete "deus ex machina" cheat). Perhaps Simmons decided to make up for Paha Saha's last minute reprieve as he waits for his death by tacking on endings where he lives, dies, has visions of the past, has visions of the future, etc.
Ninety percent of Black Hills is great. Simmons is a good enough writer to keep the Paha Saha/Custer-sharing-a-body concept from slipping into slapstick or parody like an Old West version of the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin comedy "All of Me." He's also a good enough writer to hold my interest as the plot jumps back and forth in time. I just wish the last 10 percent of the book could have been up to the same level of the first 90 percent.
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