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candacesiegle_greedyreader 's review for:
Black Hills
by Dan Simmons
Black Hills--Paha Sapa in Lakota--is the name of a place as well as the protagonist of Dan Simmons new novel. As a ten year old boy, arriving at the very end of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Paha Sapa seizes the chance to count coup on one of the last survivors of the fight. When he touches the blond man at the very moment of the man's death, the spirit of George Armstrong Custer enters the boy's body.
This is not the first time such a thing has happened to this kid, but it is different to have a spirit in the back of your head constantly mumbling in a foreign language. None of the ceremonies designed to banish the ghost ever materialize, and Paha Sapa and Custer roll into a future that includes the 1893 World's Fair, the building of Mount Rushmore, and the Ghost Dance.
Black Hills is finely written and filled with interesting events and a multifaceted character. How do I explain why the novel never grabbed me? I cannot find any fault in the book except to say that it did not compel me to rush back and pick it up to find out what happened next. It did not move me as did, say, James Welch's Heartsong of Charging Elk. Nonetheless, I recommend Black Hills. I may come back to it in the future and find the experience I hoped for.
This is not the first time such a thing has happened to this kid, but it is different to have a spirit in the back of your head constantly mumbling in a foreign language. None of the ceremonies designed to banish the ghost ever materialize, and Paha Sapa and Custer roll into a future that includes the 1893 World's Fair, the building of Mount Rushmore, and the Ghost Dance.
Black Hills is finely written and filled with interesting events and a multifaceted character. How do I explain why the novel never grabbed me? I cannot find any fault in the book except to say that it did not compel me to rush back and pick it up to find out what happened next. It did not move me as did, say, James Welch's Heartsong of Charging Elk. Nonetheless, I recommend Black Hills. I may come back to it in the future and find the experience I hoped for.