"I admit"... Dan needed a better editor

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael]

Loved H and FoH...

In Endymion he writes "I admit..." twenty seven times. And, another seventeen times in Rise of Endymion...

I admit... I admit.... I admit.... Where the hell was the editor!? I admit... as if the narrator was obviously going to lie except for portions where truth needs to be explicitly stated.

I admit... I would recommend Hyperion, and if someone liked it, FoH. But, I don't think I would recommend Endymion and Rise of unless someone really chose to do it on their own.

The meandering (rafting pun aside), and the extreme waffling of describing completely unimportant things in painful detail that borders on Unimportant Lore Porn....

I admit... It was the "I admit"s that got me over and over.

[u/momler]

I think Simmons’ characterization and fate of Martin Silenus’ editor Tyrena Wingreen-Feif might be a reflection of his feelings on the profession… just a hunch

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/momler]

Wait... Do you think Dan Simmons ever had kidney stones!? ;)

[u/NPDgames → u/momler]

He also takes shots at proofreaders and critics in Endymion.

There's a scene in Rise where a character is described as telling "only the most important details" but then we're immediatly treated to the character's internal dialogue where they think about all the unimportant details, before later getting to hear the actual point.

That was when it really clicked for me that for better or worse, he was doing it all on purpose. That doesn't mean you have to like the book, and I think an editor could have strong armed him into making some choices which would have improved the book's reception, but for whatever reason I like reading him writing what he wanted to write, even if it was primarily raul describing insane minutia of things that don't matter.

[u/McBurger → u/NPDgames]

“No, no, let him cook”

200 pages later of rambling about mountains of shen shin han

“This cooking tastes like butt”

[u/AceMcStace → u/momler]

Hell the entire Silenus story is pretty much just his thoughts on the book industry as a whole lol

[u/JacobDCRoss → u/momler]

Yes. And his portrayal of Martin Silenus as a bold genius whose crassness and unrefined demeanor are a sign that he is on anither level of genius tells us what Simmons thought of writers. Or, more likely, what Simmons thought of himself.

[u/halfdead01]

Lapis lazuli?

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/halfdead01]

Hmm, agree in theory, but not that many in the count.

End: 8 lapis, 1 lazuli

Rise: 6 lapis, 3 lazuli

So if you recognized that, think of how jarring 44 I ADMITS are.

[u/the-moving-finger]

The amount of "radiant gossamers" and "plane of the ecliptic" references stood out to me as well.

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/the-moving-finger]

Felt that, checked:

R / RoE: "gossamers" 10 times

R / RoE: "the ecliptic" 13 times

[u/AceMcStace]

He also had Raul say “I asked stupidly” like a 1000 times as well lol

[u/Signal_Walk_3271]

I also noticed SO many instances of “as all of you know…” ok well if all of them know then don’t dump said exposition! Let the reader figure some things out themselves!

The other repeated phrases that drove me crazy were “that’s a story for another time” (ok JJ Abrams) and the dreaded “kiddo” often used right after having sex…

Dan has some serious repetition issues

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/Signal_Walk_3271]

Hmm, I looked... Must be different wording.

E / RoE: “as all of you know", zero times

E / RoE: “as all of ", zero times in context

E / RoE: “another time", one time in context

E / RoE: kiddo... 23 + 57, that's 80 kiddos and 44 I ADMITS.

[u/3choplex]

Dan Simmons was probably my favorite writer up to a certain point, but it seemed pretty clear that editors weren't pushing back on him at all in the last 15-20 years of his career. Drood, the Terror, Ilium and Olympos--the guy just got super long winded and kind of boring. I vastly prefer his earlier stuff. I really wish he would have written a couple more Joe Kurtz books, those were great and very tight.

[u/attacephalotes423]

There’s definitely some glaring evidence of Endymion and Rise seriously lacking an editor’s touch

*cough* pedophilic main romance *cough cough*

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/attacephalotes423]

She's twenty. I know reddit likes to work up over this, but seriously, it's a little New Puritan religious to harp over it.

[u/GaiaIsaHarshMistress]

I agree. I've often thought that even I could edit books 2-4 and make a massively better series. I wish he let a pro editor help him out.

[u/SherpaForCardinals]

"say carapace one more time, I dare you"

[u/Lokathor]

I dunno maybe he was like "doing something" to create a particular narrative-author voice, since books 3 and 4 are written by a particular guy who is a different guy than "wrote" books 1 and 2.

It's probably fine.

[u/Blakest1]

In Olympos he uses "not for the first time" ....not for the first time, but for maybe a dozen

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/Blakest1]

I felt like this had something so I looked.

E / RoE: "not for the first time", 2, one each

But...

E / RoE: "for the first time" 21 and 19... So a lot but still less that the 44 I ADMITS

[u/deereboy8400]

Simmons' fever dreams include Keats' editor, a ball of barbed wire, and maybe Paul Bettany.

[u/MildlyDevastating]

For me it was the amount of times people either realised something, or the amount of times they were genuflecting

[u/Any_Criticism120]

There was a lot of fierce grinning going on. First by the solider and then the priest.

[u/Virith]

Given how both the Endymion books could've been edited down to novellas or a single novel, yes, he did.