Fire All The Way
This book is great. It shows craftsmanship, knowledge, and inteligence. It is also a hell of a ride.
The reader follows two plotlines: one being the reading of a personal journal from the 1800's of an adventuresome lady, the other a today's travel account of her descendant's adventures in Hawaii. Their interlocked journeys have the usual mix of adventure, drama, fantasy and mythology, but (and this is one of the most riveting things the reader experiences) always there is sense of urgency, of crescendo to get to the story climax, that is superbly done. Meanwhile, you get to know interesting characters, angry hawayan gods, Samuel Clemens and a hell of a suspense. The vulcano who is threatening to erupt since the beginning of the story fuels the plotlines and the characters themselves, and the reader is guarranteed to arrive satisfied at the end of the story.
Though more than twenty years have passed, the book still has its own power and personal voice. The book, though the first novel of Simmons to get published, won international acclaim by winning the World Fantasy Award, giving the public a first taste of how good the literary output of Mr. Simmons was going to be and is.
