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Worlds Enough & Time: Five Tales of Speculative Fiction

dan simmons

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An extraordinary artist with few rivals in his chosen arena, Dan Simmons possesses a restless talent that continually presses boundaries while tantalizing the mind and touching the soul. Now he offers us a superb quintet of novellas -- five dazzling masterworks of speculative fiction, including "Orphans of the Helix," his award-winning return to the Hyperion Universe -- that demonstrates the unique mastery, breathtaking invention, and flawless craftsmanship of one of contemporary fiction's true greats.


Human colonists seeking something other than godhood encounter their long-lost "cousins"...and an ancient scourge.



A devastated man in suicide's embrace is caught up in a bizarre cat-and-mouse game with a young woman possessing a world-ending power.

The distant descendants of a once-oppressed people learn a chilling lesson about the persistence of the past.

A terrifying ascent up the frigid, snow-swept slopes of K2 shatters preconceptions and reveals the true natures of four climbers, one of whom is not human.

At the intersection of a grand past and a threadbare present, an aging American in Russia confronts his own mortality as he glimpses a wondrous future.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2002

This edition

Format
272 pages, Paperback
Published
November 26, 2002 by Harper Voyager
ISBN
9780060506049
ASIN
0060506040
Language
English

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About the author

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dan simmons

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Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works that span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling Song of Kali (1985) won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
39(39%)
4 stars
32(32%)
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29(29%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
rohan121
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Five short stories from dan simmons, picked this up primarily due to interest in the follow on novelette related to his brilliant hyperion books.

Looking for Kelly Dahl – mostly forgettable, unexplained sci-fi leanings with disappearing worlds/towns/people and man hunting? a former student

Enjoyed the hyperion universe entry with the spectrum helix people’s encounter with post human ousters in deep space

Ninth of av- would be pretty meaningless for anyone who hadn’t read ilium and olympos prior to this

On K2 with kanakaredes – three climbers and an alien scaling K2

The end of gravity – a journalist assigned the cover the dilapidated and waning days of the once great Russian space program

generally enjoyable stories that I guess i'd only recommend to fans of dan simmons
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Axxel204
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I’m not a fan of the short story format, so take my opinions worth a grain of salt. Like many others I came here because of the Hyperion connection, but the 57-page Orphans of the Helix adds nothing to the two major duologies. In fact, it kind of sullies the positive memory of those stories. It is set four hundred years since the Shared Moment of Aenea’s death. It is about a group of people from the planet that sheltered Raul who have since renounced both the crucifix and the blood of Aenea and have remained closest to unaltered humans. They are on a ship destined for new part of the galaxy when they are awakened by AI on the ship that has detected a distress call. There’s a situation to be resolved, but mostly not that interesting to me until the final two pages when a surprising twist is revealed. That story gets four stars, but, as I said, adds nothing of substance to the main Hyperion-Endymion saga.

The other stories ranged from just barely two stars (the mountain climber story) to a solid three stars for The End of Gravity about an American writer researching for a story about the Russian space agency. That had a few mysterious points to ponder. I also didn’t care for Looking for Kelly Dahl, about a grade school teacher who has been fired who attempts suicide only to wake up to an altered reality. Kind of a demented Twilight Zone story.

Verdict: Not a keeper in my library. Will not sit next to the Hyperion-Endymion masterpieces!
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nono186
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Dan Simmons wrote one of my favorite sci-fi series ever - the Hyperion Cantos. These stories were enjoyable, but not on the same level. Which maybe isn't a fair comparison, but that's how I feel. I enjoyed these stories, but this is probably ultimately skippable if you're trying to hit Simmons' high points.
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Maou_heika
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Five shortish stories, one tied into the Hyperion books, the other four stand-alones. Shorter than most of his novels (duh!) and has been sitting unread on the shelf for 15 years (bought February 2004) so about time...

An interesting range of topics - climbing K2 with an alien, mankind's survivors coming to the end of their life before being put into stasis while the post-humans sort out the planet, an alcoholic teacher being haunted/hunted by a former pupil, a treatment for a film...
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creampuffs
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A collection of 5 "long short-stories" by Simmons, with introductions by the author.

* "Looking for Kelly Dahl"
I'd read this one before, I think in a "Year's Best SF" collection for 1996.
It's a surreal but memorable story of a burned-out, alcoholic teacher, who's emotionally suffering from the death of his son and his subsequent divorce. In an all-too-real dreamworld(?), he's being hunted down by Kelly Dahl, a former student whom, he believes, he failed to help - he didn't see the clues that she came from an abusive home situation. Through violence and anger, is there a hope of redemption?

* "Orphans of the Helix"
Inspired by Simmons' being asked to write an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, but set in his world of Hyperion/Endymion. It does have a very Star-Trek-like plot. A far-voyaging colony ship intercepts a distress call, far from human space. The locals have settled on a giant tree-helix around their sun - which was already there when they arrived. Their problem? Every 57 years a giant harvester-ship arrives, and munches up part of their settlements. They ask the well-armed colony ship to destroy this destructive threat. But ethical issues come into play - does the harvester belong to anyone? Does another civilisation depend on it for their survival? Only days remain before the next disaster strikes... Although it sounds simple, the background of the story is complex and rich, informed by Simmons' previous world-building.

* "The Ninth of Av"
This is a weird story. In the intro, Simmons complains that most people don't like it and/or don't "get it." Sadly, I might have to go down as on of those people. In 3001, humans are nearly extinct, wiped out by a disease. A seemingly benevolent race of aliens has helped the remnants of humanity (who are all descended from ethnic Jews) survive, giving them extended life spans - but they are infertile. The aliens have also given humanity teleportation ("faxing"). But the day of the Final Fax is approaching. The aliens have told humans that they are going put them "on hold" for 10,000 years, while they renovate the earth. But are they really planning to bring humans back? Or is it a mysterious plot to wipe out the Jews once and for all?

* "On K2 with Kanakaredes"
Mantis-like aliens have sent a delegation to Earth. But they live quietly in the Antarctic, and communication is virtually nil. When a young alien pulls some strings to be allowed to join a trio of human climbers who are planning an expedition to the famously treacherous mountain peak known as K2, the State Department looks on it as an unprecedented chance to find out more about the race. But facing adversity and Nature together, a more significant event that the Secretary of State might have hoped for happens - from being ultimate strangers, the climbers, human and alien, truly become a team.

* "The End of Gravity"
Probably the weakest of these stories, but still an interesting piece. An aging writer, in ill-health, is sent to Russia to interview cosmonauts regarding the Russian space program. He meets a woman who's hit the "glass ceiling" in the program due to her gender, and some philosophical thoughts ensue.
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thewallflower_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A decent collection of short stories. If you're interested in Simmons sci-fi work, but don't want to commit to a full novel, this serves as a good introduction.
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Houoin_Kyouma189
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Its a nice return to the universe of Hyperion several hundred years later after the end of Rise of Endymion and learn what came of the various societies and heroes Short and sweet with a tiny twist at the end left me wanting more-- and to return to this world again.
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Tm0_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I've only read one Simmons novel, so was not familiar with the bulk of his work as I set down to read this collection. Five stories, all impressively different, and well-crafted.

My favorites were 'Orphans of the Helix' (set in the universe of his Hyperion novels, and originally a proposal for a Star Trek episode) and 'On K2 with Kanakaredes.' Some critiques of the others:

'Looking for Kelly Dahl' is more Twilight Zone-esque than proper science fiction, which is fine. I could have done without yet another tale of a dissolute middle-aged college professor and his emotional relationship with a young female student, but, well, at least it's never overtly romantic.

'The Ninth of Av' which I read, coincidentally, on the Ninth of Av, is about anti-Semitism still existing a thousand years hence ... and while parts of it are evocative and parts successfully disturbing, I found it incomprehensible. Reading other reviews, it seems this is a prequel to a set of his novels, which one is apparently expected to read first (although this is not mentioned in the introduction). That's not a good strategy and the disturbing elements of it disincline me to read the novels.

The final story, 'The End of Gravity,' is the closest to the present reality of the set, and a reasonably well-done story of another middle-ages literary type. I never became quite involved in the story, however, and the reactionary tone of the introduction was a complete turn-off.
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