Wired.com presents The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. And here are your hosts. John Joseph Adams and David Barr-Kirtley.

Hi, this is Dave.

And this is John.

And welcome to episode 96 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.

Our guest today is Dan Simmons, the best-selling author of almost 30 books that span a wide range of genres.

His novels include Hyperion, Carion Comfort, The Terror and Druid.

His new book, The Abominable, is about a team of climbers attempting to summit Mount Everest in the 1920s

while being stalked by sinister forces.

And since it's almost Halloween we decided to make this a horror themed episode.

So our interview with Dan will focus mostly on his work as a horror writer and then stick around

after the interview as guest geeks, Grady Hendrix, and Jane Gates join us to discuss sex in horror.

All right, so let's get to our interview.

All right, so we're here with Dan Simmons.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you. Good to be here.

All right.

And so your new book is called The Abominable.

So what's that about?

Well, sounds like it's about an abominable snowman, doesn't it?

And it is about Mount Everest, but I can promise you that it doesn't

focus on a nominal snowman. It's really a book about climbing in the 1920s and three good friends. There's an older veteran of the

great war named Richard Davis Deacon who had such an experience in the war that he was going to be a lord but he tried to renounce his title.

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