Prayers to Broken Stones
Paperback edition
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| Author | Dan Simmons |
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| Cover artist | Gary Ruddell |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Multiple |
| Genre | Science fiction, Horror, Adventure |
| Publisher | Dark Harvest; Bantam Books (Bantam Spectra imprint) |
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Publication date
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1990 (Dark Harvest). May 1992 (Bantam). |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 403 pages |
| ISBN | (Bantam) |
| OCLC | 154169413 |
Prayers to Broken Stones is a short story anthology by American author Dan Simmons. It includes 13 of his earlier works, along with an introduction by Harlan Ellison in which the latter relates how he "discovered" Dan Simmons at the Colorado Mountain College's "Writers' Conference in the Rockies" in 1981. The title is a borrowed line from T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men".
"The River Styx Runs Upstream" was Dan Simmons's first published work, and the short story that brought him to Ellison's attention in August 1979. Simmons relates the tale in his introduction, noting that Ellison's initial reaction was this (possibly a little tongue in cheek):
"Who is this Simmons?" bellowed Ellison. "Stand up, wave your hand, show yourself, goddamnit. What egomaniacal monstrosity has the fucking gall, the unmitigated hubris to inflict a story of five thousand fucking words on this workshop? Show yourself, Simmons!"
Simmons survived Ellison's critique, and Ellison pushed Simmons into submitting it to Twilight Zone Magazine "for their first annual contest for unpublished writers" (page 16, introduction to "The River Styx Runs Upstream"). Out of around 7000 submissions, it tied for first place and was published 15 February 1982 (according to PtBS's copyright page, in April, not February).
The actual story is classic Simmons in its literary allusions, with epigraphs from Ezra Pound's Cantos; the protagonist's father is a Pound scholar with an especial interest in the Cantos (reading from it to his children), and the premise can be seen as deriving from a line in the Cantos as well.
The mother of the family has died of some unspecified illness. Stricken by grief, the father bargains (heedless of the prospect of financial ruin) with the "Resurrectionists" to have his wife's corpse technologically revived. The resurrection is a hollow one, as all higher cognitive functions are irreparably damaged, although it does function somewhat autonomously. Their family is stigmatized, and the father slowly breaks down and his classes become less and less popular until he takes a sabbatical to write his long-planned work on the Cantos. He spends most of it drunk. Simon, the protagonist's brother, eventually commits suicide. A few years later, while the protagonist is at university (sponsored by the Resurrectionists, whom he has joined) the father commits suicide as well. He graduates and begins working for them and helping to spread the living dead. He does little but work, spending his free time with his resurrected family.
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