Drood centers on the (late) lives of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. But where the story is told through Collins' eyes, it is Dickens, and Dickens' inner demons (or maybe not?), which are the story's focus. The novel begins after Dickens survived the Staplehurst Rail incident. A near-death experience, Dickens half-consciously wanders the wreckage of his train, lending survivors aid and lamenting the dead. At one point Dickens is approached by a man who identifies himself as Edwin Drood. Cloaked, shadowy, and with slits for a nose, he makes a distinct impression on Dickens, such an impression in fact, that Holmes—I mean, Dickens—goes looking for the mysterious figure in the days which follow the train crash. Devolving into an obsession, Dickens, accompanied by his close friend Wilkie Collins, start digging deeper and deeper into the identity and intentions of one Edwin Drood.
To get the obvious question out of the way, Drood is not a paean to Dickens or Collins. Simmons makes no attempt to imitate either author' style, or to style either man as literary hero. In fact, both are portrayed in a gritty light. The hypocrisy of Dicken's relationships and the man's ego have strong place in the novel, just as do Collins' addiction and jealousy of Dicken's success. Simmons provides a balanced, even look at the men's lives.
Beyond pure biography, Dan Simmons takes advantage of gaps in history to fill Drood with story of the lightly fantastical variety. 80%-90% of the novel is rooted in real world history. But speculation sprinkles the interstices of unknown history, spicing things up—so light, in fact, an argument can be made the speculation it's only in Dicken's head. Thus, Drood is an exploration of Dicken's late-life character in speculative and psychological fashion. That is the story's substance, with the engine being the mystery/hallucinations in Collins' mind as he imbibes laudunum and writes.
The strengths of Drood are typical Simmons strengths. Prose is clean and active and descriptions are sharp and short. London feels visceral, as do the quotidian and non-quotidian events of the authors' lives. Adventures in the city sewers, opium dens, Scotland Yard, trains and newspapers, bowler hats and mysteries—all have a clean edge of realism. The catacombs of London, for example, evoke real bricks, mold, and rats. And for people looking for infotainment, the novel contains a wealth of biographical detail on Dickens and Collins.
If there are any criticisms of Drood, one is certainly the book's length. At 800+ pages, fatigue starts to set in the deeper one gets into this page count. That being said, Drood is no epic, maturbatory fantasy gazing at its own navel. The novel has a stong arc that keeps the reader engaged and evolves within itself, revealing subtleties that lend the work credence.
On this note, I kept wanting to dislike Drood. The cover teaser would seem to set the novel up for pretentious groveling at the feet of long dead British authors who occupy an ambiguous place on the spectrum between entertainment and Literature. But Drood kept “disappointing” me. The plot slowly but steadily wins the reader over, as does Simmons' willingness to both drag the famous authors over the coals and praise their successes. And finally, the outright sophistication of the plot wheels within wheels within wheels (plot-based to meta to historical to psychological) is impossible to ignore.
In the end, Drood is a must read for any fans of Victorian England, Charles Dickens, or Wilkie Collins. Simmons brings this world and those people to life in a way the reader can almost touch. And one step beyond, readers who are skeptical of those authors' works, have a try at Drood. It is a separate entity unto itself that amalgamates biography, history, and fiction while telling a good story of its own. Book length is an issue; Simmons at times is a bit zealous in his desire to explore the lives and time he researched with convoluted plot, but the core mystery of Edwin Drood, particularly as it relates to Dickens' final years, is well developed, evolves intelligently, and is ultimately a joy to read—a bar for any novel.
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