Six pilgrims, six stories, one structure borrowed from Chaucer and filtered through Keats. Simmons doesn't ease you in — he assumes you'll keep up. I'm a dumbfuck when it comes to literary sci-fi and half of this went over my head. Doesn't matter. The Scholar's Tale still hit me like a truck. A father watching his daughter age in reverse, knowing exactly where the clock stops — you don't need to catch the Keats references to feel that.
The Canterbury Tales format gives each pilgrim a different genre — horror, romance, war story, detective noir — all wearing the same world's skin. The poetry isn't decoration, it's load-bearing. But the book doesn't meet you halfway. It barely meets you at all. What keeps you going is that underneath all the density, something raw and human is holding it together. Even for a dumbfuck like me.