Hyperion

This is less one sci-fi novel and more a collection of short stories as we get to know this Pilgrim Fellowship on their way to undermine the Hegemony. All stories are radically different but equally interesting. What a ballsy way to start a book with the Priest's tale! I was cast down an oubliette of horrors only to be yanked out of a funk by Kassad's warrior tale—very cool Edge of Tomorrow Live Die Repeat vibes. The Poet's Tale was a dirty-mouthed romp with a few laughs and a ton of time-trippy scenery. I welcomed Silenus sardonically chewing scenery for most of the book. Wientraub's tale was equal parts heartwarming and heart-wrenching. Then, Brawne Lamia's tale felt like a noir nod to Bladerunner. Merin and Siri's story was a little creepy, but I was a too enthralled with time debt details and couldn't look away. Still wondering why dolphins would miss sharks? All in all this was a fun read, but I'm kind of peeved the book ended before delivering the goods.

Probably my favorite science fiction book (and series) I've ever read. Hyperion is written in a style similar to The Canterbury Tales, in which a series of stories are told by the main characters. Each story is a gem in itself, but alude to the larger storyline. The scope of the story is ambitious - spanning time, planets religion and love.

Blown away, one of the best books I've ever read. Horrifying, sad, compelling and alot of words falling short to describe this masterpiece.

Il primo libro della saga dei Canti di Hyperion è un fulmine che ti colpisce e ti lascia stecchito. Ognuno dei racconti dei pellegrini dello Shrike potrebbero essere dei libri a se stante ed invece Simmons li raccoglie in un unico splendido libro.

The night was dark and stormy. The revelers sat around the campfire when one said, “Bill, tell us a story.” So Bill said, “The night was dark and stormy...”
Dan Simmons is a talented writer and somewhere in this book is a good story but the Canterbury Tales motif is contrived and leaves the reader feeling he is taking one step forward and two steps back. There are compelling passages such as the wickedly funny section where Martin Silenus discusses the nine word vocabulary to which he is reduced after suffering a stroke but these moments are islands floating in the horse latitude of tedium. Beyond that, there is a sense of style transcending substance. The reader is mesmerized by the verbal agility of the writer rather than riveted by the story. Still and all it's worth a read.

I really enjoyed the structure of this book. 7 travelers on a package, ditched together by circumstance. Each tells their tale a la The Canterbury Tales. Each story is told differently and really well crafted. On to of yours, the world building is intriguing.

This book was different from anything I've ever read. The first 100 pages (aka chapter 1) were full of new terms and information that I couldn't quite understand and just had to power through and hope it would make sense down the road (and it did). I loved the style of the book: it took 7 pilgrims and each chapter was them telling their stories of why they were chosen for the pilgrimage. In terms of “real-time” plot, not much happened in the book, but in terms of character development it was unmatched. I loved getting to know the world the book was set in through all of the characters' stories!

Age range: 18+
Some characters have got a good bit of violence in their past, plus some other mature themes. Nothing crazy, but not a YA sci-fi novel.

Based in form on Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims travel to the planet Hyperion, the Time Tombs and the Shrike and tell their personal stories on the way. I thought the setup was clumsily written and needed a re-write to make those initial conversations more organic.

The pilgrims and their stories cover a wide range of experiences and are told in varying voices. There is existential horror, space opera, self indulgent extravagance, noir detective, love story, and political intrigue.

By the time of story three or four we realise that there are interlinking threads between them. The last story reveals the undercurrents of manipulation and betrayal that have brought these people together.

The Time Tombs are a continuing mystery, said to be moving backward through time. They are inhabited/guarded by a blade covered monster called the Shrike. Also called the Lord of Pain, it impales victims on the Tree of Pain. The origin of the Shrike is not revealed but it appears to have been recently released and causes mass death and people are fleeing the planet.

The book ends in absurdity with the pilgrims holding hands as they walk to the Time Tombs, singing We're Off to See the Wizard. Book #2 waits in the wings.

I went into Hyperion with few expectations and was pleasantly surprised by its tone and structure. It's a frame story clearly inspired by The Canterbury Tales, though I found the short stories themselves more akin to Star Trek episodes in their subject matter and varied genres. 

As far as scifi goes it's incredibly solid, with the right level of explanation and technological mystery as it examines one possible future path for humanity. I liked its take on FTL travel and the overall theme of time.

As if often the case, not all of the stories work and their quality is uneven. I enjoyed riding the wave of vibes, but in the end it felt like I missed some greater message. It ended abruptly, but I felt neither fulfilled or disappointed. My first reaction in fact was wondering if my epub was corrupted and the file terminated early.

The obsession with Keats was a courageous move that ultimately does not benefit author Dan Simmons by comparison.

I stopped reading “Hyperion” because the heavy focus on religion in a futuristic society felt dystopian to me. I prefer stories where science and reason shape the future, not faith. Despite the rich world and complex characters, the theme of religious control was too off-putting.

Amazing, I can't believe this was written in 1989

Loved the format. I think it has aged very well I will need to line up the sequel

I don't know what to think. Partially this book is amazing, so beautiful, poetic, descriptive language, and then it falls into word vomit, quite on par with any other author in love with their prose. The idea is wonderful, exciting, and creative... in many ways, Dan Simmons has created a fascinating world, a universe with many worlds... and at the same time, he refers to the same things over and over again, things that would have been obscure data in a post-Terra world. I mean... Keats? Uh. At least in Star Trek, they invent new people who have done things. Would these people REALLY have the same frame of reference after 700 years of the end of the world we know? Keats? Would they still be singing “We're off to see the wizard”? Are we singing 700 years old songs from another culture and world? (Well, I am, because I am a medievalist, but not really, no.)This book is very white and male. Half of the people don't need to be male. It's also quite colonialistic, even though colonialism is depicted as bad... The Maui world is supposed to be some sort of Polynesian paradise like in the adventure books from early 20th century, but the heroine is white. Red hair, green eyes, untanned skin clearly white against the tanned skin... and the hero sleeps with her the first night they meet. He's 19, she's 15. He calls her “a not quite sixteen-year-old womanchild”, and talks about her “budding breasts”... Yuk. I don't know if it makes the infantilization of the “indigenous people” more or less racist.Also, I hate the poet. I hate his poetry. I wish Dan Simmons would have quoted poetry less. In fact, so little, that there wouldn't have been any. It's basically just Tolkien who could do that.It reminds me of [b:A Pilgrimage of Swords 43923515 A Pilgrimage of Swords (The Seven Swords, #1) Anthony Ryan https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549899953l/43923515.SX50.jpg 68347373] by Anthony Ryan (2019)and Joan D. Vinge's Tiamat series (1980s). Might remind me of a lot of other things, had I read the stuff he read. I suppose it's original enough. At least, there's a lot of people who love it.Oh, and he loves to use the word “lapis” for blue.

Hyperion is very clearly Simmons flexing his talents across a variety of range voices, moods, and genres. At one point neo-noir space thriller, at another lovecraftian horror, yet another in intimate family drama. This book is engaging and kept me going even through flawed pacing.

This is a reread for me. This time not in translation but in English. I feel like I'm only now fully appreciating the book. Seven pilgrims, six stories. Each story reveals a bit more about the world and political reality. The underlying tension is slowly built up. The worldbuilding is impressive. And all in just 500 pages.

Hyperion was written in 1989 but is more relevant than ever. The way Dan Simmons incorporates AI into the future makes you think. It's one of the reasons Hyperion made a bigger impression on me now than it did five years ago.

Without a doubt, this is one of the best sci-fi books out there.

Not sure why but I loved this a lot, it mixes a lot of things and it does it elusively well

I don't remember when I first read Hyperion but I know I loved it. It must have been before I started keeping really accurate records on Goodreads so possibly between college and starting a library job; maybe between 2008-2012? It only matters because I think I've changed as a reader since the first time I read it. I remember loving it in all of its wackiness. Previously, I had it listed at 5 stars but after this re-read, I'm bumping it down to four stars. I still really love parts of the book and think they are absolutely brilliant but to me, other parts don't hold it. Could it be that I just didn't notice them the first time I read it or was I so enthralled with the storytelling that any discomfort was easily ignored? It's hard to say.

The parts that don't hold up for me are the things that I assume stem from Dan Simmons' right-wing politics - and I think he's gotten worse over time! The man has never created a female character without commenting on her breasts every time she is present in the text. His characters are pretty overwhelmingly white, the culture he draws upon from “Old Earth” is mostly Western-focused, and it's weird that everyone is apparently straight? In the future?! With evolved humans and AI and other things? That seems unlikely but perhaps that's just me.

Even though I'm sure no one cares about my second read of a science fiction book from 1989, I want to talk about it because it is a pretty influential book and the fact that when it's good it's SO GOOD and when it's bad . . . it's bad. It's so interesting and infuriating!

I'm going to talk pilgrim by pilgrim because that's how I think of the book and clearly Simmons' intention. Spoilers abound, so beware....

The Priest's Tale: “The Man who Cried God” - 5/5 stars. For me, this is the best part of the book! This is the story that hooks you, that pulls you into this wild, gory, and fucked up story, and gives you a high that keep you chasing the rest of the novel. I think Simmons does something interesting with the concepts of salvation and eternal life and turns them into horror, which makes a lot of sense from some points of view. Father Dure's eventual crucifixion on the tesla tree in an attempt to die sets up a looming tone for the rest of the book, with the characters and reading anticipating eventual suffering and crucifixion on the Shrike's Tree of Pain.

The Soldier's Tale: “The War Lovers” - 3/5 stars. I like this one and I like Kassad's character arc from soldier to anti-war activist. I really like the idea of the lovers meeting through time and war but I wish Mystery/Moneta was a real character. Truly, you'd think by Simmons' description she was simply boobs and a nice ass. It's so frustrating. I will also say that reading about a Palestinian survivor and badass in a time of genocide against Palestinians made me tear up.

The Poet's Tale: “Hyperion Cantos” - 4/5 stars. Martin Silenus is my least favorite character in the book because he's just so odious and annoying and self important. But I really like how his story touches the trials and tribulations of artistic inspiration, writing, and honestly just being a human.

The Scholar's Tale: “The River Lethe's Taste Is Bitter” - 5/5 stars. The Weintraub family's story is so tragic. I think the renewing of and commentary on the story of Abraham and Isaac is interesting and well done. The pain that Sol and Sarai go through as they watch Rachel forget and grow younger is truly heartbreaking . . . but I wish that Simmons hadn't been like, “Oh and Sarai died off page WHOOPS.” Come on! Rude.

The Detective's Tale: “The Long Good-Bye” - 4/5 stars. Brawne Lamia - a clumsy call back to Keats' fiance Fanny Brawne, in my opinion - gets less objectification than the other female characters, but it's still there. She is allowed to be strong and smart, as well as beautiful. This section is really great because it does do a lot of expansion on the worldbuilding of the TechnoCore and the AIs and how they are influencing Hegemony politics. Brawne and Johnny's love story wouldn't make sense without the Keats/Fanny Brawne connection so I wish it was a little more fleshed out.

The Consul's Tale: “Remembering Siri” - 2/5 stars. This one I struggle with. I find the jumping back and forth in time a bit hard to follow and feel weirded out about Merin and Siri's “romance” starting when she is 15 - Simmons talks SO MUCH about how she's barely sixteen! GROSS! - and he is 19 (?). I do like the Romeo and Juliet references within the fight between Siri's cousin and Merin's friend as well as the anti-colonialist and environmentalist message, I just think it just muddled in the narrative.

Overall, the stronger parts outweigh the weaker parts. I'm glad I re-read it and am excited to read The Fall of Hyperion. I never read Endymion and the Rise of Endymion because I heard they weren't great but maybe I will this go around.

I really enjoyed this book and then it ... ended before it was over. I know there are sequels but it felt like all the POV stories that were told, each of which I really enjoyed and I loved how they were told so differently, were leading to something at the end that the book just doesn't provide. That's disappointing. I'll probably read at least one of the sequels in a while, but like ... it seems like at least the first sequel would just have to be a part of this book.

An undeniable masterpiece. Holy shit.

Dan Simmons is an evil genius. What an ending.

The way the story is structured and unfolds is a work of art. The way he gives such distinct voices to each of the main characters is mind boggling. THE WORLD BUILDING.

How do you write like this? Is it innate talent? Can you learn it?

I'm kinda in awe.

This, in my opinion, is the greatest SciFi Novel ever written

It’s Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaceeeeeeeeee. Seven pilgrims, a one-way destination, and each person’s story told along the way. It’s a fine setup and I loved the execution, but the larger story (why we’re reading the book in the first place) seems to take a back seat amongst everyone’s personal stories.

I say this with every short story compilation I read (because that’s the meat of this book), but it really is a mixed bag here with certain characters’ stories being way more compelling than others. The Poet’s tale was my least favorite (owing mostly to my dislike of his character in general), followed closely by the Consul’s tale, weirdly enough. I initially liked the Consul as a character, but his story basically brought nothing to the table that we didn’t already know, unlike the other stories. It was also the shortest and least memorable in my opinion. But all that said, each story is told in a different way, almost entirely different genres from each other, and I think the author deserves credit for pulling that off successfully. It’s not often I go from a sci-fi pilgrimage to a touching family drama dealing with terminal illness to a cyberpunk murder mystery all in the same book.

This was cruising along for a 5 star rating, until we get to the Epilogue. Ending spoilers here: The boogeyman of the book, the Shrike, deserved way more pages than it got. I was super into whatever the Shrike was and was looking forward to its mystery being unraveled slowly with each story told, but I didn’t get that. I was also looking forward to some sort of confrontation with it at the end of the book, but I didn’t get that either. I get that this is a series and a lot of this is probably addressed in book 2, but I’m in the camp that says a book should be able to stand on its own merits without being propped up by a sequel, and I didn’t get that feeling here.

All that said I thought this was a really well done book. Lots of food for thought here, and I loved the prose. The different feels of each pilgrim’s story also contributed to a general feeling of different backgrounds coming together for a (reluctant) goal. I’ll definitely be picking up book 2 at some point!

Listen to a story all about how my life got twisted upside down ..

I've finished this. 5/5 I don't think I fully understood every bit of it but it was all so beautifully constructed and crafted, every chapter was so distinct from the others and so compelling in their own rights. I've seen books being marvelous with world-building, or character development, but never really quite both at once and this one really did that so well. This book definitely demands rereads. I also liked that it had some really good female characterisation for a book published in the late 80s.

There were a few minor flaws here and there, like the writing could've been a little less flowery and descriptive, but that's also probably my own modern sensibilities talking. I also found Siri's story a bit anticlimactic, it somehow wasn't as compelling to me as everyone else's stories, but the Consul's second part really tied everything together. Some general thoughts of the ending: I really liked that we had a Fellowship moment at the end with the pilgrims being united for one moment in the damn book, and that's *after* they find out who the spy is too. I can't say I completely understand the Consul's motivation yet though but thats mainly cos the politics is so complex that I haven't quite wrapped my head around it yet. I couldn't really choose which one was my fave chapter - they were all really interesting and brought something new and thought provoking to the table.

I'm very glad I read this and would absolutely need to read the next one, also because I can't imagine how they would structure the next one now that we already know the pilgrims' backstories.

Hyperion continued to annoy me all the way to the very end, but I can't deny the presence of some bright spots that made it worth the journey. Final thoughts below. Expect spoilers.
Dan Simmons is still the most frustrating author I can recall reading. He has this tendency to be on the verge of creating a masterpiece, then decides to paint a stripe of gun-metal grey across the middle.
The central conceit of Hyperion is so well designed and is what ultimately kept me clinging to this book. The parts where he leans into the existential horror of it—that is, the Priest's tale and the Scholar's tale—are exquisite. These stories are some of the highest calibre cerebral sci-fi I've read. If he had decided to write all 6 tales in this style, this book would have easily made my all time list.
It was a wise decision for Simmons to place the Priest's tale at the beginning, because without it I may not have had the good grace to endure the rest. I'm discovering I have almost zero interest in reading action for the sake of action. Both the Soldier's tale and the Detective's tale suffered from this. If you must have a complex action sequence, I think it's imperative the reader understands why they should care about the outcome. The metanarrative must supercede the narrative.
Simmons has a puerile streak which undermines his worldbuilding. He seems to think the reader will struggle to relate to events, places, and people in his future world unless they are connected to events, places, and people of the present day, which leads to some really hokey and tasteless inclusions. “AIDS 2 virus”. “The First and Second Holocaust”. “The New Prophet”. “New” anything, for that matter.
Let's talk about the ending. Simmons's choice to insert his short story "Remembering Siri" is such a bizarre choice in pacing, and it was at this point that I lost faith that he would pull the strands together. I think this could have been safely left out. The rest of the Consul's tale actually did pull the strands together in a sense, only for Simmons to seemingly abandon the story on the edge of a cliff, forcing the reader to buy the next book in the series.
All the way along, I've been trying to work out what this book reminds me of, and I think I finally worked it out. When it comes to stories based around intrigue, withholding answers, bizarre twists, frustrating directions, and a sense the writer didn't really know where they were going, there's no better example than Lost. It probably won't surprise you to know I lost my patience and stopped tuning in after season 2.
I won't be reading The Fall of Hyperion, at least for a while. I'm calling your bluff, Dan Simmons. I'd rather leave the story at this point without knowing what happens.
For Duré and Weintraub, however, I will never forget Hyperion.

Excellent, really interesting concepts. Great prose, can't wait to read other books in the series.