The Fall of Hyperion

Not half as good as the first book, sadly...

This one is much as I remember it though I had forgotten some of the twists like Rachel being Moneta and the Ousters being chill which made it fun.

Women do move and behave less boobily in this one which I appreciated! I remember some of the TechnoCore stuff dragging a bit when I read it first and it still drags a bit for me, but still ultimately interesting and a good conclusion to Hyperion.

I haven't read Endymion or the Rise of Endymion because I've heard very mixed reviews. Maybe I will this year.

When I was young my grandmother used to come visit and I played Scrabble with her. She'd sit at the table for what seemed like hours, lips pressed together, arranging and rearranging her tiles. Finally with an expression of triumph she would lay down most of her rack of tiles to form some absolutely beautiful word that netted her, oh, ten points or so. Dan Simmons finally gets around to letting us in on the mystery surrounding Hyperion but too often he is writing beautiful passages instead of winning the game. This triumph of style–and he is good–over substance leaves the characters falling short of qualities that allow reading empathy and identification and make the aesthetic digressions tedious to bear. The material in this book and the preceding Hyperion would have made one fine shorter novel; as it is it's like a beautiful Christmas tree with too much glitter and lights.

One of the better books I have read in a long time. It kept my attention from beginning to end; solid 5 stars.

This one is so tough for me to review for 2 reasons:

1. I read it over the span of 10 months. I read the first third or so, thoroughly enjoyed it, but then took a break, procrastinated, and never got back to it until I was 5 days away from not getting to my January goal of finally finishing it. So my memory from the first bit is not so crisp.

2. This book’s ending.

I can’t stress enough that, for most of my reading experience, I was deeply in love. There is so much interest and intrigue, so much to say, so many strange, awe-inspiring, unknowable forces. I was practically drooling over it every time I picked it up. I was already writing the most glowing review of all time in my head.

Then I hit the last 40 pages or so and I don’t know what to say. It’s baffling.

So many plot lines are contorted to make sense at the end. Everything has to be explained. But Why? The only major part that isn’t fully explained is future society deus ex machina, which I think is dumb but arguably works, given the context. The mention of the paradox board made my eyes roll back into my skull. I think that making everything make sense is an impressive feat. But I don’t know why he felt compelled to do it.

And let’s not forget the shrike. The shrike is one of my favorite literary concepts of all time. And Simmons just completely neuters it at the end. This was the most disappointing. By the end, I wasn’t rooting for the pilgrims to win anymore. I realized that I was invested primarily in Gladstone and when her arc ended, I was satisfied.

It also gets very preachy at the end, which at this point I had gotten used to, but it felt more and more like Simmons himself was speaking directly to me instead of letting the characters bump around and get to those ideas on their own.

Well anyway, I want to believe in magic and the unknown. I want to believe that maybe the shrike isn’t pure evil. I want there to be that bit of ambiguity and mysteriousness and fantasy.

Simmons is great at birthing ideas and vignettes and moments, but not at gluing the pieces together. Work to your strengths. Overall, a huge bummer because I can’t state enough how much I adored the middle 300 pages. Still 9/10. Go read it.

This is the sequel to Hyperion, the beginning of which I considered clumsy and the ending, unintentionally absurd. That it took me more than a week to finish this book shows that it didn't engage me as it should.

The pilgrim's tale structure of #1 is gone and in place there is a new narrator, an artificial human with the DNA and mind of the poet Keats. And in using this narrative device Simmons indulges himself with quotes from Keats or other poets (I recognised a WB Yeats quote in there) through the book. So lets take a look at Keats's own view of Hyperion.

Hyperion was one of the Titans, the ancient Greek Gods who were displaced by the Olympians, and Keats wrote two poems at the end of his life, Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. He was nursing his brother through 'consumption' (tuberculosis) and Keats himself died soon after from the same illness. These poems were his exploration of death and meaning. And Simmons took the poetry and the theme as the foundation for this book.

Fall of Hyperion is about the war between factions within the AI 'datasphere' that supports human life and exploration. And it's about the war between 'normal' human civilisations and the Ousters, human civilisations who have used technology to enhance their bodies and minds. And it's about the war between military command and political intrigue among the human planets and central government. Like the ancient Titan, Hyperion, some of these power structures are going to fall and be displaced by others.

Now, to the story, The pilgrims have arrived at the Time Tombs and strange things are happening. The legendary Shrike is on everyone's mind as time moves back and forth on 'time tides' bringing chaos to the valley. Circumstances separate the pilgrims from each other and the Shrike appears to some as they are alone. The outcome is not good.

The narrator Keats can use his 'cyber mind' to see what is happening in other places as his dreams log into the datasphere and the information channels there. He is the link between government and pilgrims, especially as he enhances his ability to explore data lines without having to be asleep.

However, he also dives deep into the information channels like a good cyberpunk hero and finds an AI entity willing to tell him what is really going on in the machinations between the three major AI factions at the deepest level. The information he brings back to the government changes everything they thought about the upcoming war with the Ousters.

Things rush to a head in three domains. There is a final (?) confrontation with the Shrike but Simmons almost buries the story in mundanity. There is a radical action in the war that causes mass deaths and condemns billions of people to anarchy as the price of victory. And the Time Tombs open and reveal deeper layers of mystery as the stories of the original pilgrims at last find resolution.

3.5 stars rounded up. This was a good follow up to the first book, but honestly hard to understand. A major character is able to see into and move through the AI datasphere/metasphere and you just kind of have to read it lightly, like the author is making up words and not trying to read it like hard science fiction where things like that might be understandable. The pacing was tough, going back and forth between all these different high-stress POVs with chapters/sections that ended with cliffhangers. But I did read it a lot faster than I would have otherwise.

Plus, a big theme of this book had to do with a battle/conflict between the human god and the AI-created god, most of it off screen and just kind of hinted at, but it was just kind of strange to read. Not sure what the author really believes. But, all in all, entertaining and glad I read it.

Age range: 18+
If you read the first one, this one's no stronger. All the same stuff. War and violence and pain.

Overall I would call this book a "slog".

The first novel is great, an absolute page-turner and I think functions well enough as an independent work. I wish I hadn't read the followup.

There are so many interesting concepts and story threads in the book, just enough to keep me reading when most of the chapters made me want to put it down. That's the slog.

What was an obvious big tome was quite rightly divided into two. The first book had very different POV chapters. The second volume is a more conventinal structural narrative. If you read and enjoyed the first the second book will not dissapoint. Definitely in the top echelons of SciFi writing and age has not hurt it at all

Huh. Ok.
Another one of those “I don't know what to do, because parts of it were really bad but other parts were really good” :-D

The thing with feminism and objectifying and misogyny is that it's really hard to describe. You basically know there's a problem when the minor details start to irritate you.
I mean, there are many strong and powerful female characters in this book, women are described as just as intelligent and capable as men, and their sexuality isn't anything negative, aso. But the things...

They choose seven pilgrims, and 6 of them are male. One of them carries a newborn baby girl, and the only female member carries a man in her head. She's basically there as the man's vessel.
Why couldn't half of them be women? So far I haven't seen anything any of them has done that would have been impossible or even implausible for a woman to do. Well... I think Kassad's part suits well for a man, even though she could have been a woman, too. After all, a lot of his properties are enhanced by technology, and there it doesn't matter if you are enhancing a female or male body. Also, in this world, they have very strong women, coming from “heavy” worlds. The P.I. for example, is physically about as strong as Kassad, and performs similar fighting abilities etc.

The other little thing that aggravates me is how he describes people. He is very fond of talking about breasts. Men's attractiveness is described through the eyes of the P.I. - the only woman in the pilgrimship. And even though in Hyperion, I assume Dan Simmons chose to objectify the P.I.'s customer in his pastiche of noir detective novels, there is nothing that justifies her being attracted to father Paul Duré. Yet, she is. Why? It never leads to anything.

I am bored of the idea that the Christian Church, and especially the Catholic Church, would barely survive, but survive nevertheless several hundred years forward. Either one or the other, this wishy washy Church is... irritating.

“If there was some second sacrifice pending, something even more terrible than the crucifixion...“
Hundreds of people have been crucified, tortured, persecuted, lived through more terrible events than the crucifixion without any promises of everlasting existence and divinity, without any gratitude or their suffering counting as any kind of sacrifice, so I think you can stop that now, Christians. Sorry, but you should be ashamed!

Another idè Fix of Simmons is Keats. Come on. He wasn't that great. Or handsome.

Absolutely brilliant.

Wow! What a ride! I'm going to update my rating of the first book from 3 stars to 4 stars.

a bit grandiose, but anyways fuck the technocore

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this as a reading experience but I DO know that I will never read a John Keats poem in my whole life, purely out of spite. Eat your heart out, Dan Simmons.

This would probably be a one or two star read if it wasn't for the Scholar stuff.

A surprisingly different experience than the first. I can understand how people might go in expecting more of the same greatness and be disappointed, but overall, I found this book extremely interesting and thought-provoking, even if it was different from the original. It started out a bit slow for me, but really gained steam and finished off incredibly strong. I actually found myself tearing up at the end. I never thought I'd have such an emotional reaction to any book, much less a fictional one. This has to be my favorite series of all time.

типа приквелл к неслучившейся матрице. очень понравилось, хотя есть вопросы к антропоцентричности, особенно если сравнить с лю ци синем, которого я прочитала перед этим

Fall of Hyperion is a continuation of the story starting in Hyperion. Honestly, these two books seem more like one cohesive story than separate books or stories to me. That said, this does bring the story arc to a point where it feels like the first “book” is complete, but definitely sets up for wanting to know what happens next.

The plot was an adequate continuation of the first book, but it wasn't very impressive or plausible to me. I thought a lot of major plot points were extremely contrived and artificial. Besides that, the prose annoyed me. It felt redundant, long-winded, and overly descriptive. These long descriptions were not fruitful either; it's just hard to imagine some of this sci-fi scenery. I thought the occurrence-to-fluff ratio was 0.2. Reading this book after the first is certainly necessary, but I found it a little disappointing.

Oh, also, there were at least 2 typos. >:(

If I were to judge this book on its own merit, it is a solid sci-fi book, but if I compare it to the first book in the series, it is definitely a step down. Of course it is very difficult to follow a masterpiece.

If the ending to Hyperion left you unsatisfied, the Fall of Hyperion will clear up a lot of mysteries!

This is a continuance of the story that began with Hyperion. That storyline was made up of separate experience narratives told by the small group of pilgrims allowed by the Hegemony Web of planets to venture to the mysterious time tombs on the planet Hyperion, prior to Hyperion being annexed into the Web. These narratives interlock to provide the reader the background for the main storyline dealing with the mysterious Hyperion and the time tombs. The valley of the time tombs is unique in all the known explored galaxy where time flows backward within an entropy field and where a mysterious and monstrous metal entity, known as the Shrike, exists. The four armed Shrike, with its body made up of razor sharp blades, is known to slice and dice those who enter its realm and skewer the living bodies of its victims on a boundless, interdimensional thorn tree, that leaves the victims in an unending eternity of living pain. While the pilgrims take their long and treacherous journey across Hyperion to the time tombs a space war between the Hegemony Web and the mysterious Ouster Swarms is about to take place and is centered on the control of Hyperion. Hyperion ends suddenly just as the pilgrims reach the time tombs with many questions left unanswered, and so The Fall of Hyperion continues where Hyperion left off.
It is hard to give a brief overview of The Fall of Hyperion, it is so densely packed with several ongoing narratives, characters and locations. These narratives cover politics, religion, spirituality, personal relationships, interstellar warfare and weaponry, planetary genocide, interplanetary ecology, anthropology, philosophy, time displacement, Artificial Intelligence, cyborgs, interplanetary travel portals and spaceships, interplanetary communication technology...and of course the homage to the life of Keats and his poetry. Still interwoven within the grand and complicated tapestry of the story is the ongoing narrative of the trials and tribulations of the original group of pilgrims and their individual quests to the time tombs of Hyperion, guarded by the dangerous Shrike. If the reader is able to stick it through to the end of this often confusing but action packed tale, almost all will be revealed in the end, sort of. This is a book that probably requires more that one reading to try and grasp all its intricacies, but with so many books of interest awaiting....?

I think I've found my favourite Sci-Fi book series! This has everything. Great storytelling (you really can see author's love for poetry, even the title and one of the main protagonists is a bow to romantic period in literature), world changing events, the AI problem, alien not-alien races, time travel... I am amazed how well and smartly written everything here is. I've already bought the sequel ;) There is nothing really I can complain about. There were certain parts which I was a bit lost with, but as I was listening to this in an audiobook form, that can sometimes happen (want to read it now, but in some years). The ending was satisfying with a good part of the book ‘building up' to it (unlike many N. Stephenson's books were the ending happens out of nowhere with a sort of wtf), some questions were left unanswered, as it should be IMHO. Strong 5/5 in the Sci-Fi genre and my current favourite series to date.

This is the second book in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos

First lets talk about the world Dan Simmons has build with Hyperion Cantos. This book series is set about 700 yrs in the future when the galaxy has been colonized by humanity. Old earth has been destroyed or is missing and the galaxy is organized into a galactic Hegemony with a technocratic government ruled by a CEO

At some point in this history of this civilization there was a split between artificial intelligence and humanity. This core intelligence formed their own society after rebelling against the idea or reality of being conceived to be in slavery to humanity. AI got too smart for our own good essentially The AI Technocore now rules via the Hegemon but has also split into 3 main factions of AI (Though humanity likes to think otherwise)

The stables wish to maintain symbiosis with humanity
The Volatiles wish for the utter and complete destruction of humanity
The Ultimates defer any all all choice in the matter until the next level of awareness, or supreme ultimate intelligence is realized

Picking up right where Hyperion left off we are introduced to a Character of Joseph Severn who is having dreams of the pilgrims we met in the first book. These dreams are of the real life events going on at the Time Tombs of Hyperion and the dealings or encounters with the shrike and the Shrikes purpose and why it was created in the first place

In the mean time the the WorldWeb, linked together by a network of Farcasters, essentially portals in space time appears to be under attack by the Ousters, a mysterious group of people from the depths of space but all is not as it seems.

These books play off some interesting themes that I love seeing within the writings of the books and something that I find good science fiction does.

For one, The idea that humanity is by its nature destructive and will destroy all life that does not suit its own purposes. The book discusses the idea of terraform planets that already have an abundance of life but not the kind of life that humanity needs to live and human settlers has destroyed it without care for the life and natural species destroyed in the process, including any and all sentient intelligent species that may serve as competition for humanity. This is certainly a very grim and dark perspective on the nature of man whether it is true or not I guess depends on the reader but this idea is explored, not just in naturally occurring life but also in terms of AI life and its blend with human life, the Cybrids are a good example of this, resurrected personas merged with AI within the techno core and are generally seen as outsiders by humans who had sought to destroy them and so those that still live must keep their identity as a CYBRID secret.

The other main theme of this book, and the series so far anyway, is focused on religion and its role in human society. The book does a decent job of contrasting the diminishing ancient old earth religions, primarily with Catholicism as a central church used a focus for this particular theme and the newer what would be modern religion of the Shrike church, or as I think of it the Shrike death cult. There is the Catholic priests and the questioning of his own religion and the interplay of his god vs the Shrike and what it all means.

Part of this religious discussion you could say revolves around the Cruciform parasite that essentially resurrects its host over and over again. it In beds itself in the body in the form of a cross in the chest.

Then we have the shrike the the Idea of a sacrifice being needed to be made to what has become a death god or lord of pain. Its victims are impaled on a shrike tree almost in a way representing this tree of life, while impaled the victims do not die but suffer in eternal agony wishing, praying for death.

Sol Weintraub's story of his daughter aging backwards in time and having regular dreams of Abraham and God's command to sacrifice his son. He feels that God is calling him to sacrifice his daughter but fights against this as he struggles with the idea of God being truly God making such demands. Desperate to find a cure for his daughters backwards aging sickness and exploring his own religious convictions leads him on a pilgrimage to the shrike where he must choose if he will obey gods commands while facing the shrike

The AI intelligence in the mean time are seeking to create god in the form of a ultimate intelligence and these 3 explorations of religion intersect in a fascinating read while the book at times reads almost as a allegory of a twisted, dark alternate version of religiosity and god and overall was just a fascinating read from start to finish.

Easily 5 stars for me loved it!

Much more action-packed and plot focused than the first book, but unsatisfactory at actually resolving the story and answering questions. The AI factions and the Shrike imagery are the best parts.

Poetry continues to detract from the writing.

The best Sci Fi I have ever read, and possibly one of the best books. I feel like I've lived a whole other life.
The depth of story and interweaving plots was absolutely stunning.