The Fall of Hyperion

Executive Summary: While the ending was satisfying the book as a whole wasn't nearly as enjoyable for me as [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900]. 3.5 stars, rounded down because it was just too slow at times.Audiobook: After how great the audiobook for [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900] was, this one was a bit of a letdown. Victor Bevine does a good job, but to go from an ensemble to a single narrator was hard. Given the structure of this book compared to the last, it makes sense to only have 1 narrator, but I wouldn't have missed it if they had only used Mr. Bevine for the first as well. Still, audio is a decent option here in my opinion.Full ReviewAfter finishing [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900] there was no way I couldn't jump right into this. I just had to know what happened next.However, the format of this part of the story was largely different than the last book. Instead of several different stories with different narrators combining into one larger story, we had a single narrator acting as our conduit to several different subplots.However the format change wasn't my main issue. I just found the story moving far too slow. Maybe it is the format's problem. If I wasn't liking one story, it wouldn't be too long before a new one started that I might enjoy better. This was just one contiguous story (albeit one that jumped around between subplots rather frequently).Many of the elements I enjoyed from the first book are still present. The mystery of Hyperion and the Shrike. The politics of the Web worlds and the Ousters. Battles and intrigue. And the well written prose. But I found my attention wandering, and there were several points when I hoped things would just move along faster.Overall, I was happy with the ending of this. The main question/theory I wanted answered was done so by the end. In fact I feel like I could stop here and not read the next two. I do plan to read them eventually, but for now I'll be content taking a break to focus on other stories.

These two books, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, comprise one of THE best stories I have read in a long, long time. I was almost weeping with heartfelt feelings during the final scene between the father and daughter toward the end, then smiling with complete satisfaction as the story came to a conclusion that felt right and was right.

I am so glad I finally read these books and only wish I had done so earlier.

The epic conclusion that derailed just a little bit. I still think those two book from the Hyperion cycle are very well written and great books. But the second book lost a bit of the magic that the first book transferred so very well.

In my opinion too much time was spent with the characters on Hyperion and too little with the rest of the universe.

Spoiler alert below:

While the idea of the AIs living in the Farecaster network are very good and actually the most realistic to be, I do not understand why there would be no immediate science done to re-invent them without AIs running them. If they work, why not make them work again?Also who is this "Fatline" base voice. It suddenly appears, says "no more fatline messages" and that is it?

I felt this book was up and down. It had some real strong parts to it with a few of the short stories, but then others were boring. I also was not a fan of the open-ended way this book ended. Perhaps there's resolution in the other books in this series, but I felt Dan Simmons didn't give us the payoff he built up.

In the end, I would've given Hyperion 4-stars, but a few lows take one away. Overall this was a good book and I may read book two in the future.

Le deuxième opus d'une oeuvre magnifique, la saga Hyperion / Endymion. Un très grand souvenir.

It's hard to really live up to the first Hyperion book, because, in a way, Hyperion was a nearly flawless book. Hyperion was chock full of stuff for lit nerds and scifi nerds alike, while establishing a few great characters that you found yourself caring about after thinking how much you couldn't stand them early on. The Fall of Hyperion picks up where Hyperion left off, but ditches the Canterbury Tales formatting for a multi-narrative style that jumps between first person for “John Keats” and third for everyone else.

Each character has their redeeming qualities as well as their downfalls, which is what helps to make these books so great, but I know I can't be the only one who was a bit disappointed by the ending. Maybe I'm just a sadist, but the fact that Simmons chose to “save” most of these characters was disappointing. It felt like he wanted to just continue on their stories forever. A good portion of the end of the book felt like him warping everything to ensure that everyone would be as happy as they could be.

Simmons remains a great writer with an incredible sense of plotting and characterization, I just think that he got too attached.

Not a sequel, but the second half of the first book. More conventional storytelling than Hyperion, but in the same tone.

Not a sequel, but the second half of the first book. More conventional storytelling than Hyperion, but in the same tone.

Massive, pulpy, blitzing sci fi. Ultimately nothing too-too new, but still, on the whole, a lot of fun. The first book, Hyperion, is definitely the more original of the two - this is just classic space opera, with a dash of cyberpunk, and a strong (too strong) dash of the author's esoteric interests (in this case: Catholicism, John Keats, Rome in general?).

Overall, I blazed through this and enjoyed it. Yes, there were moments where I tired of the constant cliffhanger/mini-chapter style, but that's pretty standard medium-grade sf writing. I enjoyed the slow unpacking of the Ultimate Premise (which was only kinda meh... thus not meriting Great/Mind-Blowing SF status, but merely Fun SF status), and I thought a lot of the details (the river Tethys, wending its way through many planets via the Stargate-like farcasters) were nice touches. A couple things were unresolved, though I don't see how this series could really continue without just going into generic “freaky aliens! FREAKY ALIENS!” territory. Where would the new conflict be? Who cares? But the series does continue. It smelled a bit like post-Gateway Pohl.

A thing to note. On the one hand, I appreciated Simmons' somewhat feeble attempt to make a post-white, post-Anglo future. We see glimpses of this in his future history, and the rise of “Eastern” religions like “Zen Gnosticism”. But! I was VERY disappointed that Simmons then fell back on a primarily white, Anglo “good guy” resolution. All the leads are white, as far as I can tell. Only CEO Gladstone's aide is described as black, and only one of her military types (Admiral Singh) is coded Sikh. But even poor Singh ends up being totally incompetent and, in the end, cowardly/doubtful. Also, why the constant pushing of the quiet, dignified, handsome, wise, good, etc. Catholics? Paul Dure, for example, is basically Charlton Heston in his moral courage and unquestioned authority. Why do we care about the planet of Pacem?

Other discordant notes along this whole white/Anglo privilege thing:
- The Templars are inscrutable beings described as looking “vaguely Asian”.
- The Catholic thing. Seriously! The Catholic thing!
- Evil robots are Zen Buddhists who speak in inscrutable koans. Sigh...
- When Simmons clicks through all the planets, sketching their reactions to the Big Climax, we get two seriously groan-worthy moments of total prejudice: Qom-Riyadh (described by Hyperion wiki as “notable for its almost totally Islamic population”) undergoing an ayatollah-led revolution that “sets them back two thousand years” and is followed by “the crowds rejoicing”? The Zionist “Hebron” planet taming its deserts, praying for deliverance and then “complaining about the discomfort of deliverance”? These are such stupid stereotypes, and I don't sense any irony in Simmons' use of them. (Even if they were used ironically, I'd find it stupid.) Very lazy, Mr. Simmons.

Also, I did get a bit tired of people being:
- very very tired
- buffeted by winds
- explaining things to each other
- reading/writing poetry (oh my God)
- fighting the Shrike (seriously... dude is made of blades, and yet he is pretty toothless in a fight - Worf Syndrome!)

But I did appreciate Simmons having one character stop to pee after he gets off his magical flying carpet (“Hawking mat”) during a journey of great importance. Nice human touch.

I can't decide whether I like this book more or less than Hyperion. I think I like them both but for very different reasons. While Hyperion was brilliant in its variety, the way it mimicked the Canterbury Tales in tonal shifts, Fall of Hyperion is brilliant in the way it brings those tales together. Time travel makes me a bit dizzy, and there are still some points I don't understand Where did Brawne's superpowers come from?, but the way it connected memorable characters with themes very close to my heart (society's dependence on technology, what would happen to a world without the Web?) make this one of the top sci-fi series I have read. I'll definitely read Endymion, though I'll take a break first. One can only stare into Hyperion's lapis sky for so long. Lapis, lapis, lapis...

Some of the concepts of the Hyperion world are fantastic, especially the far casters, the Hawking drives, the biotech and even the meta sphere and the data core. I also think the writing is beautiful and compelling. But for some reason the overarching story in Fall left me a bit cold. I definitely enjoyed he characters and even geared up over the ending.I absolutely love Saul Weintraub's story. But the bits about the UI just fell flat for me and I'm not certain why. Maybe I'm just not understanding it well enough. Even so I recommend the book to anyone who wants challenging concepts and a grand universe. Especially if you can out up with a slight touch of poetic pretension.

So different from the first book, but every bit as great, maybe even greater.

This is not a standalone book, but the second and final part of the story begun in [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1) Dan Simmons https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405546838l/77566.SY75.jpg 1383900], and I've reviewed both of them together.