The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos #4)

4.11 of 5 stars 4.11  ·  rating details  ·  13,229 ratings  ·  393 reviews
The magnificent conclusion to one of the greatest science fiction sagas of our time

The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted mu...more
Mass Market Paperback, 709 pages
Published July 1st 1998 by Spectra (first published 1997)
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Ender's Game by Orson Scott CardDune by Frank Herbert1984 by George OrwellFahrenheit 451 by Ray BradburyBrave New World by Aldous Huxley
Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books
235th out of 2,977 books — 12,611 voters
Cassastar by Alex J. CavanaughHyperion by Dan SimmonsEnder's Game by Orson Scott CardCassafire by Alex J. CavanaughFoundation by Isaac Asimov
Best Space Opera
22nd out of 153 books — 386 voters


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Community Reviews

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Kemper
I survived!

As I’ve reported in my previous reviews of this series there were times where it seemed as if my gray matter was going to be permanently fried by this epic sci-fi story. I finally got through to the end with most of my marbles still in the bag they came in.

It’s almost impossible to give a summary of this without spoiling the previous book so I’ll just say that Aenea and Raul Endymion continue their interstellar journey to fulfill her ultimate destiny as the powerful forces of a corrup...more
Dan Schwent
After four years on Old Earth, Raul Endymion resumes the voyage on the river Tethys to find the Consul's ship. Meanwhile, Aenea leaves Old Earth behind to find her destiny. In addition to hunting for the One Who Teaches, The Pax launches a Crusade to wipe out the Ouster menace once and for all. Will Aenea fulfill her destiny and end the Pax's reign once and for all?

I have to admit, I was skeptical for the first half of this book. It wasn't urination-inducing good like the first two and I actuall...more
Rachel
This book could have been half the length and I would have been thrilled.

Too much philosophizing. Too much useless description, too much exposition of the "science" behind why the characters were able to do what they did. The plot "twist," if it was meant to be one, was pretty damned obvious immediately.

Again, de Soya was much more compelling than any of the major characters, and he's relegated to an even less important role in this book. SO DISAPPOINTING. He may be one of my favorite characters...more
Rowena
This is the last book of Simmons' Hyperion Cantos and arguably, the most moving. Raul, Aenea and A. Bettik have settled on Old Earth for the last four years but young Aenea knows it is time to leave and they must part ways. Raul is sent on a mission to retrieve the Consul's old spaceship (probably one of my favorite "characters" in the entire series) and Aenea and A. Bettik journey on so that the girl can spread her wisdom, so to speak, and to continue constructing her architectural wonders on a...more
Elizabeth
I put off reading Endymion/Rise of for a long time (like several years) because a lot of people I knew seemed not to think much of them and I already wasn't quite as impressed with Fall of Hyperion as the Chaucerian original. If anything the events in this book are a huge payoff for what I remember as the sort of abstract and confusing bits of Fall of... and in a way having that huge time span in my own reading parallels nicely the elegant way in which Simmons manages this incredibly densely plo...more
Otis Chandler
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Radu
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Brian
12/8/04 - 6/10

Series: 12/8/04 - 6/10
The Hyperion Cantos started off very promising. The first book is like a sci-fi version of The Canterbury Tales, with detailed personal looks at each individual character, each with different tones. Some of the stories were better than others, but all were good - the Sol Weintraub / Rachel story in particular was very haunting. The story is a creative look at 700 years in the future with very detailed worlds and cultures, mostly touched on in passing in the ch...more
Michael
If you trudged through the first three novels in the Hyperion series, Rise of Endymion offers a beautifully crafted and satisfying conclusion. Just about all of the plot threads are finally woven together, major questions answered, and characters' stories wrapped up in a hopeful, but utterly bittersweet package.
This one is quite a page turner and the action is kept tight and consistent throughout the narrative, with the great majority of chapters focused on the development of Endymion and Anea's...more
D.L.
A friend turned me on to the Hyperion novels by Dan Simmons and, as a result, I naturally wanted to read both Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. While Endymion was a great read, it did not quite live up the two Hyperion novels that came before it. Even so, Endymion engaging enough that I couldn't wait to read the next one. And so this brings me to my three star rating for The Rise of Endymion.

Dan Simmons can write. There is no doubt about that. But The Rise of Endymion did not seem to be Dan Sim...more
Nilesh
The explanations provided in Hyperion go a long way in completing a fascinating tale and that overrides all other flaws of the book.

Dan Simmons had in a way left a lot of things unexplained at the end of the second Hyperion - perhaps the intended original tale-length. The added complication in the last two books is often contrived and irrational. Yet, one only realizes while reading the last book how much was unresolved in Hyperion and how the entire story makes more sense because of the explana...more
Smcleish
Originally published on my blog here in October 2003.

Centuries after the events chronicled in Hyperion, the novel which began the series of which The Rise of Endymion is the fourth, human culture in the galaxy has changed dramatically, apparently returning to an archaic form. Through its monopoly of the cruciform, a parasitic, cross shaped piece of nanotechnology which makes it possible to reconstruct a person's personality and memory in a new body after death, the Catholic church has become the...more
Dave
Raul Endymion finishes his journey with Aenya. They spend time on creative worlds, like Tien Shan where the only habitable areas are high on mountain peaks, ridges, and valleys; and an Ouster sphere of asteroids surrounding a star where micron-thin wings let them catch the solar wind and fly. And the Catholic Church (under the control of the Techno Core) fights again to find and destroy her ability to commune with the Void Which Binds and share the ability with others.

(view spoiler)[In the end,...more
David Mcangus
The Cantos ends with its most ambitious entry. It is due to this ambition however, that the book doesn't quite reach the potential that the previous novels hinted at. Nevertheless it's still a satisfying and rewarding tale that I would encourage readers of the previous books to pick up, as it does a remarkable job at finishing the story.

Throughout my time with Simmons's spectacular series, I couldn't help but mentally contrast it with Frank Herbert's much revered Dune series. I read the later e...more
Ian
Oct 07, 2012 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: sf
Ok, finished the two novels of the second half of the Hyperion story last night. I enjoyed, overall, but not as much fun as the first two novels. As with most sequels these two suffer from the need to wrap all of the lose ends together and also, something I find very annoying, find it necessary to throw away part of the back story to move the plot along.

The story—three centuries later. A new chap enters the scene, his job is to bring a new messiah (a little girl, related to the first novels), i...more
Benjamin
Mild spoilers follow.

I was very disappointed by the end of the series. There was little of the adventure that made Endymion fun, there was significantly more of the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo that detracted from Fall, and what soul the book possessed was only a pale imitation of the depth that made Hyperion great.

I appreciate what Simmons was trying to do, and he is a phenomenal writer, but this falls short. Raul degenerates into a simple-minded plot device. Aenea's transition from a childish and...more
Judi
"Choose again." Aenea's entire message...

If I learned anything with the first two Hyperion books, it is don't even think of this as a separate book. It is a continuation of Endymion, so I went ahead and picked up both books at the same time.

Obviously, the Shrodinger's box has not yet killed Raul Endymion, so he continues to document the events as they unfold from the last book. I won't give anything away, except to say that this book explains almost everything that might not have been clear in t...more
Scott Rhee
Dan Simmons's "The Rise of Endymion" is a superb conclusion to the four-book series started with "Hyperion". I love Simmons's use of literary references throughout the series ("Canterbury Tales", "Beowulf", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "The Wizard of Oz", the poetry of John Keats) and his clever but not-so-subtle criticism of topics as diverse as the Internet, the publishing industry, and organized religion, The Catholic Church in particular.

As an aside, I wouldn't brand Simmons an ant...more
Sahil Raina
I read Endymion and Rise of Endymion together, so this review will cover both.

Overall, I liked books 3 and 4 but not nearly as much as 1 & 2. A major problem I had with them was the feeling I got that I was reading a fantasy/scifi book rather than a scifi book. The first 2 books had been straight-up space opera science fiction, and some of the best of that genre that I have read. So, reading this set with that expectation, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed.

Putting aside that criticis...more
Donovan
Amazing!!! This is the fourth of 4 books. These are:
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Endymion
The Rise of Endymion
(These are so good I will review them individually)
The writing is a mix of present and past tense and compiled as a collection of character stores that intermix throughout the over-arching story. It is an awesome feat of literary wonder site in the far future of humanity and will leave you breathless when the last page is turned. The environments, the technology, the wonders, the sociology...more
Josh
Mar 26, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: sci-fi
Dan Simmons’s novels are complex, abstract, and intricately woven in both form and style. His capstone novel for the Hyperion cantos, The Rise of Endymion, is no exception to this. Like its predecessor Endymion, The Rise of Endymion follows Raul Endymion, Aenea, and A. Bettik as they support Aenea in completing her mysterious mission. Despite his writing prowess, Dan Simmons has two problems: first, he is far too verbose in some areas and too scant in others. Second, his endings are often crude...more
Христо Блажев
Изключителната сага “Хиперион” на Дан Симънс – величие без граници!
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/03/b...

“Триумфът на Ендимион” решително стъпва в посока разкриване на картината. Техноцентърът малко по малко излиза наяве, докато Мирът методично започва да избива прокудените с усъвършенствани архангелски кораби, чиито безсмъртни екипаж сеят смърт с невиждан размах. Енея и Рол се разделят, след като той трябва да поеме на важна мисия да върне кораба на Консула, оставен да се саморемонтира на нез...more
Whitney
Boy does this book disappear up its own butthole halfway through. I've always said, if there's one thing I love its pages and pages worth of metaphysical explanation of imaginary science fiction macguffins that in case you were wondering, do not actually exist, and therefore lack any sort of educational value which the reader might obtain from a similarly dry lecture on a real scientific subject. Anyway.

This book starts out as a travelogue (and the places are even more otherworldly and evocative...more
Daniel Burton
I was eager to finish the story started in Hyperion, and while I had to splurge to do it (the library did not carry it, so I actually had to pay for this one), I was somewhat disappointed with the finale.

Don't get me wrong: Dan Simmons did not fail to provide a great story. He filled in the blanks, answered the questions, and completed the circle. But unlike the previous three, which i enjoyed immensely, this one seemed to ramble. Information dumps were all over the place, and at times I felt b...more
Tim
Concluding the Hyperion books at last -- in shifts of two books each spread over a couple years -- was ultimately quite satisfying. I struggled with my star ratings on all but third book "Endymion," rounding down on both "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion" just because, oh, I don't know, I'm an ass or something. So I rounded up the 3 1/2 stars this concluding volume normally would warrant. Can't say I'm a complete bastard.

"The Rise of Endymion" adequately answers most of the mysteries of the prece...more
Donald

As the finale to the series, this book winds up the foursome in a whirlwind. And it unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes with the strength of the ending. The first 3 books were very good indeed but this one was the best.



Told as recollection by a prisoner in the ultimate prison (in a Schrödinger's cat capsule in orbit around an abandoned star) the story ranges from love story to religious corruption to art retreats (and their pitfalls) to the nature (and innate power) of information and life in

...more
Alexandra
After reading Endymion I wavered as to whether to back it up with the concluding the series. On the one hand, so many other books to read! On the other hand, getting a conclusion (again)! On the gripping hand, I knew I had Issues with this book when I first read it, and I was worried...

Anyway, I did it. In fact, I stayed up rather late last night to finish it, because I really, really wanted to get to the end again.

Spoilers ahead for the first three books. Actually, spoilers for this book, too....more
Angela
The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, onetime shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples. But first they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself. They h...more
Brian
The scene where Corporal Bassin Kee is undergoing torture at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor , who uses a machine that simulates "crushed testicles" and "hot wire behind right eye" in the victim's brain ... that's a good approximation of the experience I had reading this book. There's Dan Simmons sitting at his desk, finger poised over a computer keyboard. In the place of letters, each key has a different literary torture: "moldy info dump forced down throat", "insufferable protagonist buzzes...more
Chance
Saving humanity has never been so tedious. I enjoyed Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, and I flew through Endymion despite putting it off for a long time. Not wanting to forget any details and eager to finish a story that spans almost 1,000 years, I started Rise of Endymion immediately after finishing its predecessor.
That was a mistake.
Maybe if I had taken a brief Dan Simmon hiatus, I wouldn't have felt I was slogging through world after world that bore little impact on the plot. This book seemed t...more
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The Rise Of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)
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The Rise Of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos #4)
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Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction,...more
More about Dan Simmons...
Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1) The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2) Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3) Ilium (Ilium, #1) The Terror

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