Hyperion

published	March 1st 1990 by Spectra
first published	1989
binding	Mass Market Paperback
isbn	0553283685 (isbn13: 9780553283686)
ebook
pages	512
literary awards	1990 Hugo Winner; 1990 Locus Awards Winner (SF)
description	On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved ri...more [close] On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. A stunning tour de force, this Hugo Award-winning novel is the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the author of The Hollow Man. [close]
date added	02-07-07 edit book

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Dale rated it:

02/01/08

Read in January, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Tales From the Commute: Something happened to me for the first time yesterday. As I was getting off the train at the Rosslyn station to transfer from the blue line to the orange, a total stranger turned to me and pointed at the copy of Hyperion I was reading and said, "That book is so awesome." Unsolicited endorsements on public transportation have to come from a pretty profound place, in my opinion. And since I was almost done with the book at that point, I agreed with him that it ...more Tales From the Commute: Something happened to me for the first time yesterday. As I was getting off the train at the Rosslyn station to transfer from the blue line to the orange, a total stranger turned to me and pointed at the copy of Hyperion I was reading and said, "That book is so awesome." Unsolicited endorsements on public transportation have to come from a pretty profound place, in my opinion. And since I was almost done with the book at that point, I agreed with him that it was awesome. He then advised me that the other two books in the series were also quite good, and I assured him I would check those out as well.

Hyperion is a multi-faceted book, many things at once, all of which held some appeal for me. On one hand, it is hardcore sci-fi. Dan Simmons did a fair amount of world-building in the book, creating a future timeline for the development of humanity and the colonization of worlds outside our solar system, and the technology that goes along with that. There's a lot of jargon which whizzes by unexplained but makes sense and sounds right, like words real people would come up with the describe real inventions. On another hand, Hyperion is a layered literary homage. It's the story of seven pilgrims journeying to the titular world, and each pilgrim tells a story along the way, which hearkens back of course to The Canterbury Tales (and as an English major/book geek, I think exercises like that are cool). The framing device allows a couple of entertaining things to happen. One, each pilgrim tells his or her story in a unique voice, so one chapter reads like a hard-boiled detective story, another like a pulp adventure diary, another like the overblown memoirs of a deranged artiste, and so on. Two, the entire novel encapsulates a central mystery (actually mysteries) and the tales of the pilgrims slowly reveal the clues.

The mysteries themselves fall into three categories. First, the general kind of mystery that most good hardcore sci-fi automatically engenders: what is going on here? How does this imaginary world work? Bad hardcore sci-fi opens with lots of boring, didactic exposition; good hardcore sci-fi drops the reader right into the middle of things, surrounded by characters who don't overexplain things because they take their world for granted. But given enough time for acclimation, everything sorts out (or almost everything, but some things remain strange and wonderful til the very end). Hyperion does well with this kind of mystery because every answer is partial at best. The reader starts out wondering why humanity has spread so far from Earth, then realizes "something bad happened to Earth", then learns exactly what happened to Earth, and then later learns the REAL story of exactly what happened to Earth. All of which ends being surprisingly crucial to the story at hand.

The second mystery is why the seven protagonists specifically were chosen to make the pilgrimage to Hyperion. Again, this is more nuanced than it seems at first, as each pilgrim's tale illuminates more of the ones that came before it.

The third mystery is one that transcends the entire sci-fi genre, and for me is the reason to read any book: what's going to happen? Early on in the book it is revealed that most pilgrims to Hyperion do not survive, and that this pilgrimage is supposedly going to be the last one. Will these seven survive where others have not? Is it going to be different because of the finality? Is everything that's widely known about the pilgrimages actually wrong? And what is the exact nature of the deadly force that lurks at the end of every pilgrimage?

And here we come to the reason why I gave the book four stars rather than five. It's extremely well-written, in every style Simmons goes through from militaristic to romantic to comedic to tragic. It's jammed with brilliant ideas. It's peopled with compelling characters. And it ends just as the pilgrims are approaching the final destination of the pilgrimage. When I hit the last page I felt like someone had woken me up right before the best part of the dream. Just when I went from being curious about what happened next to NEEDING to know what happened next, there was no more next.

So maybe it was a fortuitous thing that a stranger on the Metro told me the other two books in the series are good. I have to console myself with that thought and hope that the closure I need is coming in The Fall of Hyperion. Never mind the fact that once again I seem to have started a book and wound up in the middle of a trilogy. I've got plenty more commuting to do after all....less

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Alex rated it:

07/26/08

bookshelves: books-of-2008

Read in March, 2008

HYPERION BY DAN SIMMONS: Hyperion is the first book in Dan Simmons’ epic Hyperion Cantos tetralogy. In this opening tale, seven unique travelers are brought together on a journey, a pilgrimage to the distant and mysterious planet of Hyperion, where they will face the Time Tombs and perhaps the dreaded Shrike. The galaxy is on the brink of Armageddon, and the pilgrims hope to somehow save it, and ultimately find their destines on Hyperion.

Employing the structure of the Canterbury Tales, S...more HYPERION BY DAN SIMMONS: Hyperion is the first book in Dan Simmons’ epic Hyperion Cantos tetralogy. In this opening tale, seven unique travelers are brought together on a journey, a pilgrimage to the distant and mysterious planet of Hyperion, where they will face the Time Tombs and perhaps the dreaded Shrike. The galaxy is on the brink of Armageddon, and the pilgrims hope to somehow save it, and ultimately find their destines on Hyperion.

Employing the structure of the Canterbury Tales, Simmons brings seven very different characters together. It is some centuries in the future, Planet Earth is no more, having been destroyed in a science experiment now known as the “Great Mistake.” But humanity has conquered the stars and traveled far throughout the galaxy. It is a great age, when one can skip across thousands of light years in the blink of an eye with the use of a Farcaster: a teleportation door that takes you where you want to go, created and developed by the AI TechnoCore.

But the Ousters are coming. A distant alien civilization about which little is known, except that they are hostile and a grave threat. It could all end now. The important vantage point is the distant planet of Hyperion, not even a member of the Hegemony of Man, where there are the Time Tombs. These ancient tombs are shrouded in mystery and suspicion; all that remains of an ancient race known as the Shrike, but they may be the salvation that humanity has been waiting for. And now these seven travelers hope to somehow activate these Time Tombs and save civilization.

Simmons begins the story in medias res, introducing the reader to these seven strangers in a world about which nothing is known, but he skillfully reveals everything through the minds, imaginations, and stories of these seven characters. There is Het Masteen, a member of the Templars, a tall and proud but quiet race who created and control the powerful Treeships that possess the Hawking Drive which is able to send ships across the stars at astonishing speeds; Masteen is the captain of the Yggdrasill, the ship that will take the pilgrims to Hyperion; he is also one of the pilgrims with his own unique story to tell. There is Father Lenar Hoyt, whose story is The Priest’s Tale, about the Catholic world and existence of the parasite known as the cruciform which can reincarnate life. Colonel Fedmahn Kassad, a member of the FORCE military who is searching for a supernatural figure that has come to him many times in his dreams in The Soldier’s Tale. Martin Silenus, in The Poet’s Tale, tells of his life as a failed poet who nearly loses his life and then begins his opus that will make him remembered throughout the centuries.

The Scholar’s Tale from Sol Weintraub is the most moving story from the pilgrims as he recounts how his daughter, Rachel, was an archaeologist studying the Time Tombs and after a strange accident begins to grow younger each day. She returns to her family to live with them as she decreases in age, needing to have her story recounted to her each day as she no longer remembers. Eventually a short and easy version is made to be told by Sol each morning to her. Sol and his wife, Sarai, relive the raising of their daughter backwards through time. And now it is up to Sol to return to the Time Tombs with baby Rachel who is now just weeks old and will soon simply disappear.

The Detective’s Tale from Brawne Lamia is a noir tale of her job as a private eye with a client who is a cybrid: a cloned human with electronic implants controlled by the TechnoCore. Someone is trying to kill him and destroy his memory, and it’s up to Lamia to figure out who is behind it all. In the final story, The Consul’s Tale, as the Consul talks of his grandparents on the planet of Maui-Covenant which was once a paradise but when the first Farcaster was opened, became a tourist destination and its beauty was destroyed forever. The Consul also talks about his work as a secret agent for the Hegemony in infiltrating the Ousters.

The book ends with the pilgrims finally reaching the Time Tombs. While the sequel, Fall of Hyperion, is the book which explains a lot more of the world and everything that eventually happens, there is a specialty about Hyperion, a uniqueness with it’s original characters and their incredible stories. Simmons epic universe employs multiple forms of the science fiction genre, making it a complex and fascinating world in which most people would like to live in. In a way, Simmons has essentially rewritten the Canterbury Tales of the far future, with some incredible stories that stand out as moving novellas on their own, and a cast of characters readers won’t soon forget.

For more reviews, and writings, or to buy yourself a copy, please visit www.alexctelander.com....less

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