Chris's review of Hyperion

Hyperion
by Dan Simmons

Chris's review

rating:

bookshelves: science-fiction

status: Read in December, 2006

I really, really, really hate books like this.

Oh, it's not a bad book, don't get me wrong. It's just that nowhere on the book did it indicate that this is the first Hyperion book. Which means that I got to the rather abrupt, Wizard of Oz ending and then nearly threw the book across the room in rage.

So yeah, it's a good book. And now I have to go and hunt down the next one. Bastards.

Anyway, Simmons has pulled out one of the oldest storytelling devices in English literature, and made it new again. It's the far, far future. Earth is long destroyed, but a planet-spanning Hegemony has taken its place, stringing worlds together in a vast, interstellar web. All but the enigmatic planet of Hyperion. It is on Hyperion that the mysterious and terrifying Shrike lives, the guardian of the Time Tombs. And it is here that the ultimate future of Humanity will be decided.

If interstellar war, spies and general bad luck don't end it first.

Seven people, citizens of the Hegemony, are c...more I really, really, really hate books like this.

Oh, it's not a bad book, don't get me wrong. It's just that nowhere on the book did it indicate that this is the first Hyperion book. Which means that I got to the rather abrupt, Wizard of Oz ending and then nearly threw the book across the room in rage.

So yeah, it's a good book. And now I have to go and hunt down the next one. Bastards.

Anyway, Simmons has pulled out one of the oldest storytelling devices in English literature, and made it new again. It's the far, far future. Earth is long destroyed, but a planet-spanning Hegemony has taken its place, stringing worlds together in a vast, interstellar web. All but the enigmatic planet of Hyperion. It is on Hyperion that the mysterious and terrifying Shrike lives, the guardian of the Time Tombs. And it is here that the ultimate future of Humanity will be decided.

If interstellar war, spies and general bad luck don't end it first.

Seven people, citizens of the Hegemony, are chosen to go on the Shrike Pilgrimage, a journey to the Time Tombs in which they will attempt to open the Tombs and control... whatever it is that they can control. And they have to get there before the Ousters, another spacefaring "nation" of humans do.

And so the pilgrims travel to Hyperion. As they do, they decide that it would be in all their best interests to know why it is that each one has been chosen to go, in case their shared backgrounds might give them a clue as to what they'll need to do next. And so it is that the Priest, the Soldier, the Poet, the Scholar, the Detective and the Politician tell their tales of loss, hope and rage. Each one of them has been touched by Hyperion, even before getting there. And each one has been used by the Hegemony to achieve some greater purpose, one in which their individual desires don't matter.

To my mind, the individual stories are far more fascinating than the overall arc, which is pretty murky up until the end. Humanity is painted as a petty, vengeful, manipulative race, or at least the Hegemony is, and the characters hold the key to its downfall. If I read it all correctly, that is.

Anyway, it looks like there are three more books I have to find. Dammit....less

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