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Monthly Read: Themed
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January 2014-Fall of Hyperion
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I enjoyed this book a lot when I read it a couple of years ago!
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mark wrote: "I also enjoyed this book a lot when I read it, many years back. it felt very different to me than Hyperion. much more traditional space opera. which I did not mind."Its the reason why love this book a lot more than Hyperion.
I read the excellent books a long time ago, Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion and the Fall of Hyperion).I also liked Endymion and the Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons.
But I won't be doing a re-read of the book.
Almost done with Mirror Dance and on to the next Bujold for January.
The holidays are over with and hope I have the time to read more.
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I love the contrast between the two. Hyperion so thoughtful and then Fall of Hyperion just moves, the action piles up in a way that I really enjoyed. and that A LITTLE BIT OF A SPOILER HERE scene near the end when all the interstellar gates get cut off... man!
I love how Simmons is the kind of author who doesn't like to do the same things twice. well, not counting the Endymion books, which I thought were solid but dull.
mark wrote: "I love how Simmons is the kind of author who doesn't like to do the same things twice. well, not counting the Endymion books, which I thought were solid but dull. "I do agree with you on your statement.
I did state Hyperion's were excellent and did say "Like" for the Endymions.
Dans Simmons does have one heck of on an imagination of far out worlds.
Olympos and Illium was way waaay waaaaay out of this world :)
Yes I think that's one of the things I liked most about Hyperion - the different worlds. I'd love to explore. Oh, and the house from the first book with the gates between rooms - talk about a "dream house"!
mark wrote: "Kevin wrote: "Its the reason wh..."I love the contrast between the two. Hyperion so thoughtful and then Fall of Hyperion just moves, the action piles up in a way that I really enjoyed. and that A..."
I thought Endymion is a great book with a lot of action so I finished in one day, but the sequel
The Rise of Endymion I thought was dull because there was too much religious involvement within the book.
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Suzanne wrote: "Yes I think that's one of the things I liked most about Hyperion - the different worlds... Oh, and the house from the first book with the gates between rooms - talk about a "dream house!..."Sure, until you find out the mechanism that makes those gates work... but yeah, lends new meaning to the term 'outhouse', doesn't it? ;)
I just started and found the first chapters a bit confusing - another Keats? That drunken artist remembers me a bit of the poet pilgrim... Silenius (or whatever his name was).Action, politics, AI. Seems to be more space opera than the first part of this duology.
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I am almost done! I hate for it to end though, as I am enjoying this thoroughly
I feel that this is some of the best sci-fi I've come across. The insanely strong narrative continues through Fall of Hyperion. I loved the first one (Hyperion), and have high hopes for the conclusion of the second. My friend and I discuss the books we read on a weekly podcast - REIGN of Books. We're finishing up Fall of Hyperion Saturday on the show. Send us a question/comment!
Favorite moment so far: The war meeting after learning of the impending Ouster invasion where Meina Gladstone realized she couldn't control the chaos she had unleashed. But she steeled herself against the coming end of Hegemony civilization with dignity and fierceness. While her joint chiefs buckled under pressure and senators moaned, she took command - she told the generals to defend the web worlds at all costs, the senators were to pass a unified war declaration with no political defectors, and Gladstone told the All Things liaison in a private meeting that she would declare open war against the TechnoCore, no matter if it meant plunging the web into the dark ages - better that than be a slave to the machines or the Ousters. That was her moment to shine.
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SPOILER: mark wrote: "thanks for reminding me about that awesome scene. it has been a while since I read this one but that scene sticks out. a necessary decision, but that terrible aftermath of all the gates suddenly cl..."I fell into the metasphere last week and just found my way back.
SPOILER: Wow, now I know what you were talking about. Gladstone took a path there was no returning from. The Web died, but humankind survived when she shut down all the farcasters. I think about that moment and wonder if I would've gotten stuck on a planet that was socially unstable or not self-sustaining. I hope that my philosophy of "using technology on my own terms" would have saved me from the worst of the fates on some web worlds. You've got me thinking: I'm going to start a thread in my group "what web world would you want to get stuck on?"
Maggie wrote: "There do seem to be a lot of influences here literary-wise! Keats, Yeats, Pilgrim's Progress, and probably more...I am almost done! I hate for it to end though, as I am enjoying this thoroughly"
This is the closest I'll ever get to appreciating poetry. Simmons used it to great effect. I loved it when he used it in the Technocore b/w Ummon and Severn. Brilliant!
Pilgrim's Progress is alluded to in this story. SPOILER: When Dure was walking in the Labrynth that he entered from the Cave Tomb, he had to walk on a narrow path b/w all the corpses. I thought about this last night and how it was akin to Christian in the Piligrim's Progress walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
My friend also brought up how this book's overall factions mirrored that of the new BattleStar Galactica - he is so right. That show is a deep study on human survival and asks "what is too high a cost to preserve the species?"
This is the closest I'll ever get to appreciating poetry. Simmons used it to great effect. I loved it when he used it in the Technocore b/w Ummon and Severn.I totally agree with this statement. I finally finished the book and I was diligently not reading the other comments because I didn't want anything to be spoiled, but now I can finally comment on here.
I've never liked poetry much (and even in this book much of it bored and/or confused me), but Ummon's use of it was pretty impressive, and I have to admit to enjoying it.
The use of the Web and of farcasters was fascinating, and I liked the exploration of it (and of it's sudden extinction). Very creative.
As a Christian, I thought his central, recurring literary reference (Abraham sacrificing Isaac) wasn't handled well: the direction he went with it (while creative) was strange. Certainly Sol's relationship with Rachel was probably the most tender and touching relationship in the whole book, and I understand how Dan Simmons was using the story as an illustration of a parent's overwhelming grief over losing a child, but it was somewhat strained. God's testing of Abraham wasn't merely "will he obey Me even if I ask him to do something crazy?" As a child born miraculously and in fulfillment of prophecy, Isaac really belonged to God (and to God's purposes) more than he belonged to Abraham. In reality, that could be said of each of us. That perspective was never really mentioned. I feel like the test was more related to that than some arbitrary God demanding obedience just because He felt like demanding it.
In Hyperion, Sol's story was the most thought-provoking and gripping, to me (as a father of three young children). However, as the philosophizing went on and on in the second book, I lost a lot of that and started getting kind of annoyed by it. I wish that'd been handled somewhat differently.
Bob wrote: "As a Christian, I thought his central, recurring literary reference (Abraham sacrificing Isaac) wasn't handled well: the direction he went with it (while creative) was strange..."I admittedly was trying to just keep up with the academic dissection of this Bible allegory. I'm glad that Sol and Rachel's story were pivotal to the conclusion of the saga. The conclusion really did lend itself to showing that faith is necessary when all hope is lost. That's my interpretation. Long, strange tale, and one I won't soon forget!
I loved both Hyperion novels...and rated them 5 and 4 stars respectively. I must say, I used my Kindle apps Wikipedia and dictionary functions a great deal more than with my other reads...and with a background in English literature and Humanities that attests to the breadth and depth of metaphysical and literary 'conversations' in which Mr. Simmons entangled this reader. Simmons is a genius at weaving classical literature and myth into aesthetically gorgeous yet deeply thought provoking stories, posing questions that have no right or wrong answers, better or worse choices. However, I am trying to understand why he chose Keats as his idealized Romantic hero opposite the scientific technological foe of AI. Those Keats persona were the most problematic for me--not the least because his poetry has never spoken to me. I felt that the overall theme of the books lent itself better to Yeats
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Auden, or Elliot. I was perpetually puzzled attempting to understand what the Keats personae were for (other than Romanticists opposition to Enlightenment--intuition vs reason). In the end, my problems with understanding the books, I concluded was either a testament to the complexity and depth of these novels or to my inadequacies as a reader to do them justice--
Pat wrote: "I loved both Hyperion novels...and rated them 5 and 4 stars respectively. I must say, I used my Kindle apps Wikipedia and dictionary functions a great deal more than with my other reads...and with ..."Being a reader of contemporary fiction, I didn't have to try to come to a decision point on Simmons' choice of protagonists and their symbolic representations. But I love your insight into the question of poet protagonist. It shows this book works on so many levels for so many audiences.
I feel strongly that the selection of Keats by the author is essential to the arc of the story...I just don't know how.
Apparently Hyperion intrigues me still as I have not been able to 'move on' to other fiction with any satisfaction. In my search for clarification I found this enormously interesting interview with Dan Simmons, ‘A MOMENTARY STAY AGAINST CONFUSION’: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN SIMMONS
by Philip Purser-Hallard,
and wanted to share it...
http://www.infinitarian.com/simmons.html
Maggie wrote: "There do seem to be a lot of influences here literary-wise! Keats, Yeats, Pilgrim's Progress, and probably more...Uh, yeah, like maybe Hyperion by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a novel which begins:
In John Lyly's Endymion, Sir Topas is made to say; "Dost thou know what a Poet is? Why, fool, a Poet is as much as one should say,--a Poet!"
Might be a clue that there are a few literary references scattered throughtout. ];p
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Books mentioned in this topic
Hyperion (other topics)Endymion (other topics)
The Rise of Endymion (other topics)
The Fall of Hyperion (other topics)
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For me, I had a lot of deja-vu as I started reading this book...the scene of what happens to J. Severn seemed so familiar to me, I would swear it was in Hyperion, and I had to go check...but nope! The other parts didnt seem familiar, but I would have sworn I'd recently read this whole incident. Weird!