The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

[[deleted user]]

This is our Classic SF Novel discussion of...


The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Sequel to Hyperion, nominated for Hugo & Nebula Awards, winner of BSFA & Locus Magazine Best Novel awards.

Note we had a previous Discussion of Hyperion in October.

[Phil]

Wow, my memory is failing me and Dan Simmons has no mercy. I just had to review Hyperion on Wikipedia because the first ten pages of this book were complete gibberish to me.

[[deleted user]]

Well, sorry guys, this discussion doesn't seem to have worked out. Caleb nominated it but then shortly thereafter left the group; so there's no one leading the chat. And we did have a discussion of Hyperion last month, so I guess everyone is all Simmons'd out. Bummer.

[Michael]

I enjoyed both of the Hyperion books - I've not gotten round to the others yet.

[Laura]

I'm almost done rereading it. The Hyperion books are among my favorites, so I am glad I had a reason to revisit them even though the discussion here never took off.

[Sarah]

I just started today, only a few chapters in. The baby only has three days left! Just reached the point where the older priest is regenerated.

[Sarah]

Science fiction writers often borrow technology from earlier works. Glowglobes, for example. I recall they were used extensively in the Dune novels, and maybe in others. So we have glowglobes here, and the reader scarcely wonders what they are. They seem to belong in this sort of story. That's enough

[Sarah]

Just read the scene between the Shrike and the poet. Ok. That was worth reading this novel.

[Michael]

In some ways I preferred it to the first book - it felt more coherent.

[Garyjn]

Read both books about a year ago. Prefer the first, but only by a hair. Good stuff in both. For those reading "Fall", pay attention to the Core. Especially when you get to Ummon. "There is another!"

[Sarah]

Finally finished it.

While I really liked the Canterbury Tales style of the first one, Hyperion feels like an introduction to Fall. I liked The Fall of Hyperion a little better. It seems more complete.

I do want to go back and read both again at some point.

[Phil]

I finally got enough time to sit down with this one a bit. I'm a few chapters past the end of part one.

I'm a little surprised about all the hype this one gets. So far, I'm not nearly as a amazed by it as I was by Hyperion. I love the chapters with the pilgrims, but I'm finding the non-pilgrim chapters increasingly annoying. There's too much in them that just doesn't seem relevant, and the characters are less compelling than the pilgrims are.

As far as the characters, I feel like Kassad, Hoyt, and Silenus carried over really well from the first one. I think Lamia and Weintraub are continuing their arcs reasonably well. The Consul, on the other hand, seems to have faded into an empty space. I just read the part where Meina visits Maui-Covenant, and I'm hoping that bridges into some work on his character.

In all, I don't feel that this book is quite up to the momentum or the strong characters of the first one. I'm only 25% in, so there's still lots of potential. I'm just not likely to put it on the pedestal next to the first one.

[Phil]

Sol shrugged in the darkness, "I have the feeling... that some rough beast is slouching toward Bethlehem."
...
Dure smiled, "I spent a lifetime teaching about St. Teilhard's theories of evolution toward the Omega Point. Instead of that, we have this. Human folly in the skies and a terrible Antichrist waiting to inherit the rest." (p. 223)

This passage reminds me of the discussion we're having on another thread over whether books are pessimistic or optimistic. Here we have two characters discussing whether humanity will destroy itself before it reaches a higher form of realization.

I finished Part Two yesterday, and there is a lot of great suspense building, on both a plot and a thematic level. I really want to know where Simmons is going with his ideas. My brother read Song of Kali and Carrion Comfort and complained that they were needlessly grim. I am hoping that Simmons does something more interesting than drop a bummer ending.

Here are the things I want Simmons to resolve:
When is betrayal necessary?
For what are the characters atoning? When is atonement necessary?
What is the purpose of suffering?

My prediction is that the Shrike is a self-imposed punishment created by humanity to apologize for enslaving the ergs and thereby avoiding human extinction at the hands (energy pseudopods?) of the ergs. Furthermore, it will turn out that the ergs are the power source behind the farcasters, and humanity will have to surrender the Web as part of their atonement. Humans will then have to redevelop space travel on their own.