Xavier’s Reviews > Hyperion > Status Update

To be a true poet is to become God. I tried to explain this to my friends on Heaven's Gate. 'Piss, shit,' I said. 'Asshole motherfucker, goddamn shit goddamn. Cunt. Pee-pee cunt. Goddamn!' They shook their heads and smiled, and walked away. Great poets are rarely understood in their own day.

"I see," I lied.

Johnny, earlier when you said that the Old Earth analog was
complete, | said, ‘Why, for God’s sake?’ and you said
something like ‘That may be the case.’ Was that just a
wiseass comment or did you mean something?”

“| mean that it might indeed be for God’s sake.”

“Explain.”

Als killing Als ... irrelevant!” | laughed but managed
to keep the laughter under control. “Jesus wept, Johnny.”

“Almost certainly.”

How will the TechnoCore respond to, my being here?”

“| have no idea.”

“Surely it must be a secret.”

“It is ... something they consider irrelevant to humanity.”

| shook my head, a futile gesture in the darkness. “The
recreation of Old Earth ... the resurrection of ... how
many? ... human personalities as cybrids on this recreated
world ... Als killing Als ... irrelevant!” | laughed but managed
to keep the

He saw men and women
with flesh hanging in burned strips carrying the dazed
children from the ashes of what once had been a city. Sol
knew that these images were no dreams, were the very stuff
of the First and Second Holocausts, and in his understanding
knew before the voice spoke in his mind what the answer
was. What it must be.


— The parents have offered themselves. That sacrifice already has been
accepte

Can that be Abraham’s answer to God? That he would be the offering,
not Issaac?


— It could have been Abraham's. It cannot be yours.
— Why?


As if in answer, Sol had the fever-vision of naked adults
filing toward the ovens past armed men, mothers hiding
their children under piles of coats. He saw men and women
with flesh hanging in burned strips carrying the dazed
children from the ashes of what once had be

You know something? This talking about yourself In the
third person is sort of therapeutic.

A person constantly busy accessing on his implants makes a pitiful sight in public and it didn’t take Helenda’s derision to make me realize that if I stayed home I would turn into an All Thing sponge like so many slugs around the Web.”



– The Poet’s Tale, Martin Silenus

No bill was too small, no issue too simple or complex for my input. The simple act of voting every few minutes gave me a sense of having accomplished something. I finally gave up the political obsession only after I realized that accessing the All Thing regularly meant either staying home or turning into a walking zombie.