Hyperion Cantos #2: It's the end of times? Technology vs humankind vs outlier humans vs fundamentalists vs time travellers oh my!! And somewhere amongst this all, a quest for God?

This startling sequel to Hyperion sees humankind struggle to determine how it became so vulnerable to external attack and so quickly, and most importantly why? In addition the Time Tombs have been opened, setting the Shrike free. Science fiction saga at it's best! A series, I should make clear, that is genius for it's whole, as opposed to the sum of its parts (to paraphrase Aristotle). 8 out of 12.

2017 read

yNunca debí haber dejado pasar dos años para terminar la duología de Hyperion. Si bien nunca olvidé el tamaño de la joya que es la primera parte, sí me olvidé de muchos detalles que bien pudieron haber estado más frescos.

De cualquier modo mi temor principal al leer la secuela no era ése, sino el hacer caso a las voces que decían que ésta decaía mucho al iniciar la secuela.

He de decir que sí decae al perder la estructura narrativa de los cuentos. Esas historias enmarcadas de Hyperion son maravillosas y atronadoras; cada una tan tonalmente distinta a la otra y tan evocadoras de sensaciones disímbolas. Ahora, cambiamos la estructura por historias en paralelo, contadas en dos personas y con el añadido de dos personajes importantísimos: Gladstone (de quien yo me había hecho a la idea de que era antagónica) y el cíbrido Joseph Severn.

Casi todos los misterios ofrecidos en la primera parte son resueltos. Y la manera de resolverlos cambia bastante el tablero: si bien la primera parte puede ser disfrutada por alguien no muy cercano a la ciencia ficción, la segunda requiere bastante más esfuerzo. Simmons nos revela así una obra titánica, hábilmente construida y con conceptos para volarle a uno la cabeza. Particularmente me parecieron de sorpresa El Vacío que Une y los Leones, Tigres y Osos. Puede llegar a ser algo confuso (más con que la trama salta en el tiempo como loca, igual que las tumbas), pero al final hace un sentido hondo y tremendo.

Ésta es una saga de ciencia ficción superior, que araña lo literario y que mantiene henchida y orgullosa su posición a mis ojos como la segunda obra de ciencia ficción más importante jamás escrita, ligeramente por debajo de Dunas y, mátenme, bastante superior a Fundación.

Entonces, veámosla igual que El Señor de los Anillos: partes de un todo que no debió haberse publicado por separado, pero que lo fue porque no había encuadernado que aguantara.

I’m a visual person. With me, things have to be neat, aesthetically pleasing, and in some sort of discernible order (even if that order is nothing but visually appealing chaos), otherwise I get cranky. I like charts and graphics and brightly colored pictures. This probably has something to do with the fact that I have synesthesia, specifically grapheme → color synesthesia. For me, everything has a color, and in turn, colors provoke emotions. My brain also automatically attempts to visualize intangible ideas and concepts and place them in locations in space. If I can’t visualize them, it’s very frustrating (the best example of this would be the way I visualize the year as months in a rotating oval). This is also why I have trouble with complicated math. Like many people with synesthesia, I didn’t realize this wasn’t something everybody’s brains did until I was around 25, because most people don’t just go around saying, hey don’t you just love the number 5 because it’s so red?? Or, hey, don’t Tuesdays just suck, they’re so barfy yellow. I can only imagine the incomprehending stares I would have gotten.

The point of this seemingly pointless anecdote of mine is that for about half of this book, I felt completely lost and up in the air because I couldn’t find a way to visualize the structure of the story, which made it hard to derive any satisfaction from it, since my brain was so preoccupied with trying to figure this intangible thing into something more concrete, and it just wasn’t happening. But then at about the 60% mark, something just sort of clicked, and my brain goes, it’s a spiral! And the arms are swirling down to the ground and converging as they go, and at the bottom is the denouement, the end of the story. The arms of the spiral, of course, are the pilgrims and their stories, with the addition of a new POV in the cybrid (a cloned human with the consciousness of an A.I., who also simultaneously exists in the physical world and the datasphere), and the stories of the Ousters and the AI’s, which we touched on in the first book in various pilgrims’ stories. They start out separate, and the swirl of the story pulls them together little by little. It looks confusing as it’s happening, but it all works out in the end.

I’m telling you this because I think the book might be just as disorienting for you as it was for me–though probably not in quite the same way–and I want to reassure you that everything’s going to be okay. I promise that it all makes sense, and all the various threads that don’t seem to have any connection to one another at all–the constant literary allusions, the various characters, the musings on artificial intelligences and religion, the Shrike and its Tree of Pain, the time travel, Colonel Kassad’s half-real sex goddess Moneta, and most of all, Keats and Hyperion, in all their forms–come together in the end. It gave me that feeling that all book addicts are always chasing, that elusive elation that comes only once every hundred books or so (if we’re lucky), where it seems like the universe has converged on us just to give us this wonderful story.

The Fall of Hyperion picks up directly where Hyperion left off, with our pilgrims finally approaching the Time Tombs and ready for an imminent meeting with the Shrike. Only, it doesn’t quite pick up there, because we’re all of a sudden seeing the pilgrims through the eyes of another character, who is having dreams (and waking dreams) concerning everything that is happening to the pilgrims, who are light years away from him. Why he would be having these dreams would be a spoiler, but his identity isn’t. SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ HYPERION: The other characters know him as Joseph Severn, but he’s really another genetic double of John Keats, a resurrected artificially intelligent poet/human. He’s a sort of brother cybrid to Johnny, the cybrid of Keats we met in the last book, who is now hitching a ride in Lamia’s skull back on Hyperion. And since John Keat’s famous unfinished poem “Hyperion” is the namesake of this series, you bet it’s important. The narrative shuffles back and forth from Keat’s waking life to his dreams of the pilgrims, and little by little we get all the pieces to the puzzle END SPOILERS. The result, at least for me, was satisfying on a narrative level, but also on that extra level that really gives you the reader-buzz, the level your subconscious lives on, that just keeps giving the longer you think about it.

I’m really, really glad I read this series, and I’m super excited to read the second duology that with this one makes up the Hyperion Cantos later this year.

Una obra maestra de la ciencia ficción ¡LÉANLA!

Lo único que puedo escribir en este momento es hagstwagqystshjwh, así que en cuanto logre recuperarme de esta maravilla que acabo de leer, intentaré escribir algo coherente.

Only Dan Simmons could take a spaghetti bowl of plots and characters and weave them together in such an eloquent, addicting story. This is a hearty book indeed. (Thanks for the recommendation, Brandon!)

The epic space opera continues in great fashion. This picks up right where the first novel left off, but it expands the scope in an intense and immersive way. Our time is spent now between the various pilgrims as well as the political machinations happening in the capital, and by adding this political thriller aspect Simmons just manages to make the genre-mashing scope of this story even bigger.

Everything you love about the first novel is repeated here, with great writing that is dense and thoughtful, with an even greater emphasis on poetics, both in theme and style. There are heavier philosophical ideas explored here, and as these combine with highly evolved AI and time travel there are certainly some sections that definitely force the reader to tune in and pay attention. Even as the story grows it never feels like it gets away from Simmons, and it flows across worlds and modes of existence and through characters in a seamless and inviting way. The characters from the first novel become more interesting as they continue on their journeys, and at the same time we are introduced to a host of new characters who are equally compelling and fun. The story-telling device that Simmons uses to link the political story in the capital to the pilgrims’ journeys is genius and feels like it genuinely adds to the story instead of just being a convenient literary device.

I really appreciated the individual journeys, and the role that poetry, or art and aesthetics, plays in all of them. It isn’t always so literally discussed, but there is a sentimentality to each of the character’s journeys, an exploration of how each engages in ideas of beauty or honor or sacrifice as a way of ordering the universe and recognizing or simulating the divine. Simmons could have just been loosely inspired by Keats’s poems, borrowed their titles, and left it at that. Instead, he took grabs on Keats with both hands and brings him into the story, adding a poetic sensibility to this sci-fi epic that just makes it feel different, warmer and more personal, more embracing, than any sci-fi epic has any need to be. It serves as this wonderful connecting thread that adds this coherence or continuity across the expansive scope of this story.

I felt the ending was earned, and even though some of it was pretty clearly telegraphed early on it was still remarkably satisfying. This is an incredibly fitting complement to the first novel. Simmons is able to take what could have been unwieldy and shape it into this heartfelt, expansive epic that encourages exploration of faith, divinity, pride, family, honor, sacrifice, destiny, family, devotion, and colonialism/expansionism. In addition, it asks fundamental questions about over-reliance on technology and asks you to try and divine the line when dependence on technology stops being a benefit to the growth and expansion of humanity but instead a shackle. It manages to tackle these ideas and more with wonderful writing, dense and engaging world-building, and characters that you care about.

My relationship with Dan Simmons has been ambivalent. We've had bad times and even worse times. We've also had some good times, namely with Hyperion. So I went into The Fall of Hyperion feeling pretty good, and if anything my opinion of this series has only improved. Any ill will I bore Simmons for the books I didn't like has dissipated thanks to his masterful presentation of this epic science-fiction series. The Hyperion Cantos hits an impressive number of tropes that appeal to me in my science fiction. Introspective, existentially-minded main character? Check. Ineffable, almost omnipotent artificial intelligences? Got it. Wormhole-connected human civilization? Oh yes. Crazy mind-bending temporal logic? Sadly, oh so much. The Fall of Hyperion preserves the flavour of its predecessor, and to its credit, it is also much more complete than Hyperion.

One thing I need to mention: I really like the cover art for both this book and Hyperion, with the exception of the depiction of the Shrike. In reading the first book, I missed the fact that the Shrike has four arms. (I don't pay a lot of attention to physical descriptions, because I don't visualize characters.) I clued into it in this book, however, so seeing the all-too-humanoid Shrike on the covers is irking me. I don't know what the artist was thinking—the cover version does look menacing and cool, but the discrepancy bothers my inner consistency monitor.

But I digress.

I liked Hyperion (after re-reading my review, more than I recalled, apparently). One of the things I enjoyed about the book were the overt allusions to John Keats' poem of the same name. By way I've disclaimer, I haven't actually read Keats' Hyperion, nor am I anywhere close to familiar with most of his work. Still, Simmons establishes a literary mood that I, as a reader, enjoy. The tone of the work is erudite without becoming overbearing about its literary qualities; at its heart, it is still science fiction. But it's high quality science fiction, the kind you buy from a shady dealer in the dive off the darkest alleyway, looking furtively in either direction as he reaches beneath his trenchcoat for his last copy even as you rock back in forth, muttering under your breath about how you need your next hit. Yeah, Hyperion and its sequel are definitely my type of drug.

The literary quality to the book also helps liken it to the myths that Simmons references. In another author's hands, the comparisons might be heavy-handed, but he pulls it off deftly. In my review of Hyperion, I discuss what we learn about the AIs, the TechnoCore, and "how irrelevant they consider humanity to the grand scheme of the cosmos". I could not have been more wrong! Without going into spoiler territory, let's just say that humanity is essential to the TechnoCore's plan, at least in the short term, for a variety of reasons. And the TechnoCore's role as antagonist becomes much more apparent in this book. To accompany this plot, Simmons talks about the war between the Titans and the Olympian gods of Greek mythology (the subject of Keats' poem), putting the human Hegemony in the role of the former and the usurper AIs as the Olympians. By including this literary dimension, Simmons elevates his conflict beyond the typical AI rebellion plot. The struggle is more than mere survival, more than epic, even more than myth: it's the fulfilment of a grand, cosmic theme. It's poetic.

Simmons sort of uses a frame story here, but it's nowhere near as explicit or as strong as the Canterbury Tales-like setup in Hyperion. Rather, one of the main characters, another Keats cybrid under the name of John Severn, "dreams" what's happening to the pilgrims on Hyperion. Simmons plays a little fast-and-loose with what Severn can dream; after finishing the book and becoming privy to all the facts (such as they are thus far), I think it's possible to explain it all. But I'm just as happy handwaving it as artistic license. Although some of the characters—Brawne, later on the Consul, and maybe Sol—play important roles in the overall plot and have interesting subplots in their own right, some of the other characters are less interesting (though probably still important). If The Fall of Hyperion has a single major flaw, it's the way the main cast of the first book gets sidelined. Most of Hyperion comprises the tale of each pilgrim, so we get close to each character and his or her reasons for braving the Time Tombs and seeking the terrible Shrike. In this book, although their roles are still important, Simmons focuses a lot more on the larger scale political consequences of the Hyperion conflict. Unfortunately, the pilgrims get lost in the shuffle.

Severn is involved, mostly as an observer, in the larger plot concerning the Hegemony's defence of Hyperion against the invading Ousters. We also meet Meina Gladstone, the "CEO" of the Hegemony and a formidable woman in her own right. Gladstone is herself complicit in the eponymous fall, for she is playing her own long game in the style of Paul and Leto Atreides. Unfortunately, like the rest of humanity, she fails to perceive the true scope of the TechnoCore's betrayal and how this relates to the Time Tombs and the Shrike. So the climax and conclusion of the book become a race against time to change course mid-plan and attempt to save the scuttling of the Hegemony. That's right: we aren't trying to save the human empire in this book; we just want to make sure it breaks the way we want it to break. Which is fine. The Hegemony might have cool wormhole travel, but it's an imperialist, destructive entity that brooks no competition. What little we see of its most serious challengers, the Ousters, makes them look appealing: their society certainly seems more egalitarian (but maybe we don't get the whole story). By contrast, Simmons goes out of his way to illustrate how the Hegemony is ruled by the select powerful and rich few—hmm, sounds familiar. We see that the ruling class is decadent and self-absorbed. We aren't supposed to mourn the Hegemony; we mourn the chaos into which its billions of innocent citizens will plunge after it collapses. According to Gladstone, it will all work out for the best. But we can never be sure, can we?

(Well, we can. Because Simmons wrote more sequels. Isn't reading great?)

The Fall of Hyperion makes heavy use of the role of religion in society. Father Paul Duré is back, in a big way, and with it comes the small cult of Catholicism and Duré's own musings about the eventual fate of humanity. We can also call the TechnoCore's motives "religious". All their roads lead to the Ultimate Intelligence, an AI that would essentially be God. Yet even as they manipulate humanity, they are divided, both on whether they want to realize a UI and what to do with humanity. Severn/Keats, an AI reconstruction of a centuries-dead poet, also has to reclaim his identity and decide what role he wishes to play in this conflict (as he discovers, he has been groomed to perform a certain task). Finally, the pilgrims each have their own conflicts of faith and must decide to embrace faith or reject it, in very personal ways. Simmons involves conflicts of faith at a variety of levels, which overall adds to the complexity and rich texture of this book.

Given the antagonist and the emphasis on faith, the casual reader might detect an anti-technology theme to The Fall of Hyperion. I know that, at first, I was wondering why Simmons was down on the bit-mongers. But it's much deeper than that. Simmons is criticizing the Hegemony's dependence on the sentient TechnoCore for its technology and the maintenance of that technology. The story goes: humanity invented the Hawking drive, but the TechnoCore gave us the farcasters. Guess which one became the primary mode of transportation? That's right, the one that moves people instantaneously from planet to planet. Since the establishment of the Hegemony, the Core has been there, suppressing any radical developments in technology that might upset the balance. In a way, the TechnoCore is a depiction of what the Minds of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels could be, if they were of a more domineering bent. (There are other factors, of course, not the least of which is the fact that the Hegemony descends directly from humanity and Earth cultures, whereas the Culture is a "pan-species" civilization old when humans are still learning to sail.) Technology itself is awesome, and becoming dependent on a technology is OK, but surrendering one's freedom and self-determination because someone else is doling out technological goodies leads down a bad road.

Having compared this series to the Culture novels, I'd also like to refer to Peter F. Hamilton's n  Pandora's Starn and its sequel and related works. There are some superficial similarities: Hamilton has an Intersolar Commonwealth, wormholes, and the SI; Simmons has the Hegemony of Man, farcasters, and the TechnoCore. Yet the differences between the two universes allow their stories to be wonderfully unique. In Hamilton's works, wormhole travel comes from the minds of two human geniuses before the SI is a glimmer in the eyes of programmers. The Commonwealth's government treats the SI with more suspicion than it might warrant, since it seems a lot friendlier and more benign than Simmons' TechnoCore. By contrast, although the Commonwealth isn't all it's cracked up to be, it is much nicer than the Hegemony on a sliding scale. Both deliver the type of mega-scale space opera that I find so enticing, so addictive.

The Fall of Hyperion isn't perfect, but overall it seems designed to appeal directly to me and to my interests. I can easily see why it was nominated for a Hugo and why Hyperion won the award. It's a space opera with a complex plot that draws upon literature and mythology to create an immensely satisfying experience. This is the good stuff, the direct line to the pleasure centre of your science-fiction nervous system.

My reviews of the Hyperion Cantos:
← Hyperion | Endymion →

n  n

This got me completely by surprise, I'm used to multi-book sagas having book one with the core or main event and then comes book two with an extension of the story or with a new start for an adventure that stems from the world set in the first book. But the 'Fall of Hyperion' had a different game plan, after reading it, book one felt like an 'epilogue' chapter for the story, everything that happened in book one and the different storylines of the pilgrims were beautifully crafted together to extract the main story that takes real shape in book two.
Yet, the story is still starting, book two defines the real enemy, and the true potential of humanity that is still uncertain, that is to be decided in the battles of the present, the first battle is won by humanity, but was it the decisive moment? or just the opening battle of a vicious war to come?

This amazing story is deeply rooted in theology and Judean/ Christian influence, building on the concepts of sacrifice and a coming of a Messiah to deliver humanity with a new form of spiritual faith that fits the galactic human community

MiM

6.0 stars. On my list of All Time Favorites. Viewed as one novel, the Hyperion Cantos (including Hyperion, this novel and the two subsequent novels) comprise, in my opinion, one of the GREATEST works of Science Fiction EVER WRITTEN. Space Opera on a epic scale. Detailed, original and incredibly imaginative world building and a dense, mind-blowing plot. Oh yeah, and it has one of the coolest characters/creatures ever devised...THE SHRIKE!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Winner: British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel (1992)
Winner: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1991)
Nominee: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1991)
Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1991)

3.5
Tenía muchas expectativas con esta secuela o continuación. El prefacio aseguraba que era mejor que su primera parte, Hyperion. Yo entusiasmada lo cogí con ganas. Sin embargo he de decir que se me hizo verdaderamente eterno, sobretodo la primera parte. Odiaba al personaje principal, no me importaba nada de él, solo quería saber el destino de cada uno de los peregrinos como en el anterior tomo. Menos mal que poco a poco fueron teniendo más protagonismo.

Como he dicho en mi anterior reseña, Dan Simmons es un autor por el que siento amor-odio. Me encanta como escribe, se nota que tiene una mente brillante y trabaja bastante en sus novelas, sin embargo hay algunas serie de cosillas que me chirrían. Solo espero que sus siguientes libros me enganchen como Hyperion, porque este ha sido un bajón en comparación.

n  n
Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.

On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.

While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and became a father. As such these stories became imprinted on my memory as the soundtrack to the happiest period in my life (so far).

n  n    The Fall of Hyperionn  n was one of the six award winners I had read before starting my Glorious Locus Quest (along with 3 other Simmons books, an Asimov and a May).

Occasionally another reviewer sums up your opinion so perfectly; there seems little point in repeating the sentiment.

I felt the same way as Kemper about n  n    Falln  n:

“Mr. Kemper had read Simmons before and knew he likes to put a lot of big ideas in his books. But this time, apparently Simmons broke into his house and managed to directly implant much of the book directly into Mr. Kemper’s brain via some kind of crude funnel device.”

“His wife said she found him having convulsions and leaking brain matter out his nose and ears.”

“He had told several people that Hyperion was just so good that he had to know how it ended, even if it killed him.”

But n  n    Fall of Hyperionn  n is so Shrike-damned good that I must, out of overwhelming respect, at least try to express my admiration and awe at this accomplishment.

It’s a bit of cliché to describe a complex plot in terms of a circus ‘plate-spinning’ act but it’s the most appropriate metaphor that’s coming to my sleep-deprived mind this morning. It’s the familiar slack-jawed feeling of hypnotic wonder at an artist who knows exactly how long he’s got left on each plate before it starts to wobble, exactly how to stabilise that wobble, and exactly how much impetus to impart to allow him to work his way around all the plates before returning again. It’s the skill of a juggler with all the balls in the air, but with more calm-control and less frantic energy.

To stretch the analogy even further, Simmons seems to work with plates of different sizes, colours, materials and shape – on sticks of different heights and widths. He takes a difficult job, integrating an intergalactic multidimensional time-travelling space-opera narrative, and makes it even more difficult by populating his universe with intelligent, diverse and contrary characters.

Some of his ideas articulate my deepest held ideals about far-future hi-tech becoming indistinguishable (to us, now) from magic – much as modern tech would be incomprehensible to early man. I already mentioned the awesomeness incarnate that is the Shrike, the Poet and the Cruciform in my review of the first book, but here I’m particularly referring to the Keats cybrids, the treeships and the TechnoCore.

It’s a book I would dearly love to re-read, but it looks like I’m going to have to re-buy first because I leant the whole Cantos to a friend who’s since moved house and taken it to the other side of the country... (I'm looking at you, Mark)

n  n    Fall of Hyperionn  n won the Locus Sci-Fi award in 1991. I’m flabbergasted that the Hugo that year went to n  The Vor Gamen! I’ve since read n  The Vor Gamen , and I also 5-starred that, but good as that was, this is better. What’s even more peculiar, is that the Nebula that year went to n  Tehanun – a mid-series fantasy novel? Clearly I'll need to read it to understand that decision! Ah well, at least my trusty Locus Sci-Fi award recognised and rewarded Sir Simmons' creative genius.

After this I read: The Endymion Omnibus

Frankly disappointing

In what will be known to me as the most un-sequel-like sequel ever, Dan Simmons succeeded in moving directly from my list of favourite writers, to my list of not-so-good writers. I admit, I judged him as genius after the awesome Hyperion stunned me into an impassioned declaration of love. Hyperion was incredible – bar an anticlimactic cliff-hanger ending – and I don’t want to take that triumph away from either myself, or Dan, because that book contained within it some of the most impressive things I have read. Yet, The Fall of Hyperion killed every good thing Dan had built.

The Fall of Hyperion is roughly 450 pages of cloudy, baffling filler, followed by a 50 page info-dump explaining everything that happened. Many times, during the oft-confusing narrative, characters themselves uttered the words, “I don’t understand,” and each time I was right there with them. Perhaps Simmons believes this lack of clarity encourages suspense? Maybe he thinks obscuring information from the reader prompts them to want to find the solution to the mystery?

Suspense only occurs when we understand character goals, and what is threatening those goals. Without these two components, there can be no suspense. In The Fall of Hyperion, we know neither the goals of the characters (bar the pilgrims – as we learned in book 1), nor what is threatening their goals. One such character, CEO Meina Gladstone, a soulless, micron-thin pancake of a character, is portrayed like she is some sort of highly intelligent schemer. Yet all she ever does is prattle on for chapters at a time in faux-political arguments and orders people to do “stuff” which we have little idea what for, or what the significance is. So then, when actions are taken, and characters reel in horror at the effects, I the reader am sitting there with raised eyebrows thinking, “So what?”

This is the problem: Stuff happens without any sense of direction. There is no known motivation for what the characters do when they do it. We are not told at all what is going on. The characters appear to understand their goals, yet the reader is not privy to this information. For example, after first hearing mention of “Ousters” in the original Hyperion, we do not learn anything about them in the first book. This is annoying, yet acceptable in the first volume as, from the characters perspectives, very little happens plot-wise besides 6 characters sharing their backstories in a forum. Yet, we do not find out what Ousters are until 400 pages into The Fall of Hyperion. Thus, when their supposed diabolical threat is told (told, not shown) to us, I was at a loss to understand why I should care.

The final scene is occupied by supposedly emotional farewells, but it was so forced and so lacking in depth I just could not stop rolling my eyes. A nice segue:

There is a complete lack of characterisation. This book is full of absolutely flat characters. The charming personalities from the first Hyperion seemed to regress in depth, while the newly introduced characters were blank-canvas, undeveloped bores. I felt no emotional attachment to any of the characters. At times I felt like I was being told to care. Yet, of course, I did not, leading to this air of condescension.

Going on with this theme of not-caring: In Hyperion, the Priest’s tale was, and remains, one of the most frightening things I’ve ever read. Yet the horror of the Shrike turned almost comical in The Fall of Hyperion. This undefeatable machine constantly mortally wounds his victims – victims who cry out in agony, and then seem to forget they’ve been hurt and are suddenly okay! Even a baby at one point, lacerated by the Shrike, definitely doomed, ostensibly recovers with no after-effects. So… if mortal wounds are shruggable, why then should I care!?

Moving on… Another bowel-irritating aspect to this debacle was the constantly changing point of view. Simmons dabbles in First-person, Third-person, present tense, and past tense. It’s a little all over the place, and though there is – if I mentally force myself to see it – a reason for this variation, I found it exceedingly disruptive to enjoying the flow of the book, destroying emersion.

Now, returning to the 450 page mark previously mentioned, this is where the [deus ex machina](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...) begin to make their appearances. To avoid spoilers, let me just say it made for a very unsatisfying ending, as deus ex machina are want to do. It is incredible to me, that Dan Simmons even used the term “deus ex machina” (in its original context – God from the machine) in this book, yet did not see his blindingly obvious use of this plot-ruining narrative tool. Deus ex machina, in my opinion, is one of the most damning and unforgivable literary churches. Not since Harry Potter have I seen so many deus ex machina.

It’s almost as if Dan just… I dunno… made it up as he went along!

Bonus points: Among the many, many ridiculous things hampering the likeability of the plot is a rape scene. Now this rape scene has absolutely no purpose in the plot whatsoever. I suspect some will say, “It makes sense if you read Endymion,” and while that is only speculation on my part, I declare this scene was purely because Mr Simmons was feeling horny that day, and could not “[Kill his darlings]( https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3711...).”

Good bits:

- Ummon

- The location of the Core

- Any time Martin Silenus is in-scene

And… that’s about it. I’m tempted to say something like “awesome sci-fi concepts” but reflecting back, I’m struggling to identify them. There are some cool things, though. I could not help thinking this book was the Wachowskis inspiration to write The Matrix. Dan also had an excellent ability to create names of people and places.

In the end, I was just super disappointed with this book. Throughout reading, I actually said the words “I hate this” numerous times, which pains me because I thought – I expected – I would love this. The last 50 pages, though one massive info-dump and blatant “telling,” actually redeemed it from what could have been a one-star rating. In science fiction, there seems to be a little more tolerance for telling than say in fantasy of general fiction. Thrillers can also get away with this. So though I am not impressed the last the book had to be saved by a 50 page info-dump, it was still a really good info-dump.

2 Stars. Recommend Hyperion. Do not recommend The Fall of Hyperion.