Loved this third book in the series, better than the second, and as good or better than the first. Dan Simmons writes world-building, expansive, far future science fiction like I enjoy, with quirky characters, humor, deep philosophical notions, and thrilling action in spots. The story is told in flashback mostly in first person, and settles into a character study between the three principals, Annea the precocious child, android A. Bettick, and Raul Endymion, our narrator. Simmons also uses omniscient narration for the other portions of the story, the religious/political intrigue, as pursuit of Annea, the developing super human, by Captain Father DeSoya and cohorts in the spaceship Raphael is ongoing throughout the story. I really enjoy Simmons' allusions to philosophy, poets, and other artists throughout. Of course, the terrifying Shrike are involved, especially toward the end. The ending introduces a new female character, Nemes, who will be the centerpiece of the fourth and final book, The Rise of Endymion. Looking forward to reading that next!

If you write a book in which a 26 year old man befriends a 12 year old girl and then tell me, multiple times, that when that 12 year old girl grows up she will enter a sexual relationship with the man, you are a fucking creep! Even more so if the man refers to the girl as “kiddo” and muses about how he feels protective of her as if he were her dad! Gross gross gross it is the worst fuck off Dan Simmons your gross old man is showing.

Such a disappointment after the first two books. Pages and pages of utter boringness that eventually just had me skip entire passages and pages. Nothing special is revealed in this book, after having so many questions and possible futures that the first two books offered. The vital information about the TechnoCore, the Ousters and Everything That Matters would come very scarcely and in, what seems, random babbling of Aenea between her random chores of setting up a camp site or brushing her hair. When ever asked to reveal ANYTHING about the bigger picture, the Why and How - her usual reply is just "oh, I don't know", "oh, I dreamt of it" bla bla bla - the usual crap we get from Simmons in this entire book, postponing all the important revelations for the last book in this series, The Rise of Endymion.
The Shrike, that very thread of the Hyperion book that had me turn page after page and finish reading the book in an instant, that very Shrike is a pure joke here.
The 600 pages could have easily been condensed into 150-200 pages.
Very, very disappointing, to the point that I'm hesitant to read the last book in the series.

In the faraway year of 3126 the 32nd century , things have regressed in a remote corner of the Milky Way Galaxy some two -hundred -seventy -four after the fall of the Hegemony Empire, a young man is sentenced to death on the once prosperous planet Hyperion were he was born, for a crime that was in actuality self-defense. Raul Endymion a hunting guide, was very angry understandably at a rich spoiled jerk , he and his friends disobeyed safety rules endangering him and others firing wildly, missing the flying ducks but killing his best friend. a four legged animal, his beloved dog. Throwing the idiot out of his boat and into the filthy swamp, later Raul barely escaping with his own life the gunman was seeking revenge, shooting at him instead the would- be assassin is killed . After a hasty kangaroo trial conviction, authorities here need the financial benefits hunters bring from the off worlds and the former shepherd in childhood awakes ... the day after his execution...it had been faked bribes paid and the confused Raul Endymion is taken to the deserted city of Endymion ( his family took that name for themselves). The famous poet who wrote Cantos Martin Silenus, now forbidden to be read, ( lives on an abandoned university campus) by the new rulers the Pax ( greatly influenced by a new Christian Church ) is still alive, modern medicine has preserved the 1,000 -year -old , he looks awful though, wrinkles over his whole body faint weak voice, the carcass cannot walk, a living fossil from the distant past of old long gone Earth. Martin has an impossible mission, save his "niece" Aenea ( a late friend's daughter) from being eliminated by the Pax and the Church, the 12 -year -old will be a threat to them in the future she is some kind of enigmatic messiah, arriving soon in the Time Tombs where the killing machine, the unstoppable .The Shrike's home is located, yet has not been seen for centuries...A flying carpet right out of an Arabian Nights fantasy will greatly help Raul and his new companion Silenus's former servant, the blue man A. Bettik well partly human still more human than many humanoids. A large lethal Pax Army awaits the duo but so does The Shrike, unbelievable carnage springs out of the Valley of Death thousands perish, a miracle occurs and the three now, (Aenea joins the party) flee in the vast confusion , through a "Farcaster " (an instant transportation apparatus) then ride a small raft they built from planet to planet , ice , desert, jungle, and even water worlds always searching for the next farcaster to find. And the relentlessly pursuing Father Captain, Frederico de Soya of the Pax never gives up in hunting them down, where they go he will follow... on the immense endless treacherous River Tethys in a long perilous journey , their unknown fate awaits , and still another menace is lurking about ... A terrific read and highly enjoyable for the adventurous crowd. Dan Simmons is a superb writer this series shows that undeniable fact...

4.75 ⭐️

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I think I might have enjoyed this one even more than Hyperion. The structure here is simpler, being essentially a quest story in which the protagonist is tasked with a cluster of seemingly impossible assignments, and has to make a journey with companions who have their own sets of core competencies. (as contrasted with Hyperion which was structured like The Canterbury Tales.) In the hands of a mediocre writer this book could have been a dull and derivative affair, but I found myself swept along by the currents of imagination as Raul, Aenea, and A. Bettik traversed the river that crosses worlds, struggling with constant dangerous while being pursued relentlessly by agents of the church. All three characters became increasingly complex as the story progressed, and Simmons addressed numerous issues such as bigotry and faith with subtlety and nuance, without dragging down the adventurous aspect.

About halfway through the book I have a note that I hate Frederico De Soya, as he declares that he will kill every Lamp Mouth and anything else in in his way as he attempts to capture Aenea in order to protect his precious church, and this attitude disgusts me. But then by the end of the book after the events with Rhadamanth Nemes my view had softened. I still think that kind of destructive drive is horrible, but the character himself became more understandable if not relatable. And the fact that he would subject himself and his team to the rigors of repeated death and resurrection via the parasites was at least impressive.

I found it curious that at the beginning of the book the narrator, Raul, starts by saying "You are reading this for the wrong reason.", but Simmons actually uses this as a framing device at the end of the novel. I won't give away what he says, but I liked it.

There are numerous quotable bits but I'll close with one of my favorites:

n  If there is a God, I thought, it's a painkillern

Endymion: A New Phase of the Hyperion Story
Endymion takes place roughly three centuries after the events of Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. It features a largely new cast of characters, and the climatic events of the previous book are so far-reaching in their impact (the closing of the far-casters, end of the hegemony, disappearance of the Shrike, rise of the Pax thanks to the cruciform, etc) that Simmons has created a very new and different galactic milieu in which to frame his equally complex and elaborate space opera epic.

While Endymion may lack some of the mythic overtones of the first duology, it makes up for that with a fully-developed narrative that carefully extrapolates the repercussions of the previous books and continues the underlying struggle/mystery of the Core and AIs and the humans and Ousters caught between it all. Dan Simmons is not afraid to reshape his own elaborate universe and yet treat it as a natural extension of the earlier story. Just like the first two books, Endymion is only one half of the story, so you must be prepared to commit to reading both books to get the full vision as Dan Simmons intended.

Many fans of Dan Simmons's Hyperion series were not enamored of this more separate entity within the saga. It does not detract, however, from what a fun thrill-ride this book truly is. You need not have read the first two books to enjoy this one, and in fact, it might be better if you haven't. Simmons incorporated the more fun elements of the previous books, weaving them into this grand and tremendously entertaining adventure of science fiction. The Worldweb and the mysterious Shrike creature add excitement to an already great story.

Almost 300 years have passed since The Fall, and Earth apparently, but not conclusively, no longer exists. The Worldweb and the Shrike creature are around, yet the only thing standing between complete control of everything by the military arm of the Catholic Church, PAX, is an 11 year old girl named Aenea, and Raul Endymion. Aenea is the future leader of all, and Raul Endymion has been chosen to keep her from harm. Using Farcaster portals as gateways to other worlds, in order to elude their somewhat reluctant pursuer, Father DeSoya, they find an ally in A. Bettik, a blue android.

The chase is exciting, moving at breakneck speed. The mysterious and deadly Shrike creature adds an unknown element for the three. The questions pondered and ruminated on are thought-provoking, engaging the mind of the reader as their heart enjoys the adventure, the outcome of which is constantly in doubt. As the connection between Raul and Aenea grows stronger, so does the reader's need to know that outcome. Doom for all mankind looms like a dark storm over everything in this grand adventure tale. It is a book easy to get lost in, a breathtaking tale of a fantastical future that can only be found in books.

You read something like this slowly, savoring it, because you know it is part of a series and, therefor, probably without a conclusive ending. Whether a science fiction reader or not, if you enjoy getting lost in another world, this is a good book for you. Sort of a stand-alone book within the series, it is just flat fun to read, and highly recommended.

This book was a disappointment after Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. It started off okay, but then turned into a never-ending series of scenes where bad guys chase good guys from one planet to the next. Not much else ever happened. I felt like Dan Simmons just wanted to show off the different worlds that he created. There were none of the complications to the plot that I had seen in the Hyperion books. The prophecy aspect of the story also didn't work for me. Aenea knows of some things that will happen, is fuzzy on others, but then, inconveniently enough, doesn't know what will happen on the planet of God's Grove. The logic of her foreknowledge was inconsistent and annoyed me. The characters were okay, but I also thought it odd that the real antagonist didn't appear until very close to the end. I listened to this as an audiobook and I had an interruption in my listening due to device difficulties, but even trying to take that into account, this book really didn't work for me.

Notes:

I need to re-read this installment by print. The audiobook is great but I had a stronger response to the story when I read parts of it vs listening.

- Great concepts, use of time travel, precognition affect/effect, twisty plot, etc.
- Enjoyed the contrasts of being on a planet/station/spaceship.
- Younger character made it possible to add a youthful wonder to various events.
- Loved the exploration aspect of learning a new environment (like being in zero-g in space or spatially controlled environment that could make a glob of water to swim in)
- Tampons were mentioned and I was thrown out of the story. LoL - What exactly would be the "normal" for females & menstrual cycles in the future?
- I find the religious/enemy aspect to be less obtuse than some of the things that are considered normal within the world. Like resurrections. Relatively easy idea to understand and how it's used but I wanted more about the effects of being resurrected. Good snippets about it are woven into the story but not in depth.
- I love the layers that are packed into the story. It's done in a manner where you get the pieces in isolated phases. Like the author dropped a few key words and give you story time to absorb before adding more to the web.
- Current fav out of the first three books in the series.

As I said in the reviews of the first books that the series is heavy on theological elements, this book takes the level to a sci-fi adaptation to a prohpet's tale, it is a modern inspiration of a classical tale, and it is a dark future for humanity, when after all the advances in technology and the spread of population over hundreds of worlds, still the greed for power and control over people will propagate into another tech based religious tyranny.

Simply explained, while the story jumps forward almost 300 years from the end of the Pilgrims' journey in book two, we see that during those centuries, after the fall of the Hegemony, there arose a new entity to fill in the power gap across the scattered worlds, the PAX, and this pax is a religiously based entity using the technology of the cruciform to enslave whole worlds into an eternal mass of believers, and just like any fanatic religious system, seeks to eradicate other belief systems that are not fallig in line with their calling.
Then comes the news of a new 'prophet' child, whose existence, if allowed to grow to full womanhood will endanger the PAX, and so, as expected from such a fanatic system, they plot their fastest and deadliest tools to kill this new prophet before she can be of threat to them.

The adventure that follows carries on another chapter in the battle between the core AI and humanity, with an ending that leaves the reader eager to grab the last book rightaway!

MiM