You ever get those novels that just fucking provide endless consternation and cognitive dissonance when you're trying to slot them into one of the somewhat restrictive Goodreads rankings? Endymion is the biggest bastard of all of these kinds of books I occasionally experience. I honestly think that two-to-four rankings are the least fun to give out because when you're actually considering the book in the process of reading it and writing it up you have to work with it cerebrally and not on a visceral level. It's hard to be reasonable and measured while simultaneously looking at a work at length and not just saying shit like "it had good parts...but it also had bad parts" over and over again. Whereas with the one and five star books you can just go in with emotional guns fucking blazing and just be easily inspired to new levels of moon-eyed adulation or derisive, incendiary rhetoric and all that good stuff that we humans love.

See what I mean? I barely addressed the fucking book in my first paragraph! I don't want to talk about it. It's hard to say this without sounding haughty or pretentious but the first two Hyperion novels kind of transcended the usual sci-fi work. Sure, they had laser guns and brain-melting time travel and all that shit, but they also boasted the author's ability to examine huge themes like the importance of literature and poetry and humanity's fate in the far future WHILE BEING COMPULSORILY READABLE! Endymion is basically...an adventure story set in the same universe as the previous books but taking place about three hundred years later. It sounds like I'm slighting the book right off the bat and maybe I am a tiny bit, but it just didn't have quite the same feeling and atmosphere of constant, simultaneous wonder and terror that the last two invoked during my experiences with them. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the story is basically a really long, entertaining chase scene. I mean...this is still Dan Simmons writing these so I'll take a long space chase in the Hyperion universe over most other books out there.

Just setting up the world and characters of the book to someone who didn't read the first two novels would be spoiling a ton of shit for them, so I'll avoid them in this review. I will say that I didn't like the characters nearly as much as I did the ones in the previous books. To be honest, I probably liked de Soya and M. Bettik the most, and the latter is a goddamn blue android--not the most human character to relate to, but that might be my problem and not Simmons'. I can't refrain from mentioning my still-favorite character from the books, Martin Silenus. I was so happy when he showed up, even if he did look like a terrifying life-support mummy or whatever. Raul was an interesting and convincing narrative voice and I was on his side but he was not the most vivid or well-developed character, which was weird as we were inside his fucking brain for half the book. Aenea was...well, I like to think that characters like these suffer from what I call St. Alia Syndrome, after Alia Atrides from Dune. It's kind of like the Scary Child trope from horror movies mixed with a kind of prescience, power or knowledge you would never, ever give to a child. Basically I liked Aenea but had to hold her at emotional arm's length because she, y'know...is the messianic daughter of one of the chosen human pilgrims and a goddamn cybrid with cryptic ties to the TechnoCore and the Void Which Binds.

I'm done with my complaints now, I think. Main disappointments out of the way, this is still a great book and has some of the coolest space opera action you can find. The universe Simmons has built is still endlessly fascinating just to be in and you get to revisit several of the epic planets from the previous novels. The Shrike is still the best/worst thing ever, so that hasn't changed either. It was also novel to look at the Shrike as kind of on the side of the good guys as opposed to its usual kill-on-sight self. All of the religious stuff in this one is also extremely interesting and well-done. With Simmons, when he writes about potential futures for humanity I don't just enjoy it in a "that's a cool idea" way, I examine that shit as if it has a real possibility or plausibility. I mean, who can really say that the Catholic Church has absolutely no chance of a long-lasting future? Considering that the Church considers St. Peter to be the first Pope and dude died in like fucking 60 BC and the title still exists and holds religious power post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment, post-"God is dead", post-sex-abuse-scandal why wouldn't there be a fucking Space Pope?

Against most other books I've read, this is a masterpiece of fiction. Against the previous two novels in the series, this was a disappointment. I just can't be happy with any kind of letup on the throttle because I was perfectly happy where I was at with Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. I've tasted the glory of Simmons' best and I can't be fully satisfied with anything less at this point because I know it's fucking out there, man, I've been there and I've seen it with my own two eyes. Anyone who knows what an avid fanboy I've been of this guy's work in the past knows that giving this less than five stars was a triumph of fucking will and something equatable to realizing you love one of your children just a little bit less than the others.* I just have to stay objective so as not to anger the Gods of amateur literary criticism, for they are merciless and ever-watchful.

*Okay, that's obviously not true. But it was still painful.

Another solid entry in the Hyperion Cantos. This story is set some centuries after the Fall of Hyperion which saw the destruction of the far caster network and is a different story from the that told in book one and two.
After the collapse and fall of the farcaster network and the AI Technocore - space travel is now limited to FTL travel (mostly)and the Hegemony does not survive. Replacing the old system of government is the "PAX" which is basically the old Roman Catholic Church who have somehow (one of the mysteries) managed to perfect the technology behind the cruciform parasites to be able to sustain perfect resurrections ie no genetic degradation as seen in the first two books. The PAX having a monopoly on the cruciforms have been able to rise to power by offering eternal life via the parasite.

Endymion is told by two POV characters - The first being Raul Endymion a Hyperion citizen who is sent on a quest by a thousand year old poet (guess who) to rescue and protect and transport a human messiah (Brawne Lamia's daughter) along the old Tethys river which ran through multiple planets via farcaster connection.
Pursuing them is the second POV character - PAX officer Fedirico De Soya commissioned by the Pope to stop them at any cost.

I found interesting and novel that one POV is told in the first person while the other is told in the third person.

I gave this only four stars instead of the 5 I gave to the first two books because most of the concepts in this book are already introduced in the first two books so the WOW impact of reading something new is not there to the extant it was in the first books. Having said that there are some new concepts and expansions of the old concepts which are very interesting for example the application and role of the cruciforms, The new government, some new technologies and some new revelations about the Techno core. And we also get to meet a few old (very old) friends from the previous books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the fourth and final book in the series.

ENDYMION is the third book of the Dan Simmons' Hyperion saga and the first book of a two-part story, which concludes in THE RISE OF ENDYMION. Although it provides more of the interesting universe first developed in HYPERION, it is nonetheless a novel riddled with flaws.

The most annoying thing is the incredibly formulaic plot. Simmons' tale of chosen people on the run from an evil organization is done here with the same unrealistic and stereotypical feel of an 80s TV action show. The characters are two-dimensional, Raul is your standard reluctant, but able, hero. The Catholic Church is portrayed as a bunch of diabolically laughing Crusaders.

Another one of the major flaws is the fact that very little occurs in this book. Aenea and Raul spend 500 pages on the run from the Pax and from Nemes, but not much else happens. It's as if the sole purpose of this book is to provide back story for THE RISE OF ENDYMION.

Oh, and Simmons' writing style is not much more mature that his child-like zeal in the first two Hyperion books. This brings the book dangerously close to formulaic trash.

Yes, I read the book because I just wanted to get through the Hyperion saga, and the book deserves two stars because it is one step closer to the end, but ENDYMION was disappointing.