Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

4 reviews

placeswebreathe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Child death, Torture, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: War and Xenophobia

singalana's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/injury detail, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Murder, Terminal illness, Torture, and War

Minor: Alcohol and Animal death

tofutofutofu's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

For the first few tales, I really couldn't tell if we were supposed to sympathize with these characters. I thought, maybe this is horror told from the perspective of the monster, and each of these characters is terrorizing the people of hyperion and then being punished for their sins of misogyny, homophobia, colonialism, racism, greed... but then we got to the scholar's tale, which was beautiful and sad and sympathetic. It got me to wonder if we're actually supposed to relate to the priest who treats the people he meets as subhuman and the soldier who doesn't even ask the woman he's having sex with her name. Maybe she conveniently never speaks not because she is inside a parody but because the author is vile. I was expecting them to all die at the end, but unfortunately we are given no such satisfaction, only a cliffhanger. Without a resolution, it really seems that all of the specific 20th century bigotry that the characters have somehow preserved in the far distant future is just... 20th century bigotry.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Torture, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Cursing, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Injury/injury detail, Gore, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Islamophobia and Homophobia

dgarrison's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Wow…I was impressed with this book. Fantastic world-building and a very interesting story that unfolds through what I would describe as 6 novelettes told within a overarching story. 

Just be prepared to jump right into the sequel, Fall of Hyperion. This book focuses a lot on the world building and ends kind of abruptly without much of a resolution in the overarching story. I suspect much of that resolution comes in the second book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Sexual content, and War

Minor: Torture and Alcoholism