Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

7 reviews

powellki's review against another edition

Boring as fuck, language is old and I can tell it was published the same year I was born. Chapters are ridiculously long, to the point it should be noted it's basically 7 short stories with only a semi-locked in plot for the rest of the book. Hard pass on the Jesus allegory of the first story where the Jesuit Priest keeps calling a group of people "small re***ds" and comparing them to children. Only made it slightly into story 2 when the sex scene was just so laughable that I couldn't continue. There was no way the position being described could be performed if the two people are in the stated positions (or unless the female was a.) an illusion, b.) a contortionist, or c.) just dislocating her arm to perform said acts). -10/10 do not recommend. Don't see why it's considered a "pillar of Sci-Fi."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Ableism, Body shaming, War, Sexual content, Self harm, Murder, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death, Body horror, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Torture, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicide, Slavery, Medical trauma, and Medical content

benji_dw'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Hyperion is a classic my friends and family evoke. So I read it. It hasn’t aged gracefully and frankly modern sci-fi’s sensibilities lead to better fiction. 

The book is broken up to tell the stories of seven people on a journey to the ‘time tombs’. Of the seven there is only one woman, and that attitude to gender pervades the entire narrative.

It is interesting and different. I thought of totally new things. Full points for novelty. 

I am docking points because when it was good it was good (albeit problematic), but when it was bad, it was actually unforgivable. I didn’t find the manic pixie dream girl list quest or self insert sad-boi poet whining compelling at all. The racist language around Indigenous people is extremely gross. 

Maybe this book was good for its time. But modern sci fi is better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Violence, Racism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicide, and Colonisation

doublenerds's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, and Suicide

wreckaj's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, and Cursing

Minor: War and Murder

missdanielle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, War, Death, Murder, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Violence

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

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