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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. It is really a collection of short stories giving the background of the main characters and the reason for their quest, overlaid over their short travel time to their destination. The first story was my favorite and actually read like an alien ethnography from an anthropologist.
What a fantastic web this book weaves. Not a traditional story but more a collection of shorts told by the main characters, the individuals part of a pilgrimage to the enigmatic focus of each story.
Starting from a single perspective, that of a Consul, you gain little insight into him personally. He is called forth as one of seven to serve on the final pilgrimage to the mysterious Time Tombs to face the equally mysterious and frightening boogyman of the story, The Shrike.
Eventually each character comes together and is faced with the reality that this might be the last thing they ever do. Each has a personal reason to be on this journey but each has very little choice. The events will influence the fate of everything in the galactic universe.
As the characters make there way to these Time Tombs, a journey which takes them on a short space flight to an uneventful journey through the strange planet of Hyperion, a place that nearly all of them have already been too. During this journey each member takes turns telling their personal story, and there reason for being here, and this fills the majority of what the book Hyperion is.
Each story is fascinating from being potentially sad and heart-wrenching to terrifying and the inevitable focus is the enigma that is Hyperion. A strange planet that holds so many secrets, each story gives the reader further insight into the strangeness that surrounds this world, but answer so very little.
I absolutely loved each story and felt close to each character throughout them, some more so than others.
My biggest grievances with the book is the sheer amount of ground it attempts to cover and the amount of information that is left in the open. So much is brought up but so little is thoroughly explained and defined. So many questions are left over and the biggest one being the ending itself.
Spoiler!
In the end this was a truly fascinating story to behold and I would surely recommend it to anyone with an interest in science fiction and fantasy.
Starting from a single perspective, that of a Consul, you gain little insight into him personally. He is called forth as one of seven to serve on the final pilgrimage to the mysterious Time Tombs to face the equally mysterious and frightening boogyman of the story, The Shrike.
Eventually each character comes together and is faced with the reality that this might be the last thing they ever do. Each has a personal reason to be on this journey but each has very little choice. The events will influence the fate of everything in the galactic universe.
As the characters make there way to these Time Tombs, a journey which takes them on a short space flight to an uneventful journey through the strange planet of Hyperion, a place that nearly all of them have already been too. During this journey each member takes turns telling their personal story, and there reason for being here, and this fills the majority of what the book Hyperion is.
Each story is fascinating from being potentially sad and heart-wrenching to terrifying and the inevitable focus is the enigma that is Hyperion. A strange planet that holds so many secrets, each story gives the reader further insight into the strangeness that surrounds this world, but answer so very little.
I absolutely loved each story and felt close to each character throughout them, some more so than others.
My biggest grievances with the book is the sheer amount of ground it attempts to cover and the amount of information that is left in the open. So much is brought up but so little is thoroughly explained and defined. So many questions are left over and the biggest one being the ending itself.
Spoiler!
Spoiler
So much build up to this one event of reaching this location is for naught as the book ends mere moments before they are to reach it. Sure there are 3 future books in the series but the absoluteness of the cliffhanger staggered me as I finished up the final page.In the end this was a truly fascinating story to behold and I would surely recommend it to anyone with an interest in science fiction and fantasy.
Loved it, but I was expecting more sci-fi. It felt like a fantasy novel. I suppose I have a penchant for hard sci-fi. Still an excellent read, no matter what you want to call the genre. Loved the frame narrative especially.
Love the way each of the interconnected stories are told. Wild to think I've had this on my bookshelf for ten years and am just *now* reading. Excited to start the next one in the series.
Pretty good science fiction, but not nearly on par with the golden age classics of the 1950s-60s. The allusions to a roman empire but in space were crass and lacked subtlety. Also, there was a ton of unnecessary and unexplained “jargon” that added little other than a sense of confusion and annoyance. I did enjoy the interplay between AI and humans, and the idea that AI could simply be indifferent to human affairs, though this was not a large piece of the story. Also the plot was generally enjoyable.
This is one of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read, certainly one of the best space operas. I would recommend this to anyone who read Dune, liked its big ideas but wished there had been more action.
The good: the book is structured around 7 pilgrims traveling, each telling their story along the way. Some of the stories are really powerful and gripping, like mini-novellas with very different flavors. Their destination is a planet containing Time Tombs and an authentically terrifying Shrike, and the central mystery regarding the tombs and the Shrike is really interesting. The imagery is beautiful at times.
The bad: some of the characters are much too two-dimensional (the drunken poet and the military commander in particular), the politics and intrigue and world building too dense and complicated (though maybe that's my weakness), and some of the action sequences go on and on and on.
The bad: some of the characters are much too two-dimensional (the drunken poet and the military commander in particular), the politics and intrigue and world building too dense and complicated (though maybe that's my weakness), and some of the action sequences go on and on and on.
If there is a novel that could make someone fall in love with and/ or enjoy Science Fiction, this is the novel. My friend Alex gave Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, along with a couple of other books, to our house for Christmas. When I asked him which ones I should read he specifically said these and boy was he right! I was so excited finishing this one up, while I was purchasing a guidebook for my sister I picked up the third book in the Hyperion Cantos (four books) and will definitely read all of them.
This review WILL NOT contain spoilers, but no promises for the rest of the Cantos. The way I read, I read an entire series as one story and sometimes blend things together not knowing what comes from which particular installment, but the first one is always easiest to keep spoiler free. What was most exciting about this novel and what kept me so interested was Simmons’ intelligence and writing ability!
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
This review WILL NOT contain spoilers, but no promises for the rest of the Cantos. The way I read, I read an entire series as one story and sometimes blend things together not knowing what comes from which particular installment, but the first one is always easiest to keep spoiler free. What was most exciting about this novel and what kept me so interested was Simmons’ intelligence and writing ability!
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
I was so happy that this got chosen for my Hugo/Nebula winners bookclub, since I've had a physical copy of this for ages, and just couldn't find the motivation to read it on my own. (And actually, I ended up reading this on my Kindle, as this paperback had such tiny text that I couldn't fathom reading it.) It was...well, not entirely my cup of tea, but not bad. It's basically a scifi take on the Canterbury Tales, so a bunch of pilgrims are traveling to the world of Hyperion, each telling his or her story. In that sense, it reads more like a set of interconnected novellas than a novel, though there is an overarching storyline as well.
The stories were hit or miss for me. The first featured Catholics in space, with an anthropological bent and a bit of a horror twist, and was one of my favorites. The second was military scifi with some weird sex stuff, and wasn't my cup of tea. (I was honestly pretty bored, which is not the effect that space battles should have.) The third was an artist's tale of coming of age, and was my least favorite, mostly because I hated that character. The fourth was about the parents of a woman who catches a strange disease that causes her to age backward, and was good. The fifth was about a private investigator who falls in love with the AI incarnation of John Keats, and was odd, but also enjoyable for me. And the final was a huge spoiler, so I'll say nothing more. ;)
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this, but never really found myself too drawn in. The characters, even when I liked them, just weren't my favorites, and I felt kind of disconnected from the whole Shrike thing. I have also admittedly been having concentration issues, so there's that. I do intend to read the second book because the first two books of the series really compose one complete story, but not sure if I'll go beyond that. We'll see, I guess.
The stories were hit or miss for me. The first featured Catholics in space, with an anthropological bent and a bit of a horror twist, and was one of my favorites. The second was military scifi with some weird sex stuff, and wasn't my cup of tea. (I was honestly pretty bored, which is not the effect that space battles should have.) The third was an artist's tale of coming of age, and was my least favorite, mostly because I hated that character. The fourth was about the parents of a woman who catches a strange disease that causes her to age backward, and was good. The fifth was about a private investigator who falls in love with the AI incarnation of John Keats, and was odd, but also enjoyable for me. And the final was a huge spoiler, so I'll say nothing more. ;)
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this, but never really found myself too drawn in. The characters, even when I liked them, just weren't my favorites, and I felt kind of disconnected from the whole Shrike thing. I have also admittedly been having concentration issues, so there's that. I do intend to read the second book because the first two books of the series really compose one complete story, but not sure if I'll go beyond that. We'll see, I guess.