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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Delightfully absurd. An excellent read.
Despite its fame, it was a completely surprising experience. Definitely different from other sci fi works of the same era, despite almost exclusively containing very familiar elements. The whole time I was going "Oh! Huh." (in various tones of dis/pleasure).
Cons:
Man, yall weren't kidding when reviews railed on Simmons for the tons of racist, sexist, etc etc etc things in here. Jeez. And the sexual content was unexpectedly graphic and alarming. Made it pretty distasteful to read, sometimes. Often, my reaction was "fking yuck."
Man, yall weren't kidding when reviews said this was the most Non-Ending non-ending of all time. I get that there are follow-up pieces in the series, but it's unusual for a first novel to finish with such an extreme anticlimax.
However!
Pros!
I like the interpretation that the whole work is just a big meditation on "Wow people are fking ridiculous." It's fully and deeply lost in the vices and delusions of individuals, and obviously makes the statement that in however many hundreds/thousands of years of "advancement," humans are stubbornly so messed up. To that end, the problematic elements seem meaningful, if not necessarily deliberate or mindful. That showcased regression and centerpiece backwards-ness makes the work "work" as a whole, to me.
I like the bitter humor about the cyclical folly of mankind, and I like that it doesn't reneg on that perspective with some kind of pristine Clark Kent heroism or some other BS at the end. The ending makes you roll your eyes, for sure, but it tracks perfectly with the momentum and message of the rest of the book, given that the momentum is into a ditch and the message is "We made this dumpster fire, now we'll lie in it."
And, of course, the vibes are immaculate. The scene-setting and moodiness and everything is so over-the-top dramatic and I love it. Like, it's hammy and hokey and emo and delightful. Playing ominous piano in a terrible storm! Gothic cathedrals on alien planets! Gun-slinging, Stetson-wearing cyberpunks! I mean, every scene is exponentially more absurd and ridiculous and unhinged in its nonsense, and the aesthetic never fails.
I might not read the rest of the books, at least right away, but I hope I do.
Despite its fame, it was a completely surprising experience. Definitely different from other sci fi works of the same era, despite almost exclusively containing very familiar elements. The whole time I was going "Oh! Huh." (in various tones of dis/pleasure).
Cons:
Man, yall weren't kidding when reviews railed on Simmons for the tons of racist, sexist, etc etc etc things in here. Jeez. And the sexual content was unexpectedly graphic and alarming. Made it pretty distasteful to read, sometimes. Often, my reaction was "fking yuck."
Man, yall weren't kidding when reviews said this was the most Non-Ending non-ending of all time. I get that there are follow-up pieces in the series, but it's unusual for a first novel to finish with such an extreme anticlimax.
However!
Pros!
I like the interpretation that the whole work is just a big meditation on "Wow people are fking ridiculous." It's fully and deeply lost in the vices and delusions of individuals, and obviously makes the statement that in however many hundreds/thousands of years of "advancement," humans are stubbornly so messed up. To that end, the problematic elements seem meaningful, if not necessarily deliberate or mindful. That showcased regression and centerpiece backwards-ness makes the work "work" as a whole, to me.
I like the bitter humor about the cyclical folly of mankind, and I like that it doesn't reneg on that perspective with some kind of pristine Clark Kent heroism or some other BS at the end. The ending makes you roll your eyes, for sure, but it tracks perfectly with the momentum and message of the rest of the book, given that the momentum is into a ditch and the message is "We made this dumpster fire, now we'll lie in it."
And, of course, the vibes are immaculate. The scene-setting and moodiness and everything is so over-the-top dramatic and I love it. Like, it's hammy and hokey and emo and delightful. Playing ominous piano in a terrible storm! Gothic cathedrals on alien planets! Gun-slinging, Stetson-wearing cyberpunks! I mean, every scene is exponentially more absurd and ridiculous and unhinged in its nonsense, and the aesthetic never fails.
I might not read the rest of the books, at least right away, but I hope I do.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
I borrowed the audio version of this from my husband to listen to at the gym. When I asked him for it he responded, "Sure, you can borrow it, but you won't like it." "We'll see," I said. I mean, that's practically a challenge 'init? Then, several times during the weeks it took me to listen to it I commented, "I'm enjoying this. I don't know why you thought I'd hate it." He'd smirk and blithely say, "Just wait."
Well...he was right. And a wife doesn't often like to admit that about her husband. I did enjoy it, really I did, right up until the end, when, after almost 500 pages of 'we're off to see the Shrike, the wonderful wonderful Shrike,' we got nothing, nada, nil. Where is my ending to tie all the disparate narratives (marvellous as most of them were) together? Where is the conclusion that would explain (beyond hypotheses) why the characters had been gathered or what the Shrike and Time Tombs actually were? Where is the nice little bow that would give the whole thing meaning? It's sure not at the end of the book, that's for certain!
Until the ending ruined it for me, I liked a lot of aspects of the book. Some of the stories were really quite moving (Saul and Rachel literally made me cry). But the various tales felt uneven in their presentation. The earlier character narratives felt more tightly tied together than the latter. The last, in fact, was almost unfollowable. Some events were painfully predictable (M. Lamia's story especially). And I felt some of the world building was lacking. I never did get much of a grip on how the Outsters came to be, for example. But no matter how good most of the book was, if it's never tied together it's a fail in my eyes.
Well...he was right. And a wife doesn't often like to admit that about her husband. I did enjoy it, really I did, right up until the end, when, after almost 500 pages of 'we're off to see the Shrike, the wonderful wonderful Shrike,' we got nothing, nada, nil. Where is my ending to tie all the disparate narratives (marvellous as most of them were) together? Where is the conclusion that would explain (beyond hypotheses) why the characters had been gathered or what the Shrike and Time Tombs actually were? Where is the nice little bow that would give the whole thing meaning? It's sure not at the end of the book, that's for certain!
Until the ending ruined it for me, I liked a lot of aspects of the book. Some of the stories were really quite moving (Saul and Rachel literally made me cry). But the various tales felt uneven in their presentation. The earlier character narratives felt more tightly tied together than the latter. The last, in fact, was almost unfollowable. Some events were painfully predictable (M. Lamia's story especially). And I felt some of the world building was lacking. I never did get much of a grip on how the Outsters came to be, for example. But no matter how good most of the book was, if it's never tied together it's a fail in my eyes.
Lost a star for being a suprise (to me) duology and short changing me one story.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I felt compelled to write a review because of how absurd this book was. I'm torn here: Simmons clearly has the ability to write interesting stories BUT Hyperion didn't feel like sci-fi to me.
Let's start with the pros first. The Shrike is an intriguing mystery with great potential. All of the stories (except for Hoyt's) are very good and as the connections between them start to show up and the overarching story of the pilgrims is revealed, I felt awed. The characters are very well written too; Silenus's responses and comments had me chuckling the entire book.
However, the universe of the book felt completely unimaginative and mediocre. Most of the futuristic technologies in the book are just names thrown in there. Very little or no explanation is given about the farcasters, weapons (deathwands, hell-whips, etc), Templar's trees, TechnoCore, Hawking drive and so on. It's as if Simmons didn't have the imagination to develop them as anything more than the basic "future weapon that is extremely lethal", "future space drive that allows FTL travel", etc or didn't think it was necessary to do so. Also, most colonies don't feel futuristic at all. Crawford, on Barnard's World, as Simmons puts it "might have been reconstructed from some nineteenth-century mid-American template". On Hyperion the pilgrims had to use a manta pulled boat; AN ANIMAL PULLED BOAT. In the 28th century. In addition passage up the river was only possible by boat, skimmer or dirigible - even today one can fly to anywhere on Earth within 24 hours. All other smaller colonies were described as technologically primitive, which makes absolutely no sense. Sad King Billy build an entire city on a new world in a few years. Yet colonists sent to new worlds which had to had been terraformed to support human life (a huge effort by any standards) live out their lives like primitives.
All in all, the story behind the book had great potential, but Simmons failed to execute it properly.
Let's start with the pros first. The Shrike is an intriguing mystery with great potential. All of the stories (except for Hoyt's) are very good and as the connections between them start to show up and the overarching story of the pilgrims is revealed, I felt awed. The characters are very well written too; Silenus's responses and comments had me chuckling the entire book.
However, the universe of the book felt completely unimaginative and mediocre. Most of the futuristic technologies in the book are just names thrown in there. Very little or no explanation is given about the farcasters, weapons (deathwands, hell-whips, etc), Templar's trees, TechnoCore, Hawking drive and so on. It's as if Simmons didn't have the imagination to develop them as anything more than the basic "future weapon that is extremely lethal", "future space drive that allows FTL travel", etc or didn't think it was necessary to do so. Also, most colonies don't feel futuristic at all. Crawford, on Barnard's World, as Simmons puts it "might have been reconstructed from some nineteenth-century mid-American template". On Hyperion the pilgrims had to use a manta pulled boat; AN ANIMAL PULLED BOAT. In the 28th century. In addition passage up the river was only possible by boat, skimmer or dirigible - even today one can fly to anywhere on Earth within 24 hours. All other smaller colonies were described as technologically primitive, which makes absolutely no sense. Sad King Billy build an entire city on a new world in a few years. Yet colonists sent to new worlds which had to had been terraformed to support human life (a huge effort by any standards) live out their lives like primitives.
All in all, the story behind the book had great potential, but Simmons failed to execute it properly.
Really challenging book, but also very good. Each "chapter" was more of a novella, 100ish pages. I had to take a breather between each novella. Each one was a different character's story. I loved the way they were each independent and also built together. But all of these were unique and intertwined, completing a complex world. It was incredible that this was written in 1985 given how modern it feels with conversations about AI and colonialism.