Reviews

Well, I was really hoping I'd love this book, but I didn't. I did come to like it in the end, but it was still mostly a mixed bag for me.

Dan Simmons has good prose, but the execution of his writing ultimately lacked something that couldn't allow me to feel immersed enough throughout portions of the book. Part of that is his lack of description when it comes to the super futuristic technology and terminology he's created.

The book is also structured in a way that I didn't expect. It's essentially broken into 6 different tales with an overarching narrative that sorta pulls them together.

In order, The Priest's Tale kicked things off in a fascinating manner. The beginning of the tal added to my sense of confusion from the beginning of the novel where the overarching plot is introduced. But the end of the story left me wanting to explore more of this intriguing religion and the world of Hyperion.

The second tale was The Soldier's Tale. This one followed a military soldier of Palestinian descent (awesome!!!) who falls in love with a mysterious woman he meats during a training simulation. A lot of the futuristic technology and weaponry is present in this tale, so I unfortunately the tale suffered from a lack of imagery and detail to me. But it has a really solid twist at the end which had me quite shocked.

Next was The Poet's Tale, which was somewhat interesting and presented more intrigue regarding Hyperion and the Shrike. Just solid altogether, with a good ending especially.

Now, the following tale was truly exceptional. The Scholar's Tale was such a a brilliant stretch of writing. Completely emotionally gut-wrenching. I thought it was perfect, and almost makes this book reading just to experience that story.

The fifth story was The Detective's Story. Nothing outstanding. And actually pretty weird. A woman falling in love with an AI inhabiting the body of a human. Or at least I think that's what was going on. Pretty forgettable.

The final story was The Consul's Tale. A decent look at some of the oppression by the Hegemony, and another love story in a sense. The story ultimately provided a better look at the working factions of this fictional universe and the motivations and intentions of said factions. Or at least that's my perception. If you can't tell already, this book was definitely confusing and overwhelming.

I'm still glad I read this book even if it didn't live up to the hype. Perhaps I could've set better expectations for myself had I know the structure of the book. Anyways, decent read. I can see why people like it, but I won't be reading more of the Hyperion series.

Content Warnings