Take a photo of a barcode or cover
intermittent_farting 's review for:
The Rise of Endymion
by Dan Simmons
Reading Dan Simmons is like reading a multi-subject textbook with an engaging story laid over it all. I cannot count how many deep-dives I did and how much history/science/religion/poetry I learned from those dives that helped to enrich the main narrative.
That being said, this book was as well-crafted as any in the series. My only reason for knocking off a star is that he didn't convince me, in the end, that continuing this series to four books was the best idea. The first novel is an absolute masterpiece in science fiction and he could have stopped right there. While the second novel pales in comparison, it does fit, it's a great story, and it provides a second open but satisfying ending, like the first. I think he should have left it there rather than writing the next two. This book became overly convoluted multiple times and did a lot of "adjusting" to the original storyline to shoehorn it's way in. In the end, I think there were some loose ends left in explaining the timeline and I much preferred the shrike of the first two novels to what it became in the second two.
That being said, this book was as well-crafted as any in the series. My only reason for knocking off a star is that he didn't convince me, in the end, that continuing this series to four books was the best idea. The first novel is an absolute masterpiece in science fiction and he could have stopped right there. While the second novel pales in comparison, it does fit, it's a great story, and it provides a second open but satisfying ending, like the first. I think he should have left it there rather than writing the next two. This book became overly convoluted multiple times and did a lot of "adjusting" to the original storyline to shoehorn it's way in. In the end, I think there were some loose ends left in explaining the timeline and I much preferred the shrike of the first two novels to what it became in the second two.