A review by thefoxyreader
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 
Hyperion by Dan Simmons was my favorite book that I read in 2020. I still think it was wildly creative, and one of the best examples of using a framing device to connect short stories to make a cohesive narrative. I also still tear up when I think about Sol Weintraub’s section of the book.

So, my standards and expectations were set extremely high...and for the most part, he delivers with the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, although it takes a loooooooong time for anything to pay off or emotionally resonate.

Set immediately after the events in Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion follows our six pilgrims as they approach the Time Tombs, looking to meet the ever mysterious and menacing Shrike. Their viewpoints are presented to the reader through dreams the new John Keats cybrid is having as he works with Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone to try to stop the Ouster attacks on Hyperion and the rest of the Hegemony.

It was a really interesting choice to pull the reader away from the characters we’ve become attached to from the first book and stick us in board room meetings with the Keats cybrid and Meina Gladstone. I liked the inventiveness of expanding the POVs this way, but it did often bring the pacing to a grinding halt.

And I still really like the characters from the first book. I would sacrifice myself just so Sol Weintraub could save his infant daughter, Rachel, who is aging backwards. He’s just a great character. And General Kasaad, whose goal is to defeat the Shrike in hand-to-hand combat, once again has some exciting chapters.

I’m also glad that Simmons fixed one of my only complaints from the first book: the lack of female characters. In the first book, we have Brawne Lamia, who is a physically strong character and has an interesting detective story, but my main complaint is that I feel like male authors often don’t know what to do with female characters except marry them off or get them pregnant. In this book, Simmons uses her pregnancy to forward the plot, and it was actually pretty cool to see a pregnant woman being a badass.
I also thought it was great that her Messiah-like baby is a girl.

Meina Gladstone is another really interesting female character, who is smart and willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. Moneta, while problematic, is another interesting character
and the twist that she is Rachel from the future totally caught me by surprise. I really just thought that her short haircut was a 90s thing that everyone had. I feel dumb.

I mention Moneta being problematic because this book has one glaring issue that unfortunately did not age well.
There is a scene of female-on-male rape. It is fine to have this, but where it gets problematic is that this is later portrayed as where the character really wanted it all along and now it’s supposed to have been a romantic scene? I’m not going to harp too much on it because I think this is a product of its time, but I do think it’s worth pointing out and discussing why that’s not okay and the writing in this part could have been much stronger by either changing it completely or having Moneta not be portrayed as sympathetic.

Overall, I think this is really strong science fiction, and I actually keep liking it the more that I think about it. It gets into some really deep topics that feel ahead of its time, and I felt like I was back in my Honors College classes discussing philosophy, the evolution of humanity, and the juxtaposition of technology and religion.

My main complaint is just that the pacing is atrocious. Simmons absolutely saved this book with the ending where everything falls perfectly into place, but getting to the ending was painful at times.

I was resigned to not reading the rest of the Hyperion Cantos, but with that ending, I will have to check out Endymion in the future. 
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