Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant.
Review: Dan Simmons' best book. Easily ranks with "Weaveworld" (Barker) and "The Talisman" (King/Straub). A fantasic book by a master storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the best
Review: This is the best book I've ever read. It's completelty surreal! The book is somehow divided into a few stories told by the pilgrims traveling to Hyperion. Each story is simply stunning, and they are all related. Everyone has something to do with the Shrike, the most bizarre character I've ever read in a book. Everything in the book is brilliant, except the ending. A word of advice, buy Hyperion AND The Fall of Hyperion at the same time.. trust me..
Rating: 
Summary: 4 1/2 stars: Needs a bit more development
Review: I have read a dozen or so of the lengthier reviews and by and large, I agree with their praises for this book, so read a number of those reviews. Few authors are able to intersperse intelligent, thoughtful commentary on government, technology, religion, environmentalism and politics within an interesting plot, yet refrain from becoming heavy-handed (Tom Clancy should read Hyperion - he could learn a lot from Simmons). I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it kept me turning pages, wanting to find out the next plot twist, and the backgrounds behind the seven pilgrims.However, the book's greatest fault (and this is about as praiseworthy a criticism as I can imagine) is that Simmons rushed through the stories of the pilgrims without providing us enough detail. Each one of those individual stories has a very intriguing emotion-packed theme and I really wanted to see them developed a bit more fully, which also would have developed the characters more fully. In particular, the Consul's story of his military "shipman" grandfather's romance with his native grandmother Siri, in which his grandfather aged at 1/11th the rate of people on Siri's planet, was a beautiful and sad theme that deserved perhaps a whole book, not just 30 or so pages. I was left with a few niggling questions that Simmons did not adequately answer. First, he mentions "The All Thing" and at various times seems to give it the characteristics of a religion, of the body of government in the Hegemony, of the communications system throughout the universe, or the omnipresent data system, but never does define it. Second, Hyperion's world, with hundreds of billions of people in it, seems far too expanded, developed and evolved to take place just 700 years in our future. Third, Siri's romance with her "Shipman' lover becomes famous and celebrated throughout her planet, yet the reason for this is never explained. Is it because of the sad reality of the difference in their aging? If so, Simmons does not explain why Siri ages 11 times faster than her lover - is it because days are so much shorter on her planet? Is it because her people have genetically evolved in that fashion? Is it because she aged at a normal rate, but the Consul's grandfather spent so much time in chryrogenic hybernation during space travel, and did not age while he was gone for years? Maybe these questions are answered in the next volume of this series, Fall of Hyperion (I am about halfway through this book). If anyone has answers to these questions, please post them in a subsequent review. A final comment: a fair number of those with criticisms of this book have been most disappointed with the lack of an ending for this book. Come on people?!?!! It is the first book in a series of four. Were you disappointed that you did not have a complete ending to The Fellowship of the Ring? Of course not! Have some patience and read at least the next book in the series. All in all, this was a very enjoyable, thought provoking book that left me wanting more - not because the plot was inadequate, but because the plots and themes were so interesting that I wanted them developed a bit more. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Impressively suprised
Review: Hyperion is written in an unconventional format, though we all know its based on Canterbury Tales. But to say "its been done before" is like saying a new epic poem (a la Odyssey) has been done before. So what, nothing is original - its all in the exposition. And what a great exposition this is! Simmons has quite a lyrical talent in describing environs.You can close your eyes and literally see the lapis lazuli skies and the waves of the verdant Sea of Grass. The Hyperion universe is connected by AI created-farcaster "portals" that take citizens to a planet of mile high Sequoia-esque trees, a massive ocean world, the Hegemony's military central on Mars, or a sprawling Foundation-like metropolis planet. From these worlds, six people were chosen to make a pilgrimage to the Shrike Temple on Hyperion. The Time tombs surrounding the Shrike have started acting anamalously and the Hegemony is on the brink of war with another human faction - the Ousters who have their own interest in the Shrike and Hyperion. The nebulous Shrike creature is revered as the Lord of Pain and feared as a grotesque monster. All of the pilgrims have encountered it before... and survived. Through their voyage to the temple, the pilgrims share with each other their stories and try to figure out underlying connection they all have to the Shrike. The individual stories are all poignant, my favorite being "The Priest's Tale" and second to that the "The Scholar's Tale". Each pilgrim is an archetype of his/her profession: the honorable and brave soldier, flighty poet, compassionate scholar, faithful priest, strong detective, etc. Initially they seemed like stereotypes, but Simmons did a good job of fleshing them out as invidividuals by playing them off of each other's personality quirks. I found the poet's turret's like syndrome hilarious! You'll find that each story teaches you a lesson about humanity. The book is not 100% perfect. The Captain mysteriously vanishes with no apparent plot value. I found the Detective's and Consul's tales very weak. You know nil about the Ousters other than that they are barbarians and they want Hyperion too. The book has no main plot beyond the pilgrims telling each other tales but obviously the point of the book wasn't to be a "beginning-middle-end" novel. Rather, if you take away the different planets, spaceships, and AIs, Hyperion is five intertwined beautifully written modern day fables and in the end, very much recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to the hype
Review: A pretty good book, but doesn't quite live up to the hype. The book is really just 6 tales by 6 strangers on a "pilgrimage" about what led each one of them to Hyperion. I was a bit disappointed that nothing actually happens ON Hyperion, all we find out is why the pilgrims are there, not what happens next (presumably that is in the sequel). Allegedly this book is a "Sci-Fi Canterbury Tales", but I do not remember much about the Canterbury Tales myself (read them 15 years ago or so). What was most frustrating and the reason I will read the sequel is some interesting hints of an AI "race" that may be done with humans and want to destroy them as well as the mystery of the pilgrimage itself to the "Time Tombs" which are structures travelling backwards through time (which are possibly tied to the AIs, who knows?).
Rating: 
Summary: Really needs an ending
Review: This is a well-written, but fairly gory book, good if you can follow all the story lines and can imagine your own ending. I've always lacked that skill, so it wasn't very satisfying for me.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, that was fun to read
Review: When was the last time you read a science fiction novel that successfully tied together various elements of diplomacy, technology, mystery, military conquest, space conquest, religion, and human interest? Yet remained a page-turner rather than a dull, ponderous tome? Hyperion and its sequel - Fall of Hyperion - are excellent entertainment. They give you all you the above, punctuated by sympathetic imagery and vicious, no-apologies gore. The characters and story line are well developed & consistent. The plot of Hyperion is multi-faceted, a compilation of 7 sub-stories wrapped into one. These sub-plots masterfully blend into and reveal a complex whole in Fall of Hyperion, providing a rich set of building blocks for an engaging final conclusion. Unfortunately, Hyperion alone leaves too many loose ends. At the final page you feel forced to risk reading the sequel without knowing whether the author can tie it together in one more book or less. But without doubt, Fall of Hyperion is superb (a Hugo nominee), ex-post facto conclusive, and more widely appealing in terms of style than Hyperion. I recommend reading both novels together with faith that the unusual style won't detract too much from your appreciation of either.
Rating:
Summary: More than a Short Story Collection
Review: Hyperion is a very ambitious book that attempts to take the sci-fi genre in interesting directions and, more often than not, succeeds. It strives for grandness, touching on big topics including religion, war, the nature of time, art and writing, history, family, technology, environmentalism, politics and the destiny of the human race.
At times I feared Hyperion would end up being little more than a collection of short stories, but by the end of each tale, the themes and events tied together nicely with the overall narrative. Simmons has a knack for throwing in plot twists and surprises just when they are least expected, forcing one to reevaluate everything that has gone on before.
Some readers may be put off by the author's style - the text is riddled with made up words and techno-babble that can be frustrating to get through until you get used to it (around page 75). He also has a tendency to get too wordy when describing landscapes and environements, at least for my tastes. I believe this is done with the intent of helping the reader visualize the unique world of Hyperion, so I'm not going to dock him any stars for it. On the plus side, he avoids spelling out the significance of events, and leaves his readers to puzzle through some of the mysteries of his creation for themselves. This is a good thing, except in the case of the ending, which was a bit too much of a cliffhanger.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars (plus 10 more if I could)
Review: No one is going to find this review helpful, but I HAD to put my 5 stars down.....because this book was absolutely incredible. All I will say is that after reading Hyperion, I bought all 3 other books on my next trip to the bookstore.....
Rating: 
Summary: Not to my taste!!!
Review: Hummmmmmmmmmm..... After reading all the 5 star reviews & happy readers words I feel a little guilty writing this review. But I had to!! I couldn't get into the story, I wasn't able to read after the 100th page, I bearly read them!! I wanted to get to the end of the first story (The priest story) to see if I was missing something. But instead of being mystified, i was left feeling horrified & uninterested!!! It has more of a horror edge to it, no romance, no character development or interactions (from what I read from it).Obviously this book isn't to my taste. I got board with this story & it did nothing to me. So pick it up from the library & see if you like the way it's going then buy it! For me, I couldn't go through it!!
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