Hyperion

Rating:
Summary: If I have to buy this book again....
Review: I have already paid for this book 16 times. On nine occasions I have loaned it out to people who refused to return it to me. On six occasions I have given it freely to people I thought may enjoy it. The last copy I have kept for myself, and I refuse to lend it to anyone. It is, unfortunately, in a bad state of repair. Like my copy of "Carrion Comfort" it is falling apart from having been read at least a dozen times. Do I think this is a good book? No. Do I think this is a great book?

No. Do I want a larger superlative? Oh, yes! My wife tells me that if I have to buy that book again she may well leave me. Hmm.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is by far the best Science Fiction book I've read in the past ten years. It's complex & compelling. If you like SciFi, you owe it to yourself to read this series. I enjoyed it to such an extent that the fourth book is the only hardback I've ever purchased for myself in over 30 years of book-buying (it wasn't out in paper yet & I couldn't wait!). I felt books one & three were incredible, but all four were worth reading.

One word of advice: If you find yourself heavily involved in the first book, buy the second one in the series (_The Fall of Hyperion_) long before you finish book 1. _Hyperion_ should come with a warning label - it's really only the first half a book. You finished the last page and scream, "WHAT! WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DID THIS TO ME! THEY CAN'T JUST _LEAVE_ IT LIKE THAT!" Save yourself the frustration & get them both.

Rating:
Summary: Some great writing, but flawed
Review: This book is great for its sub-plots. Each of the pilgrims' stories are great mini-dramas. Unfortunately, the book is obsessed with invoking the classic poetry of John Keats, which gets tiresome. The author also loves to throw in plot complications, to make the book feel denser I suppose. When these minor plot points are dropped and never resolved I feel like the author is trying to snow me instead of telling me a story.

Rating:
Summary: Canterbury Tales and Others Revisited
Review: Travelers, well met- each with an agenda; each with a tale to tell-... So much of classic literature begins in such a way. Put 1200 years between Geoffrey Chaucers' and Dan Simmons' narrator's , tweak the political intrigues of the eras, and change the names of the guilty to misdirect the innocent... Well, there it is. Except it most definitely is NOT. The core of humanity itself has undergone a root transformation in HYPERION. The masters of fate are no longer the Priests of Rome, but the Technocore..(singular, plural, plurosingular?) The Hegemony of Man has sold itself out for a set of calculations to divine the future. The catch?.. The sellers have to do all the work to destroy themselves! Oh, they don't know this even though the final blow is coming without stealth. The Hegemony is warring with a bunch of radicals called "Ousters" and each blow is being looked over Olympus-like by the AI Technocore. The Technocore is itself fragmented into groups that favor the eradication of Man or the preservation of the status quo, or a wait-and see attitude. The tales and those who tell them make the best of this work. The four books together will, I'm sure weave all these plots together. It takes time my fellow readers! This will probably be the most personal of the set. I liked it, even though I have not a inkling what the Shrike may be, or how it's church arose. I can't wrap my head around the time tombs or some of the weird things in the travelers stories. I have a lot of respect for Dan Simmons. I like his work, his style and his mind. Anyone who can use L. Frank Baum like a guerrilla tactic...well... Now you gotta read it.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling Adventure!
Review: An amazing work: vivid, tantilizing, engrossing, macbre, fascinating...a journey I never expected and characters clarified in such colorful detail they leap from the page! The pilgrims and their individual tales create a compelling and addictive plotline that leads the reader by the nose (and I was lead willingly!). I highly recommend this work to any SF collection!

Rating:
Summary: Space opera at it's best! The best series ever!
Review: Hyperion and the rest of the series is the best science fiction series yet written. I do not make this claim lightly. I have read alot of science fiction and the only books that I would say that come close are The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Although Across the Sea of Suns and the rest of the Galactic Center series by Gregory Benford was another favorite.

Hyperion is one planet in a large federation of planets which are at their political peak. This book is the story of 7 people picked to go on a pilgramage to the time tombs on Hyperion to see if they can figure out what is happening. The time tombs are guarded by a creature called the Shrike. The Srike can move forward and backward through time at will and seems to be invulnerable to any type of weapon. The 7 people are strangers to each other, but they have on common link, they have all encountered the Shrike before and been allowed to live. There is a legend and even a cult religion that has grown up around the Shrike for hundreds of years. It is said that the Shrike can grant any wish. Pilgrims that go searching for the Shrike must travel in groups of prime numbers or everyone will die. They must approach the time tombs on foot or everyone will die. According to legend, the Shrike somehow interviews everyone in the party if they have followed these rules and one person will have their wish granted and all the other party members will be killed. Also, the time tombs are moving backwards in time, and the fear is that once the time tombs stop that a whole army of tens of thousands of Shrikes will be unleashed. But this is just one thread in the vast tapestry of the story which grows in complexity with each book. What is happening on Hyperion is at the center of the collapse of this federation of thousands of planets that is on the brink of collapse. It is a facinating tale.

Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but the sequels drag a bit
Review: Hyperion is a great book, but it is slightly flawed in that it leaves you hanging in a big way at the end. The sequels eventually tie up all the loose ends, but the series loses some momentum along the way. I still enjoyed reading the whole series, but Hyperion is the highlight of a long trip.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: If I were stuck on a desert island, and could only have one sci-fi novel with me, this would be it. It is endlessly fascinating, and easily the most literate science fiction I've ever read, with allusions both subtle and obvious to such books as The Canterbury Tales, Heart of Darkness, Beowulf, Henry V, et al. Don't pass this one up. Even though this is the beginning of a fascinating series (that in itself cannot be recommended highly enough), the first volume can stand alone as a pinnacle of contemporary fiction. The Hugo was never more duly awarded.

Rating:
Summary: hyperion
Review: After reading a short story by Dan Simmons, which takes place after the Hyperion series, I had to get his first one Hyperion. The book has everything a reader of science fiction wants. The characters are interesting, each one telling a different tale as to why they are traveling to Hyperion. The backdrop of intergalactic war keeps everything exciting. The story is very complex so pay attention. This is not a book you can put down and get back to later. You won't want too though. Trying to sum up this book in a short review is hard, there is so much going on at once. The main story is about seven people making a pilgrimage to the planet Hyperion. A creature called the shrike awaits them. They must each ask the shrike for something, all will die but one. The existence of mankind is thought to hinge on the one who survives and his request. It may sound like fantasy, but this is hardcore science fiction. All the gadgets, spacecraft, weapons, and badguys are here. Some of the concepts and landscapes are incredible. Readers who like the artificial intelligence theories will love this as they play a central part in the story. Once you read this book, the others in the series will naturaly follow. If they could only make a movie out of this.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and deeply moving
Review: Though 'Hyperion' is dependent upon its sequel and ends with a tooth-grinding cliff-hanger, it is in its way self-contained. 'Hyperion' is centered on the six pilgrims' tales, their pasts, the terrible needs which drive them to confront what is almost certain death--or worse. Each of the tales is written in a unique style, and each introduces a new element to bind the story as a whole. All are wrenching, even disturbing in their intensity, in their focus on the deepest possible of human suffering.

Do not read this book if you're looking for a light, fun read. In fact, forget it. This book defies all expectations, serves up horrors that were hitherto unimaginable if you are even remotely sane. Dan Simmons is in this book exploring a world that has lost its soul and is decaying by inches. To underscore that decay, the tales focus on the underpinnings of humanity--death, love, parenthood, art--and twist them into the most horrific contortions possible. The tale of the cruciform, for example, investigates with terrifying clarity the possibility of there being a fate far, far worse than death.

As a result, the quest of each pilgrim has a greater significance than being merely a quest; in the empty world which Simmons creates, they are pioneers searching for a depth beyond the tested parameters of their rotting civilization. The atmosphere of the book is overshadowed by the horror of the Shrike, yet does not completely dim the hope of what might be.

Steeped in the tangled sorrows that drive them, the characters do not always engender sympathy. I found Kassad shallow and difficult to relate to, and the explicit sex a turn-off. However, Martin Silenus, Sol Weintaub and the Consul--to name a few--are fully realized, complex characters, and even at their worst moments, still by their very existence encourage the reader to keep reading simply to learn their fates.