Hyperion (original 1989; edition 1990)

This book is in my top 5 list of sci-fi books. I've read this book three times - at 17, 26, and 36 years of age. Each time I found something new. At 17 I was enchanted by the avatar and the tree...at 26 by the poet and the cruciforms...and at 36, the consul and ideas of hegemony. Simmons created a world in this book...fantastic yet familiar. I wonder what I'll find the next time I turn the pages. ( )

A postmodern Canterbury Tales frame story that critiques capitalism, religion and imperialism. Not my favorite but can see why some might think it's great. I might have liked it more in my teens or early 20s.

See also Time and the Astrolabe in the Canterbury Tales which "demonstrates that Chaucer structured the Canterbury Tales after the astrolabe, an Arabic Islamic time-keeping device. Chaucer’s fascination with this device also accounts for the sense of time and astronomy in the Tales." The same themes in Hyperion. ( )

I really enjoyed the story structure of 6 separate character back-stories being told, and the reader being left to perform the synthesis. It was rewarding to find small areas where one or more of the back-stories referenced one another, and impressive how each was told in a truly unique style & voice. One of the back-stories, for example, is an homage to the hard-boiled private investigator noir played out across multiple worlds linked by public instant teleportation system. Another story is practically devoid of any fast-paced action altogether while it explores the slow-motion heartache of very personal drama within one family losing their daughter to a mysterious ailment. Naturally, all readers will prefer one or more of the storylines while finding others less engaging, but I won't opine here, as it seems there is intentionally something provided for all readers. There is an interwoven theme of literary appreciation that I feel I would have appreciated more if I had more familiarity with 19th-century poetry, but it doesn't prevent one from enjoying the SF. One distraction I found in the multiple narrations was how equally eloquent and poetic they all seemed despite their varied origins. An example of this would be the overly patient and floral detail given to the language of a lowly space construction worker from the final back-story narrative. Still, I found the layering of detail that resulted from hearing the tales sequentially was gripping and made each moment more urgently interesting than the last. I disagree with the opinion that the novel is indigestible in isolation from its sequel by the simple fact that I could quite contentedly walk away from the series after just this first book (although I doubt I will). Unresolved mysteries and cliffhanger endings are commonplace in short stories and novelettes, which I read voraciously, and focus the attention instead to the concept questions, rather than the answers. What would it be like to watch your child age in reverse, knowing each day brings her closer to oblivion? How does one maintain a relationship when travel at relativistic speeds causes one partner to age at a vastly different pace than the other? How must a homogenous human society that erases the cultural distinctness of each new colony world it incorporates appear to another branch of humanity that avoids the comfortable familiarity with planet-based life for one between the stars? Can the ancient authority of religious tradition, in this case Judaism and Catholicism, be maintained in a post-diaspora following the destruction of Earth and it's Holy Lands? The great ambition of this novel is to tie together such disparate storylines in a way which feels quite natural to the reader, and to provide a universe big enough to accommodate them all believably. In that regard, Hyperion is quite successful, and remains a wholly enjoyable stand-alone work. ( )

Simply one of THE greatest SF novel I've ever read. In he form of the Canterbury Tales we read about an amazingly detailed and original world and several most original concepts, the Shrike and the Time Tombs.... Instant masterpiece, a classic of the genre! ( )

In addition to the hard sf facets of this book, the writing invokes an atmosphere like a Dickens story that makes one feel like you have walked into a old time parlor with muted lighting and everything just stops because you just interrupted an important discussion. does that make sense? anyway, liked this book, but not the sequels. ( )