Dan Simmons (1948–2026)

'Hyperion' is one of the SF Masterworks series that I somehow didn't get round to during my teenage years. Multiple friends have recommended it to me over the years, and I've enjoyed several of Simmons' other novels. However, both my experience of [b:Ilium|3973|Ilium (Ilium, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390894862l/3973._SY75_.jpg|3185401] & [b:Olympos|3972|Olympos (Ilium, #2)|Dan show more Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388216654l/3972._SY75_.jpg|1537178] and my friends' advice agree: Simmons has fantastic ideas but struggles to stick the landing. I was therefore pre-warned that the sequels to 'Hyperion' are not of equally high quality. That's especially disappointing because the novel sets up such a complicated, fascinating world full of mysteries and dangers, then ends on an absolute cliff-hanger. As I continued reading and noted how many pages remained, it became clear this would be the case. It frustrated me, as on its own merits 'Hyperion' would be a five star sci-fi novel with a brilliant structure.

It borrows from The Canterbury Tales (which I was forced to read at school and disliked) by setting a small cast of strangers on a pilgrimage and having them all tell a story from their life. Each story is a brilliant flight of imagination and together they cover so many overlapping and intersecting themes, including colonialism, nostalgia, artistic inspiration, war, religion, and the nature of time. While explaining how the character telling it ended up on a pilgrimage to Hyperion, successive tales paint a picture of instability and conflict between different groups of humans and artificial intelligences a few hundred years in the future. They also dart between genres, sometimes within one story. Noir mystery, cyberpunk, family tragedy, body horror, decadent drama, and political machinations are all juggled adeptly. There are some fantastic action scenes and genuinely frightening moments. Thinking back, it's astonishing that the narrative retains coherence, yet everything manages to revolve around the planet Hyperion and the deadly monster living there: the Shrike. It was perhaps a masterstroke to recount multiple terrifying encounters with the Shrike without explaining it at all.

Yet the final scene, in which the pilgrims approach the Time Tombs after watching a space battle that seemingly strands them on Hyperion, left me on tenterhooks to an annoying extent. I have so many questions and it's a shame that the answers aren't likely to be satisfactory. I'll read the sequels at some point, perhaps once libraries return again. 'Hyperion' is excellent, but the reader cannot really enjoy it as a standalone novel. show less

Like Frederik Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, this is a thriller whose plot is bounded by the historical record. In the Forsyth novel, we know the Jackal's plot is not going to succeed. Charles de Gaulle is not going to be assassinated. And here we know that our hero, Paha Sapa ("Black Hills" in Lakota) is not going to destroy Mount Rushmore.

This is not an alternate history. It is not a secret history in the style of Tim Powers with secret groups and motives of historical characters not show more those on record.

It is the sort of historical novel in which our hero careens through some iconic and important historic events or hears about them secondhand: the Battles of the Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.

In the first sentence, the ghost of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer enters Paha Sapa's mind. That historical figure, who gets several chapters of his own which range from erotic remembrances of his wife Libbie to a poignant observation that her life was wasted in dedication to his memory, infests Paha Sapa's head for decades. Paha Sapa has a peculiar psychic talent that allows him, upon touching someone, to know their personal history and future.

This runs him afoul of another historical figure, Crazy Horse, portrayed here unsympathetically, indeed likened to the Nazis in one passage. The ten year old Paha Sapa flees to his name sake to receive a sacred vision. There, on the Six Grandfathers, what we know as Mount Rushmore, he receives a vision that compels him, eventually, to plot the destruction of Gutzon Borglum's work.

The character of Borglum is one of the highlights here. Brilliant, manipulative and with secrets of his own, he works with Paha Sapa on the Rusmore project.

The story careens back and forth in time in Paha Sapa's life, the tension escalating in the final third. At novel's end, the story that begins with blood shed ends in sort of a reconciliation between white and Indian.

Simmons' novel does not subscribe to any of the false pieties regarding American Indians: peaceful, egalitarian, and wise stewards of the environment. Indeed, some of those notions are challenged.

It is a surprisingly suspenseful novel and will probably not only appeal to historical fiction fans (which I am not) as well as fans of historical fantasy. show less

This is a favorite I have to say. I read this all the way back in the 90's and was completely bowled over. How could I not be, I love classic lit. The writing top notch, and even though it's fairly long I breezed though it. I love the shift in style with each story, and he really does shift his style for each story. There are likeable and unlikeable characters. They are nuanced and change and feel alive. The various sights are unique and feel lived in. Most of the stories are referential and show more they feel like a love letter to the genre that they refer to. Highly recommended! show less

Hyperion is an enticingly original sci-fi story with parallels to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and to the life of John Keats. Allusions to the passion-indeed to the life force-of John Keats are seeded throughout the story in the most intricate manner. However, setting aside Simmons' background in English literature, Hyperion is a book that every science fiction lover should read. Enthrall your imagination while 7 pilgrims on a mission to visit the deadly Shrike relate their stories one-by-one. show more Simmons displays amazing creative talents as he endears each character (even the most annoying of them) to the fascinated readers. The turn of events is completely unexpected. Simmons keeps you guessing until the very end. Unfortunately, he doesn't end the story here, though. In order to find out what happens to the new found friends, the reader must buy the next book in the series: The Fall of Hyperion (which DOES finish the story). Despite the disappointment and frustration I felt at the end when I had to get my boyfriend to fly a copy of the sequel to me from half-way across the country, I understand the reason for Simmons' unsatisfying conclusion-the ending of the story IS another story. show less