Hyperion is not what you would expect if the only Dan Simmons you’ve read is The Terror...
Was it intended for the review to cut off so abruptly at the end?
Yes, it sure was.
Great review Tom.
When I first found Hyperion in a book store in 1991, I read it, and immediately went to the store and bought the sequel. Meanwhile, I went home the next weekend, and gave the first book to my brother and said, here, you have to read this.
He read the book, and was calling me, when was I going to get the sequel to him? It was agony!
By the time I met him a month or two later, I gave him the sequel, and he didn’t take it. He said nope, I don’t need it. The first book is perfect the way it is. When it ends so abruptly, I didn’t realize this, but the story of these 6 pilgrims is over. The story was about their journey here, not what happens when they finally get there, so I don’t need to read the sequel.
It’s been many years since I’ve read Hyperion, but I’ve at this moment only got less than 100 pages left to read of The Terror, so don’t spoil me, you bastard!
…I’ll reply when I’ve finished the last pages…
Ooh, I gave up on The Terror long before the end. Dreadful schlock.
Heh, I haven’t read the two in a long time and couldn’t recall if the first book just dropped dead or not. Started the second one right away.
Glad you somewhat liked it Tom, have you read the sequel yet? Very nice review, I admire your prose greatly.
The only reason I haven’t read the sequel yet is because I wanted to finish this write-up first. I am literally starting the sequel (i.e. rest of the frickin’ book!) today.
-Tom
It took me a couple of seconds to work out why the review ended like that.
Good job.
I thought the arcs more or less came full circle, and ended well, with them walking off like that.
I vaguely recall what happens next, and will get re-read the sequels soon, but iirc the next books aren’t really sequels in the pure sense of the word, and don’t form a complete trilogy, like how LoTR does.
They’re more like linked stories (very linked) in the same universe.
I mean, the main protagonist of the entire thing isn’t even born or mentioned in Hyperion.
Do not reveal the spoiler.
I loved The Terror, personally. My favorite book of his by a long shot. But I’m a sucker for polar horror, and found the mundane details of the expedition fascinating as well.
He’s done a bunch of different genres but his roots are in horror, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that he’s good at gore. Given your reaction to The Terror I have no idea if you would like any of those earlier books, but if you wanted to try, I think his best pure horror is Carrion Comfort.
PS: He didn’t invent the term “The All Thing” : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing
Hyperion is a brilliant book and Simmons can be a great writer. I really enjoyed the review.
One thing I like about Simmons’ books as that many of them are inspired by some underlying literature or history. Hyperion owes much to Chaucer and Canterbury Tales. Ilium is ostensibly about The Iliad but heavily influenced by Shakespeare and Proust. Two robots discussing In Search of Lost Time and the sonnets sounds like a strange way to tell an SF story, but it works beautifully.
In his non-sf oeuvre, he wrote Drood, a novel about a supernatural super villain in Victorian London. That book introduced me to the novels of Wilkie Collins. I loved Drood, but can see why others might not. A section of Drood deals with Collins and Charles Dickens collaborating on a play about the lost Franklin expedition, which led to The Terror. The idea of a supernatural beast in The Terror was probably the genesis of his next novel, The Abominable, ostensively about the Everest expeditions of the early 20th century. And there’s a clear line from Drood to The Fifth Heart, where Simmons delves into the Holmes/Moriarity story.
I like them all, including The Terror. His only genuinely bad book, IMO, is Flashback, which is bad because it is so contaminated by his regrettably toxic politics that it is impossible to read without becoming sick and enraged. So, there’s that. Sigh.
Great review! I loved Hyperion as I was reading it, but I approached the end with a growing sense of confusion and dread. In fact, I didn’t really enjoy the Consul’s story on first read because I was irritated the book was telling me about a seemingly-irrelevant “young love” story instead of resolving any of its outstanding mysteries. To say I was miffed when I got to the end with nothing resolved would be something of an understatement.
“Fall” does a reasonable (though not perfect) job of wrapping things up, albeit with a far more conventional narrative structure. In retrospect, though, as much as I like all four books (and mind you, Endymion is a completely separate duology), I feel like it never tops the priest’s story at the very beginning. It’s rare I retain a lot from my pleasure reads in the long term, but the twisting sense of existential dread and horror that story manages to evoke is not something I’ve ever forgotten.
It’s a crying shame that a little over a decade later Simmons went crazy and started writing right wing islamaphobic rants disguised as sci fi.
A setting where all the weird dumb shit the more militant side of the right wing is afraid of actually came to pass could be interesting to explore if the author weren’t convinced it was merely a prescient glimpse of our actual coming future, but it sure didn’t look like Flashback was that book.
Totally agree.
Also, too, I forgot about Black Hills, another fine book which mixes history and the supernatural.
That’s sad to hear. Is this statement about Flashback as well?
For me, Flashback is the only one of his major books where this comes through. But his web site is, well, quite bad. A good deal of it likely stems from defensiveness about the reaction to that book, but there’s no doubt about his political views.
Off topic, but topical: I think I’ve learned not to try to learn too much about writers of good books, because I’m always disappointed. I have loved Mark Helprin’s books since I first picked up Winter’s Tale. He’s a brilliant writer who writes novels about the importance of beauty and love and courage and risk and sadness. But apparently he’s also much farther to the right than I would have guessed. Now I read his books with suspicion, which makes me sad.
Yeah, I was shocked when Flashback came out. I can’t think of a single other thing of his I’ve read that really even touched on politics, much less revealed a heavily conservative bent.
In the review “archologies” should be “arcologies” in your quote.
Hey awesome, something Tom reviewed that I’ve actually read/seen/played, this is a rare treat! Just read the first two books last year and I really enjoyed them. I think the climax in Fall of Hyperion goes a little off the rails but certainly nothing worse than most other books. Endings are hard.
Unfortunately I don’t have controversial opinions to argue about. I too loved the priest’s story best of all and was totally sucked in by it. I loved the underlying horror of the cruciform - what if you were immortal, with each death just returning you but taking away a part of you until ultimately you’re just an idiot meatbag going through the motions?
I’ve been avoiding the second set of two books, though as I recall @Rock8man recommends them highly. But I resist kind of for the same reason his brother didn’t read Fall: I like where those two books left things, and if the next books don’t live up to that level maybe I just don’t need to bother. I think of the gradual decline in quality of the Dune books as an example - but man, that first book was great.
Haven’t read any other of the author’s work, and I wasn’t intrigued enough by the premise of The Terror to watch. Isn’t there a horror story he wrote based on Indian folklore that most people like?
Song of Kali. It didn’t do that much for me TBH.