Wow. Great writing. I generally don't like shifting perspective stories, but each of the seven stories by the pilgrims was so different and held my attention, all for different reasons. I've ordered The End of Hyperion from the library and can't wait to start it.

Also hoping that this series will hold up through all four books. My experience with some fantasy series, even some good ones (looking at you, Tad Williams) has been that it's really difficult to sustain my interest.

*spoiler alert*

I especially liked the twist at the end, where the bad guys are suddenly maybe not quite so bad.

Looking forward to book 2! ( )

Fricking amazing. tbc ( )

Although well written overall, I feel cheated by the absence of a real ending. ( )

More a collection of similarly themed short stories than a actual novel, the story never really is addressed. Thus, despite the good writing, the unsatisfying structure ruins the work.
I might never get to the other books in the series. ( )

Hyperion successfully mashes up several different genres while all existing in the same universe, with only the occasional suspension of disbelief required. The Shrike also makes for a memorable monster, although it's not as large a part of the book as I thought it would be going into it.
The best part of Hyperion is it's melancholy view of the future. Interstellar travel is possible, but only at the price of many years of your life. You can see many generations of your family grow old and die after a single star voyage because of complications from time relativity. Planets are hooked up to a fabulously wealthy system of interconnected portals and trade, but often at the cost of environmental degradation, cultural submission, imperialist genocide of alien species, and on and on. The fate of humanity is to join together in a noisy, ignorant, rapacious Hegemony at the cost its soul. The start of the book suggests a terrifying apocalypse and the end makes you question if that apocalypse would really be that bad.
I'm giving it only four stars because there are a couple of plot points and turns of phrase made me roll my eyes, but overall I liked it. ( )

This type of science fiction is no longer my bag. The childish sex scenes and the dialog of the "poet" killed it for me after about 30% of the way through. Did not finish. ( )

I wanted to like this more. It has vast world building and complexity, and layers where religious imagery is played with, for example, an isolated community controlled by a cruciform parasite, and a pilgrimage to mysterious tombs by pilgrims who tell each other stories en route like a futuristic Canterbury Tales. It also reminds me in some ways of 'Dune'. The relationship between the man and his daughter who was aging backwards was moving.

Although I'm used to SF, there is a lot of mind boggling stuff in this book and its sequel. They also might not be a good read for people who don't like graphic violence. ( )

Started off extremely interesting and very engaging with the first few narratives but dropped off a bit towards the end. Still very good and am looking forward to reading the Fall of Hyperion. ( )

Amazing Sci fi Canterbury Tales with a fantastic timeless (haha) feel. Glad I finally finished it. ( )

Uneven, but a tour de force. I have a million questions, but mostly one: does it stand up to scrutiny now that the mysteries are revealed? ( )

Well, that's one way to spark an interest in Keats! ( )

this is the first Dan Simmons book i read and it was really good overall. but i will say the different stories in this book is a little all over the place and hard to rate properly id say it is way more good then bad. so i will break down what i think of each tale.

priest: this is my 2nd favorite. the priest was an interesting character who went through so much and learning about the people he was stuck with was really good and well told. i really dont have any complaints about this one at all.

soldier: this one i liked for the most part. the fight scenes were really fun and exciting to read and i have to say the detail on the violence throughout all the different stores are really graphic and dark wish is awesome. the character was good but the only thing about this story i was not crazy about was the weird sex scenes. but other wise i liked it.

poet: this one is a mixed bag for me. there is some good lore told here wish i really like and the character himself is an odd one. he has moments where he can be funny and amusing but other times obnoxious and annoying. also the whole plot about him trying to write a book i thought was ok but i was not absolutely loving it.

scholar: this one is my number 1 favorite. the concept is interesting but also really touching and engaging through out. i also have no complaints at all with this one as i feel like if this story was on its own it be consider one of the best novellas.

detective: this one is my least favorite. its not terrible, i think its middle of the road. now i do like some crime and mystery and the idea behind it is neat. but i just was not interested in the other characters and the story feels like it drags a little in the middle.

consul: at first this one was hard to follow and thought it was confusing but after finishing this part i understood it better and i can say it was decent.the characters are pretty good and it does bring some neat ideas but i do think they could have been explained a little easier as your reading.

overall i do really like this book and im glad to have finally read it after knowing about it and seeing the epic cover art. i hope to read the 2nd one soon and see how it continues ( )

The Priest's Tale - 3.5
The Soldier's Tale - 3
The Poet's Tale - 4
The Scholar's Tale - 3.5
The Detective's Tale - 2.5
The Consul's Tale - 3

The bits in between - 3.5

Overall - 3.5


Hyperion is a strange mixture of good and bad writing, captivating characters and flat characters; a story told throughout a series of short stories both intriguing and at times fairly poor. It was very enjoyable, and at no point did I feel the desire to stop reading, but there were plenty of moments provoking the rolling of eyes and the cringing of facial muscles.


However, there is plenty of merit here. Hyperion is truly epic in scope, boasting an incredible world that couldn't possibly be fully explored within a single book. Not many novels can claim to have covered so many genres in thier pages - It is a space opera, with many fantastical and science fiction elements, with hints of cyberpunk and noir, romance and historical fiction, horror and political intrigue.
It was perhaps wrong of me to expect all loose ends to be neatly tied by the end, and as I begun the last Tale I was frustrated at the realisation of an inevitable anticlimax; but I was surprised when after reading the final page I actually felt relatively satisfied with the books cliff-hanger conclusion; though I have no idea whether the 2nd book sets out to conclude the same story.


The problem I have with Hyperion is a problem that I often have with other highly acclaimed books, and that is that it just wasn't as good as it's claimed to be, nor is it as good as it could have been.
Dan Simmons ladels Hyperion with some wonderful description, but he also ladels too much description, some of which is actually very poor - some of the writing is really good, but some of it is just clunky.


Hyperion also contains something that I really HATE in novels, and that is action.
Yup - Action.


Let me explain:


When a person has a gun and they are going to shoot it, I would much prefer that the author would write just that. Not a paragraph-long description of the inner workings of the weapon as it unleashes a firework display of power and the distance it manages to travel before hitting it's target.
Similarly, when Character A is punching Character B, the sentence should read "Character A punched Character B" (in essence). Not: "Character A swung a left hook with incredible strength, with the aim of breaking Character B's nose - what he did not expect was for Character B to anticipate that and dodge horizontally, causing Character A's fist to miss Character B's jaw by three quarters of an inch, barely skimming the bristles of his chin."


Action is snappy. It is instantaneous. It works in the movies, but it doesn't work so well in books (IMO). The reader does not need every detail, nor does he/she want pages describing a chase scene that should have been over hundreds of adjectives ago.


Despite it's flaws though, Hyperion is a good book. It's not a great book, and it's not the greatest science fiction epic that ever graced literature, but it is worthy of acclaim. I am glad I have read it, and I intend on reading the second in the series: The Fall of Hyperion.


I actually read Canterbury Tales in preparation for Hyperion. Although I'm glad I read Chaucer's classic, it wasn't a necessary precursor. Dan Simmons pays homage in structure only. A more appropriate preparatory read would possibly have been the unfinished poems of John Keats of the same name as the Dan Simmons books (Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion). ( )

I like the Canterbury Tales aspect of the story (and the many other literary references) but didn't realize when I bought it that it wasn't a complete story on its own. Now I am forced to wait for the next book, The Fall of Hyperion, from my library to find out what happens!

The narrators of this audiobook did a good job, though I found Allyson Johnson's voice a bit annoying. Luckily, once she was the main narrator (for the Detective's Tale) I got used to it and it ceased to bother me. I liked the way each of the pilgrims to Hyperion had their own narrator, not just when telling their Tale but also during the "present" sections. It was a well done compromise between being a solo narration and being a full cast narration which fit the story perfectly. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the overarching plot as well as the individual stories of each character. While it didn't really end like I thought it would, It was still a very enjoyable read. ( )

This is an amazing book! The story is very unique and a great piece of sci-fi. Event if you don't like science fiction you may still enjoy this as it is not as hard as other stories. Definitely worth checking out! ( )

It is not clear and hard to read ( )

Well, that was a frustrating cliffhanger ending. That said, this is a fantastic hard sci-fi novel. It is organised and told like a futuristic Canterbury Tales, telling the stories of the 7 pilgrims as they make their pilgrimage to the God of Pain on Hyperion.

It's well written, engaging and fun. Though I do have some issues with the paradoxical inverse causality of the Time Tombs but that's a long story for a different format.

Overall, read it. You won't regret it. ( )

This book feels like a tabletop gaming session in the format of a novel. Every character also seems to be from a different genre of story. Both of these things are compliments. ( )

Strong, robust writing and a complex tale never let up through this book. It follows the classic format of a group of pilgrims each telling a story on the way to their goal. Their goal, alarmingly, is an ancient complex of caves where they expect to meet their deaths at the hands (figurative, see the cover art) of an all-powerful being that is reputed to be traveling backwards in time. Each of the seven stories is a harrowing history of that person's past and experience with the planet Hyperion, each story filling in detail about the tragic and baffling history of this mysterious planet.

I somehow missed hearing of this author and this book in my long life as a science fiction reader. It's a Hugo winner from 30 years back. Because of the intricacy and beauty of the story, I forgive it for violating my own personal pet peeve: it doesn't wrap up the end of the story. Normally I'd have thrown a fit over this; instead I placed an order at my local indy for the next three volumes in the series. ( )

Absolutely enthralling at times and frustrating at others. I really appreciate the various perspectives and writing styles throughout, but Simmons' obsession with writing awful sex scenes from really boring male perspectives took me out of it too often to be a 4.5 or 5 star. ( )

Absolutely enthralling at times and frustrating at others. I really appreciate the various perspectives and writing styles throughout, but Simmons' obsession with writing awful sex scenes from really boring male perspectives took me out of it too often to be a 4.5 or 5 star. ( )

Wow. That's one word to sum up this book.

I had been hearing great things about this book, so when I finally found it by chance on a 1-pound-sale in a bookshop in Oxford, I knew it was destiny and that I had to buy it.

Simply put, this book is flawless. The structure is great, telling 6 short-stories (or novellas, due to their extension) that open up a larger tapestry of a human culture in interstellar stagnation. The seven pilgrims in this book come from different places and each illuminates one aspect of this complex Web of humans. In the midst of it is the Shrike, the Lord of Pain, or some kind of death angel with a vaguely death-metalish aspect. If it sounds like the makings of bad 50's sci-fi, well, you're dead wrong. It makes for awesome stuff.

It's very hard to do what Simmons does in this book. His structure is carefully plotted so that the mysteries are slowly revealed, while at the same time, the stories themselves are some of the best I've read in any genre. After the first one, you'd think he can't top it, but he does, giving each of them their own flair and their own sadness or poignancy. The 'cruciform' story and Sol Weintraub's plight in particular struck me as the most heart-wrecking, though all of them held nuggets of brilliance.

The world-building is very good, deftly handled. The Hegemony is different enough from the other 'galactic utopias', like Iain M. Banks' Culture, while the science itself is approachable to any long-time reader or viewer of sci-fi (portals that seem to use wormholes, AIs, FTL drives). It's interesting that I thought of Banks, for while they are very different in tone and prose, the Consul's story reminded me a lot of some of the Culture novels that take place in "backwards" planets. I guess the utopias can only be revealed as not-so-shiny when you put them in contrast with something that feels more real.

The language, the poetic prose... Simmons really wowed me with this. There's no instance in this 800-page-or-so book that made me cringe or think it could have been written better, or paced better, or chosen a different turn of phrase. That right there is my biggest gripe with some of the other modern classics I've read. In this, Simmons is clearly a superior writer on a class of his own. Very few science-fiction writers can claim that, and very few of any other genre indeed. And while in this aspect there are better aestheticists like Gene Wolfe in The Book of the New Sun, Wolfe lacks in tight plotting (although somewhat intentionally) and Simmons really shines in that regard.

I'm currently reading The Fall of Hyperion, so I'll probably go back to this review later. The only minor gripe I had with this book is that it offered no conclusion, but given the intent of world-building behind it which clearly sets up the stage for the next book, I can forgive this. Let's hope the next book keeps up the quality, though I know the structure is very different. I just want to know what happens to those pilgrims. They seem so much like you and I... ( )

The world of Hyperion is isolated, dangerous, and full of mystery. It exists outside of “The Hegemony of Man”, which are the collection of planets connected by farcaster portals. This makes travel to Hyperion difficult as you will be subjected to significant time dilation.

Hyperion, on the eve of invasion, is the location of a final pilgrimage to the inexplicable Time Tombs. The Tombs are guarded by god-like entities referred to as The Shrike, who are said to grant the wishes of few, and confirmed to take the lives of many. The story is told in parts, with each pilgrim telling their own tale about why they are seeking the tombs.

Each of the Pilgrim’s stories has its own style, which makes for a compelling read that never outstays its welcome. If anything, each story leaves you wanting more. The author could have written an entire novel based around each chapter. This is also a credit to the characters, who all manage to be interesting, distinct, and fleshed out.

Overall, Hyperion is largely setup to a much larger story, but I don’t think this takes anything away from it. If anything, I appreciate that Simmons takes his time setting up his characters and conflicts. I highly recommend this book. ( )

Do you remember the Earth when you were young? I looked at my world with young eyes, but the Earth was younger too, more innocent and trusting. Now, I see my world with old, jaded eyes and the Earth looks back, older, jaded, and hurting. In just the 60 years since I was young, a fragment of a blink in geographic time, we have hurt our beautiful Planet beyond the point of healing, and rescue. All because of a species that values a meaningless medium of exchange that can't be held beyond our graves.

Now, project 7 centuries into the future. Old Earth is long destroyed in a plan by our future capitalists to force their sick expansion of humans into as many star systems and their planets as possible, destroying any indigent species standing in their way. If you possessed the means to stop them, even if it meant the loss of your own, and your loved ones' lives, even if it meant interstellar war, would you do it?

In a heartbeat. ( )