Hyperion - Dan Simmons

This book was a great read. It was an original execution of a well thought out story. The story begins with a group of people brought together to make a pilgrimage to the planet Hyperion. They include a scholar, a priest, a diplomat, a soldier, a private detective and a poet. The book starts with all of the characters together, and each tells their story about why they joined the pilgrimage to Hyperion, on their journey to the Time Tombs, home of the Shrike. Confused yet? Don't worry, this book lets everything fall into place at the end. Mr. Simmons has a really neat way of writing; he adapts seamlessly to whatever character he is thinking/writing as. I've noticed a lot of people do not like his level of detail, and although the novel can be a bit wordy at times I found that it wasn't that bad overall. Some notes about each of the tales, the first one, the tale of the Priest was very cool, and reminded me of those dwarves from Phantasm (the movie). Another great story was the tale of the soldier, it gives a pretty good idea of the war that is taking place in the background of the main story. The biggest problem I had with this book was the ending. Talk about cutting it off! Hyperion is continued in a sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, and it seems that Mr. Simmons had this idea all along. He gets the readers interested and then ends the story. I felt cheated, but I still got the sequel. I recommend this book for anyone that wants an original SF story, and a great read. Rating: **** (Added 1999.06.02)

The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons

This book is a sequel to Hyperion in the truest sense of the word. It picks up right where the last book left off, almost like the two books were one volume and separated into two. That's one of the things that bothered me about Hyperion: the ending was too abrupt, as if Mr. Simmons knew all along we would mindlessly buy the sequel. Which was fine by me, since Hyperion was such a great book. Fall starts up at a slow pace, which is expected, since it tries to bring you back up to speed with what happened in the previous book. Then it gets into the action (i.e. the contining adventures of the Shrike pilgrims in the Time Tombs). Mr. Simmons really likes his poetry, and in particular, John Keats. This is fine, but it gets annoying at times. Especially when every reference to poetry has a verse from Mr. Keats attached to it. I don't have a problem with adding verse into the body of a novel, but after the 20th time it starts to take away from the main story. And what is with the reborn Keats cybrid? He still maintains contact with the pilgrims even though Brawne Lamia has been cut off from his other persona halfway through the book. This is never explained, and I was quite disappointed at that. Two thirds of the way through the book things really start to slow down. Mr. Simmons bogs us down with unnecessary details of the Ouster invasion, how much pain people are in, how everything seems hopeless...and never gets back into the action. The book could have been cut down at least 150 pages by removing all of this. I was almost uninterested in the rest of the book and simply wanted to get it over with. It had an interesting and somewhat unexpected ending, although it didn't alleviate the problems I had with this book. I have to give Mr. Simmons credit: he had a great idea and successfully put it to paper in Hyperion. However, he ruined the series for me with The Fall of Hyperion. I know there are two more books in the series, but I couldn't be bothered. I doubt he explains what the Shrike is all about anyway. Read it only if you can't wait to get the rest of the story that was started with Hyperion. Rating: ** 1/2 (Added 1999.09.14)

The Green Futures of Tycho - William Sleator

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