There are few words that strike more fear in the hearts of Über-Intellectuals (as defined in my review of The Da Vinci Code, of all places) than the word “sequel”. Adored by Hollywood producers and publishing moguls alike for its low-risk, high profit profile, this extension of plot and character guarantees your presence for at least another act. Uber-Intellectuals, however, shun The Sequel for those same reasons; often rightfully so. If you can tell a story in one book, don’t tell it in two. Behold the general rule: The Sequel is not as good as the original. Yes, this encompasses the distant sequel, interquel, midquel, sidequel, parallel, prequel and caramel coated chocoquel. Every good rule is proven by its exception: The Empire Strikes Back, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Godfather II. But make no mistake, the basic tenet is that almost all sequels are best left on your neighbour’s doorstep like the flaming bags of dog feces that they are. The Sequel is often devoid of fresh characters, ideas and oxygen.Allow me to interject with two points: 1. This review is a sequel to my Hyperion review. 2. Dan Simmon’s Fall of Hyperion is likely only in the form of a sequel to Hyperion because of a publisher-imposed limit on page count. When deciding whether to set both this review and Fall of Hyperion ablaze in a small plastic sac, I urge you to keep those points in mind. My review of Hyperion was a poor attempt to echo its literary structure. Clearly I’m no Simmons, let alone a Chaucer, but it was fun and I achieved my stated goal to do it wrong. In strict accordance with the rule of sequels, this reviewquel will likely be subpar. I propose to construct my review of Fall of Hyperion in the same basic form as its subject. This will require four elements: a less obvious use of the frame story, a first-person narration in half of the story, the use of dreams and an ultimate sacrifice. Here we go.(The opening bit of Keats poetry)My quick eyes ran on From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault, Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light And diamond paved lustrous long arcades. Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion; His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels, And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire, That scared away the meek ethereal hours And made their dove wings tremble. On he flaredThe Less Obvious Overarching FrameAnother reviewer has proposed that the Hyperion duology may, and perhaps should, be read in reverse order. This suggestion merits consideration for the reasons described more fully in that review. It also begs the question: would we then care enough to go on to read Hyperion? You don’t lead with your chin, and in my view, while it is a great novel, Fall of Hyperion lacks the soul of the first book. I missed the emotional connection to the characters that was forged through the structure of Hyperion. Each story dragged by our ears into the character’s pain. I think that is why that book was so successful. It feels untouchable. In Fall of Hyperion, however, we are kept at arms length from the hearts of Sol, the Consul, and the others. More than that, we learn about their journey through the dreams of a Cylon. Sorry a Cybrid. We are too many steps removed. Even if the overarching plot may have been even more engaging than the first book, readers will no doubt come away feeling distant. “It was great, I loved it, but I don’t know, something is missing.” A Dream: Simmons Shrikes Me(Something is stabbing me in the gut. I am impaled by a large pen. Dan Simmons’ pen.) I am not worthy to write the post-it note that Dan Simmons uses to remind himself to take his daily vitamins, but I am going to offer a few critiques here. The use of the word “Technocore” for the sentient artificial intelligences identifies this novel as a child of the 1980s. There’s just no other way to say it. The discussions with Ummon, while very enlightening, read like tea leaves. If you want to locate them in your copy of the book, search for the clump of pages written in some form of whack robot poetry code that relies extensively on backslashes. There are very few parts of the Hyperion duology that I don’t really like and Kwatz if this isn’t one of them. Finally, I know this isn’t Simmons’ doing but I was also shocked at how dismal the Shrike looks on the cover art. Is that a twelve-year old girl with bad posture in a Halloween Shrike costume? I wouldn’t give that thing the time of day let alone a baby. Sci-fi covers…sigh…Semi-reliable narrativeAs humans and as a society we want to think that humanity generally does good and will continue to do so, presumably even 700 years into the future. In the Hyperion universe, the Hegemony of Man is the authority that governs humanity’s settled worlds, including those in the Web (connected by farcasters) and those simply in the Protectorate, such as Hyperion. The Hyperion duology is essentially told from the perspective of members of the Web and Hegemony. They don’t see like bad people. Most of the actions they take are for the good of the people of the Hegemony. There’s also the All Thing, a real-time participatory democracy. The enemies of the Hegemony, the Ousters, are seen as “barbarians”. But the actions of the Hegemony reveal it for what it is: a brutal dictatorship. Worlds are dragged into the Web in order to exploit their resources. The Ousters are not necessarily as they are described to us. While this book is not laid out as an unreliable first-person narration, it smacks of that. And I love that.A Dream: I Am Ouster(My iPod tells me what to do. I look behind me. I have wings. I fly away.) A future ruled by artificial intelligence as a result of a technological singularity and recursive self improvement is a common theme in sci-fi. Iain Banks’ Minds and Simmons’ Technocore are good examples. Both Banks and Simmons play on the motivations of such non-organic sentient life forms, and have fun with our inherent discomfort with placing our faith in them. From my perspective, the technological singularity theory makes a lot of sense and seems likely. I do, however, very much enjoy that Simmons offers us alternatives to AI rule.Martin Silenus ReduxMartin continues to be a central point of enjoyment in this novel. In my Hyperion review I promised to reveal my favourite Silenus line. Unfortunately I was an unreliable narrator. But I’ll give you a hint: it’s the first thing he says when Brawne wakes him up from his sleep. Return to the Less Obvious Overarching FrameI enjoyed Fall of Hyperion. A lot. The future of politics, military tactics that take into account the issues of space travel, difficult choices galore, and some answers to interesting questions. I want to give it five stars but I am forced to compare it to Hyperion and for the foregoing reasons, four stars is clearly a better fit. If anyone out there experiments with reading the duology in reverse, I’d love to hear how you felt. The Ultimate SacrificeIt was great, I loved it, but I don’t know, something is missing.
"Nurse, this patient’s chart is very confusing.”“Which patient, Doctor?”“Uh..Mr. Kemper. He’s the one in the vegetative state.”“Oh, that’s a very sad and odd case.”“According to the patient history, he was admitted a few weeks ago with cerebrospinal fluid leaking from his nose and ears, but it seemed like he should recover. But yesterday he was brought in again, barely conscious and then he lapsed into a coma. The really odd thing is that I see no signs of injury or disease.”“That’s right, Doctor. It was a book that did this to Mr. Kemper.”“A book? How is that possible?”“From what we can figure out, the first incident occured after he read Hyperion by a writer named Dan Simmons. I guess it’s one of those sci-fi books and apparently the story is quite elaborate. Anyhow, Mr. Kemper had read Simmons before and knew he likes to put a lot of big ideas in his books. But this time, apparently Simmons broke into his house and managed to directly implant much of the book directly into Mr. Kemper’s brain via some kind of crude funnel device.”“I find that highly unlikely, Nurse.”“Most of us did, Doctor. But Mr. Kemper kept insisting that Simmons had some kind of grudge against him. He even had a note he said Simmons had left that said something like ‘Don’t you ever learn? If you keep reading my books, I’ll end you someday.’”“Assuming that I believed this story, I guess that Kemper’s current state tells us that he didn’t heed the warning?”“Apparently not, Doctor. His wife said she found him having convulsions and leaking brain matter out his nose and ears again. A copy of the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion was on the floor nearby.”“I can’t believe that reading a silly sci-fi book could turn an healthy man into a turnip, Nurse.”“Well, when they brought Kemper in, he was semiconscious and muttering. Someone wrote it down. Let see, he kept repeating words and phrases like: Shrike, Time Tombs, the Core, God, uh…no, two gods actually, farcasters, Ousters, religion, pope, death wand, space battles, interplanetary trees, old Earth, AI, mega sphere, data sphere, The Canterbury Tales, poetry, John Keats, Tree of Thorns, and Lord of Pain.”“Jesus! What does all that mean?”“Someone looked it up on the web and all of that is actually in the book.”“That poor bastard. No wonder his gray matter is fried. No one could absorb all that without permanent damage.”“Yes, I’d think that book should have some kind of warning sticker or something on it.”“One thing I still don’t understand, Nurse. If Kemper knew that this book would probably do this to him, why did he still read it?”“I guess he had told several people that Hyperion was just so good that he had to know how it ended, even if it killed him.”***************************************I think the word ‘epic’ was invented to describe this book.What Simmons began in Hyperion finishes here with a story so sprawling and massive that it defies description. In the far future, humanity has spread to the stars, and maintains a web of worlds via ‘farcasters’. (Think Stargates.) On the planet Hyperion, mysterious tombs have been moving backwards in time and are guarded by the deadly Shrike.Seven people were sent to Hyperion on a ‘pilgrimage’ that was almost certainly a suicide mission, but the Ousters, a segment of humanity evolving differently after centuries spent in deep space, are about to invade. The artificial intelligences of the Core that humanity depends on for predictions of future events and management of the farcaster system can’t tell what’s coming with an unknown like the Shrike and Hyperion in play.Battles rage across space and time and the virtual reality of the data sphere as varying interests with competing agendas maneuver and betray each other as the pilgrims on Hyperion struggle to survive and finally uncover the secrets of the Shrike. But the real reasons behind the war and it’s ultimate goal are bigger and more sinister than anyone involved can imagine.I can’t say enough good things about the story told in these first two Hyperion books. This is sci-fi at it’s best with a massive story crammed with big unique ideas and believable characters you care about. Any one of the pieces could have made a helluva book, but it takes a talent like Simmons to pull all of it together into one coherent story.
What do You think about The Fall Of Hyperion (1995)?
The Fall of Hyperion is a sequel. I swear. It says so right there on the cover of my mass market paperback, right above the cheesy artist’s rendering of Sol Weintraub presenting Rachel to a rather unimpressive Shrike. But I’ll tell you, it sure doesn’t feel like a sequel. It feels more like the first book, the main book, of a series, and it makes Hyperion feel like a prequel -- a superior prequel, but a prequel nonetheless. And I really wish I had read The Fall of Hyperion before I read its predecessor. I think I would have liked it more. I did like it, though, despite my negative tone. I even loved some parts of it. The political machinations of Meina Gladstone, the in-fighting between the AIs (Stables, Volatiles and Ultimates), the early battles of Kassad and Moneta, the conversations with Ummon, all of these elements were fascinating, and the radical excision of the Core from all human affairs and the subsequent cost of victory blew my mind. In fact, this latter element may have been my favourite moment in either of the first two installments of Simmons' Cantos.But these elements don't entirely mitigate my disappointment. I loved the characters from the first book; those who made the Pilgrimage to the Shrike had background stories so rich in detail, emotion, thrills, you name it, that their shift to banal plot devices, players present only to move the action along, disappointed me deeply.I don't think I'd feel that way, though, if I'd met them in The Fall of Hyperion first. If Simmons had dropped me into the middle of the war between the Hegemony, the Ousters and the Core, if he'd thrown me into the midst of the Time Tombs, if he'd introduced me to the Shrike and the Keats persona and the Pilgrims -- without the baggage of what got them there -- I think I would have cruised through The Fall of Hyperion and loved it with fervor. Then I would have hungered to go back and find out what brought the Pilgrims to Hyperion, and I would have been thrilled by a prequel that was even better than the original. Sadly, there's no going back now. But if you are someone who's planning to read these books for the first time I beg you to ignore the official order and start with The Fall of Hyperion. I am convinced you'll get more out of it if you've got nothing to compare it to and a healthy sense of wonder and confusion about what you are reading.I'm really not sure I should continue reading the Cantos, but the temptation of finally understanding the purpose of the Shrike may be too tantalizing to ignore.
—Brad
There are some novels which you will take with you wherever you go; they set the bar so high that deep down you know you may never come across something that will be that great again and you know you can never read it again for the first time. These books have characters that are so realized that you feel like you have always known them and that you actually care what happens to them.I really can't write the review I want without spoiling anything, so I am just going to say that I was there with the pilgrims every hard step of the way and I did not want the journey to end. Saul Weintraub's story really touched me, as a new father of a beautiful girl, Saul's choice resonated very deeply. Meina Gladstone is a hero and her story's end was nothing short of epic. There were twists and turns that I never saw coming and a plot so tightly woven you sometimes wonder how one person imagined it all.There is a lot of "read Hyperion and stop there" around in review land and I really can not see why that is the case. While Hyperion is a masterpiece in it's own right, I believe that the two combined are mindblowing. Once again I listened to another Victor Bevine narrated audiobook, this guy is a master reader. The scenes involving Rachel and Saul are given so much depth by this fantastic reader as are the scenes of Joseph Severn with Leigh Hunt in Rome. I can not recommend this cantos enough. When people say that Science Fiction can't be serious literature I really wonder how they can deny novels of this quality. But that's fine let them have their literature, I will have the Hyperion Cantos any day.
—Tim
Nutshell: how-to manual that recommends radical luddite social restructuring in order to defeat slave uprising.Abandons chaucerian structure of first installment and instead alternates between first-person and third person bits. Opening places narration at center of setting (barf) by popping first person narrator adjacent to president. This centralizing of narration is raised to an affirmative law of science fiction here, via repeated quotation of Yeats, and through the proclamation that “right now we have an obligation to be where things are happening” (327).Love that Simmons catches one of the stupidities of modern science fiction: “Even the spate of recent war [films] showed great fleets battling it out at distances two ground soldiers would find claustrophobic, ships ramming and firing and burning like Greek triremes packed into the straits of Artemisium” (73), which nicely captures how Star Wars and Star Trek are just Napoleonic warfare with rayguns. It’s not like we see a well-described alternative in this story, though when stellar distances regarding combat are noted, it’s usually presented in terms of AU, so the distinction is implicit.We are given a neo-Marinetti, who avers that “warfare is on the threshold of becoming an art form” (105). Not sure what the big deal about the Shrike has been the whole time. The resolution of that strand is fairly silly. Conceptually, it’s annoying: apparently it’s part of a far future contest between humans and AIs sent back in time to find something for the human end of the conflict. It’s all very nebulous and juvenile.As though I weren’t annoyed enough by the ruling class protagonist, when that protagonist receives perspectival chapters, they are coy, such as when “All she had to do to save a hundred billion lives was return to the Senate floor, reveal three decades of deception and duplicity” (153), but without informing the reader what the deception and duplicity happen to be. This is simply unpardonable faux suspense. Why use the rhetorical sleight of popping the narration on the president of the galaxy, and then give ersatz access? It’s just not effective.Amusing moment when lyrical computer machine explains the entire macroplot, noting that “we constructed your civilization carefully so that like hamsters in a cage like Buddhist prayer wheels each time you turn your little wheels of thought our purposes are served” (282), which is just taking Douglas Adams and playing him straight (Earth-as-computer was destroyed both times, NB).Still a very cool setting overall, packed with plenty of more crap about poet Keats. Am pleased to have my hypothesis confirmed that AIs as part of story will produce an AI rebellion.Recommended for those rich in resurrection insurance, readers who desire a cleansing fire when the forest has been stunted and allowed to grow diseased by overplanning, and people who scribble graffiti on outhouse walls.
—sologdin
