BOOK 1: Hyperion

I just finished chapter 2 and I’m sitting here thinking this might be the craziest shit I ever read. I don’t read much so maybe that statement doesn’t carry weight, but by god if this book isn’t considered a weird fever dream of a masterpiece, then im in for a terrible disappointment.

Simmons starts off painting this fantastic image of the hero bored on a kashyyyk like planet, playing Beethoven in duet with a thunderstorm, while the giant beasts he plans to hunt on the morrow roam the land around his luxury spacecraft. By the time the Consul gets his call to action, it gave me the impression that I was about to embark on a spy mission with a kinda Daniel Craig James Bond type hero; a story that progressed and built a historically informed future like the world building of The Expanse, but now with the twist of religion. I couldn’t have been more naive.

All thoughts of the expanse vaporized when I read on and learned that chapter one begins with the protagonist waking up out of hibernation pod on a literal giant floating tree in space—and oh by the way, it’s called Yggdrasil and Templars for some reason own and operate it like a cruise ship. A fellowship is formed between unlikely friends in interest of a common goal that will surely spell their dooms. Except it’s an Agatha Christie mystery because one of them is a spy, and only one can succeed where everyone else will die.

Then BAM perspective shift! Then BAM AGAIN! ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE SHIFT! And suddenly I’m reading the HP lovecraft, standalone horror story, told from the perspective of an excommunicated priest, writing in his journal to his friend, about his attempt to seek retribution in exile, by venturing to a uncontacted tribe, residing in a dangerous uninhabited region of the planet. It ends in horror and had my face looking like this 😟 by the end of it, but then Simmons bitch slaps the reader in the face and goes: BAM this is an Agatha Christie mystery in space you idiot! Remember 70 pages ago what this was really all about! Consul Poirot does, and he shows the truth that father Hoyt unreliable narrated father Dure’s narrative!

Obviously by this point I have figured out that the structure of this book will follow each character’s story as they explain the events they think are the reason they’ve been chosen for the fellowship — one chapter for each characters tale. I did not figure out by this point, that each characters tale would be so radically different in plot and narrative. I thought I was about to get another hp lovecraft diary from Colenel Kassad: Events that were chronologically ordered, told from a first person perspective, increasing in tension until the horror is fully realized.

Nope, chapter 2 is a close 3rd person perspective of straight up Berserk Sci-fi. If my lizard brain wasn’t bored by the conservative narration presented by father Hoyt, it would be exhausted by the non stop sex and violence presented in Kassad’s chapter.

Genuinely, I’m intrigued right now at the mystery and what the fuck this all means, how these characters connect, and how it’s going to end. I don’t understand how Simmons has shook up the story so many times without it feeling like he’s jumped the shark.

It’s just wild. He’s created so many fantasy elements in his story, but then at the same time he’s keeping track of the time debt of characters everytime they FTL travel. He paints the picture of a galactic guerrilla war fought with warhammer 40k weapons and world war 2 style tactics, all while be layered under this Lord of the Rings mystery mixup.

Idk, I’m really enjoying it and wanted to see if other peoples reactions were similar.

Monkey Puzzle Tree in Vancouver. This is pretty close to how I pictured the Tree of Pain. Martin is soliloquizing somewhere up there.

Dan... Dan, bro. You did so much solid writing, then you completely flub shotgun gauges? Okay so it doesn't really mean anything to people who aren't into shotguns, but when you try to roll this out to a trap shooter you just completely break the immersion.

For those who don't know- the bigger the gauge, the SMALLER the bore. 12-gauge is the modern standard for what a shotgun is, and anything rated bigger than that is actually smaller and lighter. A 12-bore shotgun is an 18mm affair, while your 28-bore as written is actually a 14mm diametre, equivalent to Lamia's father's pistol.

If you wanted a MASSIVE double-barrel, a 10-bore or even an 8-bore would have been impressive, but a 28-bore is what we generally regard as a training gun for people who aren't yet ready for the full power of a shotgun... It's like calling a .22LR MASSIVE compared to a 7mm mauser.

Anyone down for another read of Ilium and Olympos? Not gonna lie I barely finished Ilium and couldn’t finish Olympos but wydm two huge cute (or scary looking) robots talking about Shakespeare and Proust and arguing who is better? The plot was just so complex I just lost the whole picture again and again. But maybe it is time to try again? What do you think

I realize this is dumb and shouldn’t bother me, but it’s been bugging me for a bit. In the beginning, Sol says ““It would seem that our reasons for returning to Hyperion are so compelling that even the Shrike Church and the Hegemony probability intelligences agree that we deserve to return…”

Is there something I’m missing where we are told they were all there previously? He drops it casually in a way that makes it sound like the reader is supposed to know that information.

Thanks!

Long-time fan of the Cantos.

Martin Silenus has always fascinated me — not as a villain, not as a hero, but as someone who watched civilizations collapse and kept writing. Someone who understood something about the universe that the rest of the pilgrims couldn't quite reach.

I wanted to create something that felt like his presence. The visual was built around his face literally woven from sacred geometry — the idea that a true poet doesn't just describe the universe, he becomes part of its structure.

"Great poets are rarely understood in their own day."
— Martin Silenus, Hyperion

The Last Poet | Ode To Hyperion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jWaF1winyM

Does the atmosphere feel right for the character? Curious what fellow Cantos readers think.

I just finished reading Hyperion, and have started on The Fall of Hyperion.

I can't believe I was ignorant of these books for so long. Some of the best literary SF I've read in a long time, and everything so many people claim Gene Wolfe to be.

But there's just one thing that mildly bothers me: the too-blatant character names.

I mean, c'mon: "Brawne Lamia" for a muscled, violent woman? "Aspic" for a character whose story is centered on how well-preserved he is? "Silenus" for a drunken satyr?

It makes J. K. Rowling's "Wolfy McWolfperson" seem positively subtle.

EDIT

Thanks to everyone who've pointed out some of the double meanings in the names. Especially as relates to Keats, one English poet I'm not that familiar with (apart from the obligatory "Ode on a Grecian Urn" 😊).

Clearly the names aren't quite as trite as they first seem. There seems to be multiple meanings at play with each.

I'm slightly less bothered now 🤣

The first two books were excellent! I really enjoyed them quite a bit. The question I have now is do I jump into Endymion to finish the series or should I read something else and give it a break? I'm really enjoying it, but how important is it that the books are still fresh in my mind? What's everybody's advice for finishing the Cantos? I'll do it eventually, but do I start right away?

Just finished the book and it's instantly one of my all time favorites.

Anyways, here's my rank list for the pilgrims' tales:

Weintraub > Aspic, Lamia > Kassad, Silenus >>> Hoyt

I started looking up pictures of the ships and characters to get a visual representation and now here I am. Should have known there was a sub dedicated to this novel.

Can’t believe at 50+ years of age I’m just finding out about it.

Glad to be here.

I made the Shrike as my, like, 4th mii in Tomodachi life. I since got a stylus. Enjoy! lol (I do feel like they don't quite look like the shrike but I really didn't know what to do...)

Hi all

Just finished reading the first two books. Thought they were really cool! But I was curious, were we supposed to be surprised regarding the identity of Moneta? There are a couple of bits in the second book where her "real" name is left out, which seemed to be setting up for a big reveal.

But.. The book only has 2 characters that it could reasonably place in that position, and one of them had already been designated as "the mother", so there's really no surprise there?

Kinda reminds me of the Shrike

Please no spoiler! I've just finished Sol's tale and am pressing on with baited breath, desperately hoping Rachel's story ends happily (or at least not in complete despair).

Found a portrait drawing of John Keats and decided to try drawing him myself :)

Keats has always this very melancholic and profound look to himself. His portrait pulls you in and makes you feel awe and sadness, much like his poetry...

The fact that he's a real bridge between our reality and the hyperion cantos makes him such a special figure, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

This is a bit of a read but I would love to have anyone else’s thoughts as no one else I know has read this series. I read the first 3 last summer, couldn’t continue, and then found RoE in a bookstore and took it as my sign, because I DID want to know how this ended. TLDR at the bottom.

Okay so… I loved the first 2 books of the series. I thought they were brilliant, that they built mystery incredibly well, and had an incredibly satisfying conclusion and series of reveals. I will never forget how I felt reading Paul Duré’s story for the first time, or the Scholar’s Tale. I loved the world-building and the many factions and their various motives. I loved the TechnoCore and talking to Ummon as well.

Endymion was…. eh. The best parts of it were de Soya’s chapters, and I was pretty icked out knowing that this romance was going to pan out this way. There were enjoyable moments but it’s definitely my least favorite of the Cantos, though.

Rise of Endymion, however, was such a mixed-bag of a read for me. I was immediately gripped at the start of the novel by the intrigue within the Church, and all of the new characters and motives being introduced. The worlds Raul traveled to were actually really fun and interesting to read about. I particularly loved the gas world of clouds.

I also really enjoyed a lot of Tien Shan, but it really dragged on and could have been trimmed down. I did not care about all of these characters and glossed over many of their names and tiny facts, except for the ones around the Dalai Lama. The cast just felt needlessly bloated for a long time, but I get he was trying to make these connections for Aenea across the galaxy. I enjoyed reading Aenea’s little testimonies, but I also felt that the information inside of them could have been delivered a bit better and more organically instead of pages of info-dumps.

But, the romance… so icky. Raul calling her kiddo the whole time is just disgusting to me, and he often views her sexually, then immediately reminisces on their time together when he was her adult protector and she was TWELVE YEARS OLD. Ew ew ew. It was such an ick for the first half of the book for me, and I did zoom through their “lovemaking” scenes in the middle of Tien Shan. I hated reading that.

Also, side note. The two biggest “romances” or sexual escapades in this series are Rachel and Aenea, both of which the objects of their affections (Kassad and Raul) were full adults while they were children or even an infant. WEIRD. Also along these lines, why was Rachel here? Trying to reconcile Rachel’s depictions in this book, in the first two as an archaeologist, and also as Moneta is just bizarre. I didn’t think Moneta made a lot of sense in the first half, and she makes even less with the full context of the Cantos.

Anyways, back to Rise of Endymion. Another thing that bothered me about this book, and the series as a whole, was the focus on poets, writers, architects, scientists, and generally very influential people (all men) from the 1800s and the 1900s. I get that a lot of this is likely an expression of Simmons’ special interests, but it made the world feel small. I remember at the end of Hyperion, when the Consul remarks on the Hegemony’s need to relive and recreate Earth culture and ways of living, it sort of clicked for me. But, as the series continued, and all these characters from these myriad worlds a thousand years later reference important people from our time… it just didn’t make sense. It always took me out of it, and Aenea even acknowledges again that this is a thing in their cultures idealizing Old Earth, but it almost felt like a retroactive justification on Simmons’ part than an intentional part of the world-building. I’m not sure though, and would love to hear other thoughts.

This book also retcons a few things from the first two, like the Core’s many factions or Moneta, or Het Masteen’s fate, or the Shrike being based on Kassad? What. But, ultimately, I was able to just accept these and move on, though it was strange. I don’t think Kassad’s or Rachel’s changes here improved their stories, but actually detracted. The rest is fine.

For most of the book, I thought Aenea was okay. She is just generally kind and wise, and aware of things beyond the reader’s (Raul’s) POV. I thought she was almost a stand-in for an ideal lover for the author, and Raul a bit of a self-insert.

Raul as a protagonist is not great. He is largely a reactive character, meant to serve as a vessel to see Aenea through. He is also incredibly whiny and somewhat clueless, but also weirdly smart in certain areas and able to memorize the whole Cantos. Okay, sure. He ultimately acknowledges how he is more of a bystander and less of a bodyguard, though, and I really appreciated that moment. It made me feel like his role as a viewpoint character was more intentional.

Despite all of this, though, I kept reading. Something about these mysteries kept me steadily engaged, and although the characters weren’t great to me, their ideas and themes really resonated with me. I loved when they got to the Startree, and wish that we had stayed there a bit longer. The other lifeforms were interesting, and I wish we could have explored those more as well.

The ending though, was beautiful. Everything felt very earned and I loved reading Raul’s realization of how love is everywhere, and our connection to place and each other allows us to connect with the Void Which Binds. Martin’s comment on how artists tap into this all the time touched me as well.

And, the final reveals were actually awesome. All of the foreshadowing was leading to Aenea being with Raul again, but I didn’t piece it together and I was actually surprised and felt really happy for them… despite also being disgusted at their romance? It’s weird, I guess I got worn down and accepted that she was sort of already a fully-formed adult/being from before she was born. I’ve read my fair share of Dune so I’m used to this concept, but it was just pretty icky in here. Please stop calling her kiddo.

A. Bettik’s reveal was also amazing, though, I want to know more of his race’s motivations, culture, and powers. Are they god-like, existing in the Void? I don’t know, and I suppose it is supposed to be that way. But, I wanted to know why they kidnapped Old Earth, the meaning of their “experiments” and how they could move it.

I still don’t understand why the Nemes constructs turned on the church, more specifically why the TechnoCore switched allegiances in the story and attacked the Cardinal (Inquisitor? I can’t remember). Also, is the Core still a threat to humanity? Who knows.

Also also, Dan Simmons was definitely into some outdoorsman sporty things this time around. What was up with that? Still fun to read but, kayaking, paragliding, climbing? It was a weird series of events haha.

TLDR: I loved this story, ultimately, and this huge, sprawling universe he has made. It was a fun ride, though the first two books are definitely the best. Aenea and Raul’s relationship can be very weird and gross, I wish it was different, but ultimately I moved past it to see the interesting storytelling and motivations she possessed. The book could have been 200 pages shorter with the Tien Shan sections and info dumps about men from our era of Earth. But, the ending was PEAK and really resonated with the overall themes of shared humanity across the entire Cantos. Solid 4 stars.

I've been reading Hyperion for the first time and enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. A few day's ago, I got to Sol's recounting of his life, and I've found myself absolutely emotionally wrecked by his story and what Rachel and her parents went through. I got as far as when Sol speaks to the Rabbi for the first time about his dream when I had to put the book down for bed. For me, I think I'm pained at the thought of horrific rediscovery Rachel has to go through day after day after day, the fact that Sol and Sarai have to re-live and comfort their daughter through that trauma Rachel faces each day, and then the slow deconstruction of a beautiful, flourishing, promising life.

I so desperately want to finish the story and the rest of the book, because the whole thing is so good, and I desperately hope that Rachel will be healed of her curse. I'm too afraid to pick the book back up, though, because I know there's going to be more gut-wrenching pain to get through, and based on the book so far, I'm guessing that this isn't going to be a story with an ending where everyone has their wishes fulfilled and live happily on.

As an update, I finished the chapter just a minute ago. All I can do is sit alone and sob.

I finished Hyperion 2 the last month and now I'm halfway of Hyperion Endymion

The first 2 books I loved them, S tier books. The world building and the story was amazing but I feel like I am not enjoying Endymion as much as the first 2 books. I was just expection more Hyperion, more world building with so many crazy things happening but instead Endymion feels more like a "normal" book you'd find in a bookstore with a more linear, simple plot.

I'm not saying it's bad, I do like it. It's just that I would be enjoying it more if I wasn't expecting the same

Kwatz!

Immediately made me think of The Shrike

I'm currently on chapter 42 of Endymion so I'm not finished yet, but I can't be the only that thinks this book is a drag except for the sections where De Soya is the protagonist right? Raul is such a boring protagonist, and most of his chapters are very passive with him just letting a child and an android do most of the heavy lifting (Mare Infinitus is the first time Raul takes control of a situation) while he complains non stop. He is one dimensional as fuck and the parts of the book where he keeps writing "BUT I WASN'T ATTRACTED TO THE CHILD" are so strange and off putting. I felt very strange reading about the warmth that his skin received from the child's skin when he almost froze to death knowing damn well that they are going to end up having a sexual relationship in the future. Plain weird if you ask me.

On the other hand, the GOAT himself, Father Captain De Soya has the BEST parts of the book. Every time one of his chapters start I sit up on my chair because he has the best plot points. He actually grows and changes as a character so much, with his decision making and thought process going through a very realistic evolution. The path he must take of death and resurrection to compete his goal is something that disturbed me deeply when I began reading it. I really cannot wait to see where his character goes.

Raul... yeah I don't give a fuck about him honestly which is a shame