Hyperion, Endymion

[myancey]

Has anyone here read the Hyperion Cantos or the Endymion Cantos, both by Dan Simmons?

That's: Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, Rise of Endymion.

I was wondering what people thought of it in general. Characters you may have liked, etc.

Thanks.

[Ozymandias]

I thought this was going to be about Keats and Shelley, now I'm all disappointed. :smallredface:

[The_JJ]

But it is. That's why the books are so awesome.

Well... okay, the first was awesome because it was horror/romance/action/comedy/heartbreaker/cyberpunk stuck in a blender labeled Sci-Fi set to Canterbury Tales garnished with John Keats.

The second was good. I was really meh about the other two.

[Gaius Marius]

I read the first two books while I was 15, and I think a lot of stuff went over the head of the boy i was..

I still ignore what was the Templar's job.. But I loved a lot of the storyline elements, like the Veteran's dreamgirl... Or the whole UI subplot.. Very menacing...

I have to reread it again

[Flickerdart]

I have the books on my shelf. Or had, anyway. I may have gotten rid of them.

The first two were vastly superior to the third, which bored me out of my mind.

[Muz]

Put me down for liking the first two better than the last two as well. I think the last two suffer from (IIRC) Simmons changing his mind about some things during the hiatus between Fall of Hyperion and Endymion.

Or maybe it's just that I was annoyed that some of the things *I* thought were going on turned out not to be true, I can't really remember. (Hrm, I should reread those books.) Didn't one of the AIs in Endymion/Rise of Endymion say something akin to, "You know all that secret stuff that (another AI) told you? Yeah, um, that was a lie, I guess."?

Are they still trying to make a Hyperion movie, or has good sense prevailed? I don't know how one would go about condensing even the first book into a single movie, let alone the first two books at once, as I think they were talking about.

[myancey]

Or maybe it's just that I was annoyed that some of the things *I* thought were going on turned out not to be true, I can't really remember. (Hrm, I should reread those books.) Didn't one of the AIs in Endymion/Rise of Endymion say something akin to, "You know all that secret stuff that (another AI) told you? Yeah, um, that was a lie, I guess."?


Yeah, I didn't particularly enjoy that element either--the changing the story part. He did manage to sum the series up pretty well in general though. And I enjoyed that he left Het Masteen's story out of the first two novels because he had his story in the 4th. I thought that was pretty unique. Actually made sense why he appeared in the 2nd book on the verge of death.

The second book was my favorite, but I really did enjoy the philosophizing he incorporated into the 3rd and 4th books. I thought they presented their elements of this 'Aenean' religion quite well.

[Lord of the Helms]

I've read Hyperion, which was amazing and one of the best books I've ever read, especially with how masterfully it managed to flip back and forth between horror, mystery, action, comedy and tragedy with the different tales of the travellers; and Fall of Hyperion, which was... okay, quite good actually, but far weaker than the first and disappointing in some ways.

The revelation that the Tree of Pain was just a VR simulation was the worst disappointment by far. I'd have much preferred it as a seemingly impossible eldritch torture device.

I own, but have not yet started on, the Endymion books. Discworld, Jim Butcher, Richard Rhodes and Wheel of Time keep distracting me.

[LordShaper]

I reread the Cantos every two-years generally, makes me feel good.

Note - what follows is completely subjective and does not purport to be objective truth:

Yes, the revelations in the Rise of Endymion about the Tree of pain and Shrike and generally the explanations given for various bits and pieces that were a mystery up to that point...a bit underwhelming. It is a bit disappointing that the grande finale of such an epice was so...lackluster in parts. Not to mention that the whole section on Tien Shan downright bored me, I literally skipped pages. Skipped. Pages. You don't skip pages in a Dan Simmons novel (well unless it's Drood, but that's more because of the style it emulated was of the real-life Wilkie Collins and THAT guy also wrote books that you could skim and not miss anything important).

If the first three parts are pure As, the final part of Cantos is barely a B, but it's still one of the best, most literary and most idea-filled piece of science fiction you'll probably read in your life. Read it, read it again, give it to your kids to read it and they'll thank you for it.

[Moose Man]

Read it when I was like 13, loved the first two, the third was meh, I didn't read the fourth. The shrike is imprinted into my memory. He is scary. 0_0

[Gaius Marius]

Shrike vs Bun-bun


Fight

[Moose Man]

Bun-Bun? Isn't it pun-pun?