This story is well written, but it has the following drawbacks:

1. A high pain level throughout. I was able to get through it once, but it was such an unpleasant experience that I don’t want to do it ever again.

2. This book and [b:The Fall of Hyperion|77565|The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541174620l/77565._SY75_.jpg|1882596] are one long story in two parts. If you want to find out what’s going on, you have to read both.

3. After I dragged myself through both books and got some kind of explanation of it all, it turned to be not very plausible either in outline or in detail. So I went through all that for nothing, basically.

4. The story is set in the 29th century. Although the society it describes is indeed different from ours, it seemed to me no more than one or two centuries’ worth of difference. ( )

Muy bueno ( )

This was a strange book, set up like a Canterbury Tales story with individual stories of the characters setting the background to the bigger plot. Sometimes, it worked fantastically, but other times the stories were...boring. It is amazing that each story had its own voice and unique feel to it--Dan Simmons can write and there is no question about that. But there were parts that just felt dragged out and not quite right.

Also, the interludes between the stories were disappointing. The characters felt much flatter and less dynamic than they did in their individual stories, almost to the point of charicature for some. I'm sure at some point I'll read the rest of the novels, but for now I'm giving this story a break, which probably says a lot about how I never really felt invested. ( )

Reread this in preparation for reading the entire series and I must agree with my original rating. The first story (Priest's story) was magnificent but it was steadily downhill from there. I liked it enough this time around to want to read the next book. I can only take so much Dan Simmons at a stretch - will return to this series after a while. ( )

'Hyperion' is one of the SF Masterworks series that I somehow didn't get round to during my teenage years. Multiple friends have recommended it to me over the years, and I've enjoyed several of Simmons' other novels. However, both my experience of [b:Ilium|3973|Ilium (Ilium, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390894862l/3973._SY75_.jpg|3185401] & [b:Olympos|3972|Olympos (Ilium, #2)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388216654l/3972._SY75_.jpg|1537178] and my friends' advice agree: Simmons has fantastic ideas but struggles to stick the landing. I was therefore pre-warned that the sequels to 'Hyperion' are not of equally high quality. That's especially disappointing because the novel sets up such a complicated, fascinating world full of mysteries and dangers, then ends on an absolute cliff-hanger. As I continued reading and noted how many pages remained, it became clear this would be the case. It frustrated me, as on its own merits 'Hyperion' would be a five star sci-fi novel with a brilliant structure.

It borrows from The Canterbury Tales (which I was forced to read at school and disliked) by setting a small cast of strangers on a pilgrimage and having them all tell a story from their life. Each story is a brilliant flight of imagination and together they cover so many overlapping and intersecting themes, including colonialism, nostalgia, artistic inspiration, war, religion, and the nature of time. While explaining how the character telling it ended up on a pilgrimage to Hyperion, successive tales paint a picture of instability and conflict between different groups of humans and artificial intelligences a few hundred years in the future. They also dart between genres, sometimes within one story. Noir mystery, cyberpunk, family tragedy, body horror, decadent drama, and political machinations are all juggled adeptly. There are some fantastic action scenes and genuinely frightening moments. Thinking back, it's astonishing that the narrative retains coherence, yet everything manages to revolve around the planet Hyperion and the deadly monster living there: the Shrike. It was perhaps a masterstroke to recount multiple terrifying encounters with the Shrike without explaining it at all.

Yet the final scene, in which the pilgrims approach the Time Tombs after watching a space battle that seemingly strands them on Hyperion, left me on tenterhooks to an annoying extent. I have so many questions and it's a shame that the answers aren't likely to be satisfactory. I'll read the sequels at some point, perhaps once libraries return again. 'Hyperion' is excellent, but the reader cannot really enjoy it as a standalone novel. ( )