Hyperion

, #1

Mass Market Paperback, 482 pages

English language

Published Dec. 17, 1995 by Bantam Spectra.

ISBN:
978-0-553-28368-6
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Goodreads:
77566

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4 stars (4 reviews)

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

9 editions

reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos, #1)

Far better than I recalled

5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable, and vastly better than I remembered from when I last read it 25 years ago. There were so many details I didn't recall. I somehow callowly missed all the obvious link the Canterbury Tales amidst the other literary allusions.

The world-building was exceptional, even if things like the world web now seem like a product of the era when it was written. To wit: the the writer and academic describe work conditions in several hundred years from now that seem firmly rooted in the past, let alone the present.

From memory the rest of the series declines in quality, but wow, this was good.

reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos, #1)

A smashing, gripping story, with prominent elements I'm unable to decode.

4 stars

Content warning Major recapitulation of the first of the book's six interwoven tales, short phrases describing three characters, one of whom only appears late in the book, and some fruitless discussion of the novel's many connections with John Keats.