Sunday, January 31, 2016

Review: The Fall of Hyperion

The Fall of Hyperion The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**This review contains spoilers for both "Fall of Hyperion" and "Hyperion." There will be a spoiler warning before they begin.

As I mentioned in my review of "Hyperion," I immediately picked this up after finishing the first one. There's no way to read a novel that amazing that ends on that kind of unresolved note and not pick up the sequel. Sadly, "Fall of Hyperion" is not quite as good as its predecessor (but they rarely are, I suppose). I wanted to immediately tear into it, but the beginning is a slog, setting up what feels like already-established political maneuvering, introducing a character whose existence is still questionably justifiable in my mind, making established characters wander aimlessly around in a desert storm, and refusing to immediately address any of my burning questions. At almost exactly the halfway point, though, things pick up - and go from zero to sixty in the course of a chapter.

The second half of the book is intricate and surprising and, at times, mind-blowing. The world-building that Simmons did over the course of "Hyperion" and the slow political set-up at the beginning of this story explode into a truly unexpected (well, for me, at least) galactic story that broadens and deepens the world, and changes it fundamentally, while tying even the smallest details back to the core story (although, at times, it seems like too many throwback details, a few convenient connections that don't seem to add any meaning). Simmons did a wonderful job connecting the worldbuilding to the unfolding story; each step in one direction allows room to move in the other. And while Hyperion was more about character, Fall of Hyperion is much more about the world in which these characters live, and that allows for the introduction of many kinds of characters and aspects of the world that we couldn't see through the pilgrims' eyes, like Ousters and AI.

In the end, I was left questioning a few decisions - like why there was ever a second version of Keats; it didn't feel necessary story-wise - and suspicious of how neatly all the loose ends tied together, but ultimately (finally) satisfied by the scope and complexity of the ending. If the first book was a lock with each pin falling into place, this was like watching a convoluted machine get put together piece by piece, with no idea of its eventual function until the last cogs are set. Overall, it's not as solid a piece of work as "Hyperion," but it's a strong follow-up that is both true to and expands on the original.

My summary follows. Spoilers abound!

When we last left our pilgrims, they were singing their way down the yellow brick road toward the Time Tombs to meet the Shrike. Only when they get there, the Shrike's not there. They search each tomb a couple of times, then settle down, and then - oh so foolishly, as anyone who's ever consumed media could tell you - they split up.

Interspersed between the pilgrims' chapters is a character I certainly didn't expect to see: John Keats. No, not the original one. And not quite the one that Brawne Lamia gets to know in the first book, either. He's a second incarnation of Lamia's John, and to keep a low profile, he goes by Joseph Severn (aka Keats' best friend in his original life - he's not very good at the low-profile thing). We learn that Severn's dreams follow the journey of the pilgrims, and so he knows essentially exactly what the reader knows about their journey. Because of this, he's an asset to Gladstone, CEO of the Hegemony, who reveals that the AI government discovered and passed along the identities of citizens whose requests from the Shrike had the potential to change the course of the Hegemony's war. This whole part of the book moves at a glacial pace, taking more than its share of time to establish Severn's identity as a kind of human-AI meld, the reasons he's still alive (though I'm still not clear about that), and his role as Gladstone's informant/reporter on the pilgrims.

When the pilgrims' stories finally take off, they are picked off by the Shrike, one by one. Hoyt dies, but through the cruciform is re-born - but as Father Dure, whose cruciform Hoyt had also carried on his body. Silenus returns to the City of Poets and in one day, in a frenzy of writing, almost completes his Cantos - and is met by the Shrike, who puts him on the torture tree. Brawne Lamia gets a permanent hook-up to the datumsphere where she is reunited with her version of Keats and converses with the AI who is Keats's parent (and who promptly re-kills her version of Keats). The Consul uses his magic carpet to fly back to his ship, in hopes that he can stow Rachel safely away in a cryochamber before she de-ages completely. Kassad finds Moneta, who takes him through time and space to fight the Shrike. Sol is alone with Rachel (and, briefly, the Templar - who he and the Consul found wandering among the Tombs, but who is clearly not well and dies quickly), and at the moment when she should de-age entirely, the Shrike visits him and asks for his daughter - and Sol gives her up, because his recurring dream has recently changed: in the dream, when God demands he sacrifice Rachel, she says to him that she wants him to do it.

During all of this, the new Keats is watching Gladstone maneuver the Hegemony into this war over Hyperion. Based on information she received from the AI conglomerate, she has learned that this war with the Ousters - which is precipitated by the Hegemony bringing Hyperion into the fold - is necessary for the Hegemony to even have a chance of surviving in the future. But suddenly, the war takes a drastic turn: thousands of Ouster ships turn out to be almost right on top of the Hegemony, when they should have been many systems away. Planets are destroyed.

New Keats, though, has been trapped on the AI re-creation of Old Earth, and is dying of tuberculosis. He's there because he learned the great secret behind this war: the AI are behind every step of it. The ships attacking the Hegemony are not Ouster ships, but AI ships. The AI have been in communication with a god that they have created in the future, but can speak back to them through time. This god, in the future, is fighting with a human-created god, and the Shrike is the AI god's messenger. The human god (who is composed of three parts) may have sent a messenger back, too - and maybe it's Keats? I'm actually not sure about that part. He discovers that the AI don't have a homeworld; their 'core,' as it were, is the entire system of gates between worlds, and they use the humans' brains as processors. As an aside, we also learn that the AI were behind the destruction of Old Earth - the "accident" that destroyed it wasn't an accident, but they managed to transport the planet into a different system. Their 'recreation' is the original planet itself. Keats, after dying, is able to travel into a new and strange aspect of the datumsphere to Hyperion, where he saves baby Rachel from the Shrike and is able to briefly talk with Brawne Lamia.

At this point, the Consul has left Hyperion at Gladstone's request and is meeting with the Ousters. Once there, he is put on trial for the murder of the Ousters who gave him the device that would open the Time Tombs (turns out the device was a fake, though; they were testing him). His sentence: not to die, but to live and to help the galaxy recover from his actions. As soon as this happens, Gladstone's right-hand man launches an attack based on Keats' new information: he orders his men to simultaneously destroy every single portal in existence, completely disabling instantaneous travel between worlds, killing and dooming many, but also saving them from AI control.

On Hyperion, Brawne Lamia goes to rescue Martin Silenus. She finds out that the torture tree is actually a chamber in one of the Time Tombs, and everyone on the tree is unconscious on the floor with the same kind of hyperlink cable attached to their heads as was attached to hers. Their torture is real, but entirely inside their brains. To rescue him, she must confront the Shrike, and with some advice from Moneta and some magical nonsense where she walks on air, she defeats it. Oh, also: Kassad has died at this point.

Moneta also appears to Sol, carrying baby Rachel (who she picked up from Keats), and it is revealed that Moneta is, in fact, adult Rachel. She, Sol, and baby Rachel must use the newly-activated Time Tombs to travel into the future, where Sol will raise her once more, and she will become the warrior who keeps the Shrike in check throughout time. Several of the Time Tombs have active portals (but not the AI kind), now; the time-travel one opens only to some and one opens onto Old Earth.

Now that the portals are gone and the only way to get between worlds is by a long trip through space, the Consul begins a long humanitarian journey to begin re-building connections between worlds.

It's a fairly satisfying ending (again, with some moments that are slightly *too* satisfying and coincidental), and the action in the second half of the book rescues it from the drudgery from the first half. I would love to talk about this more with someone who has read both books. I've been meaning to decompose each pilgrim's meeting(s) with the Shrike - how do their interactions with it relate to the request they would have asked or did ask of it? What's going on with this whole God situation, especially the Empathy messenger sent back through time? What are we supposed to make of the Templars throughout all of this?

View all my reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment