Review: Hyperion

Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This may be cheesy, but Hyperion may be one of the best-written SF novels in existence. Its format and a good deal of its subject matter are repurposed from classic literature; most notably, it is written in the format of "The Canterbury Tales" and deals heavily with themes of the poems (and life) of John Keats (one of his most famous poems is also called "Hyperion"). This is a rare (and perhaps unique) book that makes me want to immediately read the rest of the series, but also become a scholar of classical lit, and probably also get a doctorate in genre fiction. I want to dedicate an entire course to this book. I want to have written it myself.

As in "The Canterbury Tales," the story is composed of six stories within a frame story that is a pilgrimage, with each of the shorter narratives told by one of the pilgrims. Simmons masterfully weaves these six stories together and embeds them carefully in their frame, so that as you read each story it feels like another tumbler in a lock has fallen into place. Each story is fascinating and readable on its own, and each has a different tone and genre. There's a private-eye noir, a slow family story, an anthropologist's exploration, a love story, a war story, and a debaucherous life of an artist. All six of these pilgrims (the soldier, the priest, the poet, the consul, the scholar, and detective), along with a templar, are making the journey to the planet Hyperion to visit the Shrike - a horrific monster whose origins and temporal status are both unknown, who is also said to grant the wish of one pilgrim of every seven.

None of them know exactly why they've been chosen for this final pilgrimage, but they do know that humanity's galactic government - the Hegemony - is about to go to war with a faction of humans who broke away hundreds of years before and have since evolved into something that may not quite be human, and that it seems to be because of Hyperion. There is a fear that the Shrike and the Time Tombs where it dwells may be re-orienting to the flow of time as the rest of the world experiences it, and no one is sure what will come of that. Hyperion loads itself chock full of questions, questions that are baked into the core of the world-building and the characters, and the true joy of the book is uncovering more about this world, and how it might work.

The one true flaw of "Hyperion," though, is that the final tumbler never falls; there is never a satisfying resolution, none of the truly pressing, global questions are answered. There is a poetic-ness to the ending of the story, but there is no fulfillment. It's a masterpiece of high science fiction, and of literature, and each of the short stories in themselves are a delight to read, but while the structure of the book feels like it should be a solid, complete work, the unanswered questions demand a sequel - and there is one, and that review will be coming shortly, and it will not be as good.

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