The Fall of Hyperion

This is the second book in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos

First lets talk about the world Dan Simmons has build with Hyperion Cantos. This book series is set about 700 yrs in the future when the galaxy has been colonized by humanity. Old earth has been destroyed or is missing and the galaxy is organized into a galactic Hegemony with a technocratic government ruled by a CEO

At some point in this history of this civilization there was a split between artificial intelligence and humanity. This core intelligence formed their own society after rebelling against the idea or reality of being conceived to be in slavery to humanity. AI got too smart for our own good essentially The AI Technocore now rules via the Hegemon but has also split into 3 main factions of AI (Though humanity likes to think otherwise)

The stables wish to maintain symbiosis with humanity
The Volatiles wish for the utter and complete destruction of humanity
The Ultimates defer any all all choice in the matter until the next level of awareness, or supreme ultimate intelligence is realized

Picking up right where Hyperion left off we are introduced to a Character of Joseph Severn who is having dreams of the pilgrims we met in the first book. These dreams are of the real life events going on at the Time Tombs of Hyperion and the dealings or encounters with the shrike and the Shrikes purpose and why it was created in the first place

In the mean time the the WorldWeb, linked together by a network of Farcasters, essentially portals in space time appears to be under attack by the Ousters, a mysterious group of people from the depths of space but all is not as it seems.

These books play off some interesting themes that I love seeing within the writings of the books and something that I find good science fiction does.

For one, The idea that humanity is by its nature destructive and will destroy all life that does not suit its own purposes. The book discusses the idea of terraform planets that already have an abundance of life but not the kind of life that humanity needs to live and human settlers has destroyed it without care for the life and natural species destroyed in the process, including any and all sentient intelligent species that may serve as competition for humanity. This is certainly a very grim and dark perspective on the nature of man whether it is true or not I guess depends on the reader but this idea is explored, not just in naturally occurring life but also in terms of AI life and its blend with human life, the Cybrids are a good example of this, resurrected personas merged with AI within the techno core and are generally seen as outsiders by humans who had sought to destroy them and so those that still live must keep their identity as a CYBRID secret.

The other main theme of this book, and the series so far anyway, is focused on religion and its role in human society. The book does a decent job of contrasting the diminishing ancient old earth religions, primarily with Catholicism as a central church used a focus for this particular theme and the newer what would be modern religion of the Shrike church, or as I think of it the Shrike death cult. There is the Catholic priests and the questioning of his own religion and the interplay of his god vs the Shrike and what it all means.

Part of this religious discussion you could say revolves around the Cruciform parasite that essentially resurrects its host over and over again. it In beds itself in the body in the form of a cross in the chest.

Then we have the shrike the the Idea of a sacrifice being needed to be made to what has become a death god or lord of pain. Its victims are impaled on a shrike tree almost in a way representing this tree of life, while impaled the victims do not die but suffer in eternal agony wishing, praying for death.

Sol Weintraub's story of his daughter aging backwards in time and having regular dreams of Abraham and God's command to sacrifice his son. He feels that God is calling him to sacrifice his daughter but fights against this as he struggles with the idea of God being truly God making such demands. Desperate to find a cure for his daughters backwards aging sickness and exploring his own religious convictions leads him on a pilgrimage to the shrike where he must choose if he will obey gods commands while facing the shrike

The AI intelligence in the mean time are seeking to create god in the form of a ultimate intelligence and these 3 explorations of religion intersect in a fascinating read while the book at times reads almost as a allegory of a twisted, dark alternate version of religiosity and god and overall was just a fascinating read from start to finish.

Easily 5 stars for me loved it!

It's hard to really live up to the first Hyperion book, because, in a way, Hyperion was a nearly flawless book. Hyperion was chock full of stuff for lit nerds and scifi nerds alike, while establishing a few great characters that you found yourself caring about after thinking how much you couldn't stand them early on. The Fall of Hyperion picks up where Hyperion left off, but ditches the Canterbury Tales formatting for a multi-narrative style that jumps between first person for “John Keats” and third for everyone else.

Each character has their redeeming qualities as well as their downfalls, which is what helps to make these books so great, but I know I can't be the only one who was a bit disappointed by the ending. Maybe I'm just a sadist, but the fact that Simmons chose to “save” most of these characters was disappointing. It felt like he wanted to just continue on their stories forever. A good portion of the end of the book felt like him warping everything to ensure that everyone would be as happy as they could be.

Simmons remains a great writer with an incredible sense of plotting and characterization, I just think that he got too attached.