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.

What was an obvious big tome was quite rightly divided into two. The first book had very different POV chapters. The second volume is a more conventinal structural narrative. If you read and enjoyed the first the second book will not dissapoint. Definitely in the top echelons of SciFi writing and age has not hurt it at all

This is not a standalone book, but the second and final part of the story begun in [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1) Dan Simmons https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405546838l/77566.SY75.jpg 1383900], and I've reviewed both of them together.

I can't decide whether I like this book more or less than Hyperion. I think I like them both but for very different reasons. While Hyperion was brilliant in its variety, the way it mimicked the Canterbury Tales in tonal shifts, Fall of Hyperion is brilliant in the way it brings those tales together. Time travel makes me a bit dizzy, and there are still some points I don't understand Where did Brawne's superpowers come from?, but the way it connected memorable characters with themes very close to my heart (society's dependence on technology, what would happen to a world without the Web?) make this one of the top sci-fi series I have read. I'll definitely read Endymion, though I'll take a break first. One can only stare into Hyperion's lapis sky for so long. Lapis, lapis, lapis...

Executive Summary: While the ending was satisfying the book as a whole wasn't nearly as enjoyable for me as [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900]. 3.5 stars, rounded down because it was just too slow at times.Audiobook: After how great the audiobook for [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900] was, this one was a bit of a letdown. Victor Bevine does a good job, but to go from an ensemble to a single narrator was hard. Given the structure of this book compared to the last, it makes sense to only have 1 narrator, but I wouldn't have missed it if they had only used Mr. Bevine for the first as well. Still, audio is a decent option here in my opinion.Full ReviewAfter finishing [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) Dan Simmons https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg 1383900] there was no way I couldn't jump right into this. I just had to know what happened next.However, the format of this part of the story was largely different than the last book. Instead of several different stories with different narrators combining into one larger story, we had a single narrator acting as our conduit to several different subplots.However the format change wasn't my main issue. I just found the story moving far too slow. Maybe it is the format's problem. If I wasn't liking one story, it wouldn't be too long before a new one started that I might enjoy better. This was just one contiguous story (albeit one that jumped around between subplots rather frequently).Many of the elements I enjoyed from the first book are still present. The mystery of Hyperion and the Shrike. The politics of the Web worlds and the Ousters. Battles and intrigue. And the well written prose. But I found my attention wandering, and there were several points when I hoped things would just move along faster.Overall, I was happy with the ending of this. The main question/theory I wanted answered was done so by the end. In fact I feel like I could stop here and not read the next two. I do plan to read them eventually, but for now I'll be content taking a break to focus on other stories.

Some of the concepts of the Hyperion world are fantastic, especially the far casters, the Hawking drives, the biotech and even the meta sphere and the data core. I also think the writing is beautiful and compelling. But for some reason the overarching story in Fall left me a bit cold. I definitely enjoyed he characters and even geared up over the ending.I absolutely love Saul Weintraub's story. But the bits about the UI just fell flat for me and I'm not certain why. Maybe I'm just not understanding it well enough. Even so I recommend the book to anyone who wants challenging concepts and a grand universe. Especially if you can out up with a slight touch of poetic pretension.

imagine dedicating an entire book series to a random 18th century poet in which you go into shameless, explicit detail about how “beautiful” and “handsome” he is until it eventually culminates into a very strange sex scene which results in the creation of a fake John Keat's daughter who is also Jesus

I felt this book was up and down. It had some real strong parts to it with a few of the short stories, but then others were boring. I also was not a fan of the open-ended way this book ended. Perhaps there's resolution in the other books in this series, but I felt Dan Simmons didn't give us the payoff he built up.

In the end, I would've given Hyperion 4-stars, but a few lows take one away. Overall this was a good book and I may read book two in the future.

A surprisingly different experience than the first. I can understand how people might go in expecting more of the same greatness and be disappointed, but overall, I found this book extremely interesting and thought-provoking, even if it was different from the original. It started out a bit slow for me, but really gained steam and finished off incredibly strong. I actually found myself tearing up at the end. I never thought I'd have such an emotional reaction to any book, much less a fictional one. This has to be my favorite series of all time.

3.5 stars rounded up. This was a good follow up to the first book, but honestly hard to understand. A major character is able to see into and move through the AI datasphere/metasphere and you just kind of have to read it lightly, like the author is making up words and not trying to read it like hard science fiction where things like that might be understandable. The pacing was tough, going back and forth between all these different high-stress POVs with chapters/sections that ended with cliffhangers. But I did read it a lot faster than I would have otherwise.

Plus, a big theme of this book had to do with a battle/conflict between the human god and the AI-created god, most of it off screen and just kind of hinted at, but it was just kind of strange to read. Not sure what the author really believes. But, all in all, entertaining and glad I read it.

Age range: 18+
If you read the first one, this one's no stronger. All the same stuff. War and violence and pain.

Overall I would call this book a "slog".

The first novel is great, an absolute page-turner and I think functions well enough as an independent work. I wish I hadn't read the followup.

There are so many interesting concepts and story threads in the book, just enough to keep me reading when most of the chapters made me want to put it down. That's the slog.

Huh. Ok.
Another one of those “I don't know what to do, because parts of it were really bad but other parts were really good” :-D

The thing with feminism and objectifying and misogyny is that it's really hard to describe. You basically know there's a problem when the minor details start to irritate you.
I mean, there are many strong and powerful female characters in this book, women are described as just as intelligent and capable as men, and their sexuality isn't anything negative, aso. But the things...

They choose seven pilgrims, and 6 of them are male. One of them carries a newborn baby girl, and the only female member carries a man in her head. She's basically there as the man's vessel.
Why couldn't half of them be women? So far I haven't seen anything any of them has done that would have been impossible or even implausible for a woman to do. Well... I think Kassad's part suits well for a man, even though she could have been a woman, too. After all, a lot of his properties are enhanced by technology, and there it doesn't matter if you are enhancing a female or male body. Also, in this world, they have very strong women, coming from “heavy” worlds. The P.I. for example, is physically about as strong as Kassad, and performs similar fighting abilities etc.

The other little thing that aggravates me is how he describes people. He is very fond of talking about breasts. Men's attractiveness is described through the eyes of the P.I. - the only woman in the pilgrimship. And even though in Hyperion, I assume Dan Simmons chose to objectify the P.I.'s customer in his pastiche of noir detective novels, there is nothing that justifies her being attracted to father Paul Duré. Yet, she is. Why? It never leads to anything.

I am bored of the idea that the Christian Church, and especially the Catholic Church, would barely survive, but survive nevertheless several hundred years forward. Either one or the other, this wishy washy Church is... irritating.

“If there was some second sacrifice pending, something even more terrible than the crucifixion...“
Hundreds of people have been crucified, tortured, persecuted, lived through more terrible events than the crucifixion without any promises of everlasting existence and divinity, without any gratitude or their suffering counting as any kind of sacrifice, so I think you can stop that now, Christians. Sorry, but you should be ashamed!

Another idè Fix of Simmons is Keats. Come on. He wasn't that great. Or handsome.

This one is much as I remember it though I had forgotten some of the twists like Rachel being Moneta and the Ousters being chill which made it fun.

Women do move and behave less boobily in this one which I appreciated! I remember some of the TechnoCore stuff dragging a bit when I read it first and it still drags a bit for me, but still ultimately interesting and a good conclusion to Hyperion.

I haven't read Endymion or the Rise of Endymion because I've heard very mixed reviews. Maybe I will this year.

Fall of Hyperion is a continuation of the story starting in Hyperion. Honestly, these two books seem more like one cohesive story than separate books or stories to me. That said, this does bring the story arc to a point where it feels like the first “book” is complete, but definitely sets up for wanting to know what happens next.