The Fall of Hyperion

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.