Hyperion

With the galaxy on the brink of civil war, a bureaucrat, a soldier, a shaman, a priest, a poet, a scholar, and a detective make a last perilous pilgrimage to the distant planet Hyperion where a mythical deity called The Shrike may hold the answers to all their questions. During the voyage, they take turns sharing their stories and revealing their motivations for undertaking such a dangerous quest.

Dan Simmons’ 1989 Hugo Award-winning novel has both the trappings of stock science fiction and the literary bonafides to easily transcend it. The futuristic setting of Hyperion is home to the requisite robots (both androids and more humanistic “cybrids”), rebels (the mysterious Ousters), empire (the Hegemony of Man), technology upgrades (interstellar “farcasting”) and more. And while the omnipresent jargon can be a bit much, Hyperion can also lay claim to an impressive amount of breadth and depth.

To start, both the narrative and the characters are intricately crafted. The pilgrimage serves as a frame story as each traveler has his or her tale revealed. The backstories, without exception, are rife with personal tragedies (the priest discovers the horrible fate of his mentor, the scholar’s daughter ages backwards and loses her memory, etc.) but are still distinct enough to maintain some elements of surprise. Moreover, each story’s narrative voice is well-suited to the character. The poet’s tale, for instance, is both cultured and decadent while the detective’s basks in Chandleresque noir.

In addition, Simmons has clearly done his homework. The novel is structured like The Canterbury Tales, but it shares a title with a poem by John Keats that tells the story of the fallen Greek Titans (with clear parallels to the book’s plot), and the poet himself turns up reincarnated in a way (it makes sense in context). There are also allusions to modern science (faster-than-light travel is enabled by a “Hawking Drive”), politics (Hyperion’s late king is descended from the House of Windsor), religion (the emigration from Earth is called the hegira as in Islam’s hejira) and more. Reading Hyperion is like examining our cultural legacy through the telescopic lens of the future, a provocatively fascinating experience.

The book’s biggest drawback is the pacing. For as much as the backstories can be engrossing, they all contain portions that are eminently skipable. There is also a lot of build-up to an ending that amounts to the most shamelessly blatant sequel hook I’ve encountered since the first Lord of the Rings movie.

As a self-contained work, Hyperion demands patience but rewards it generously. If you can get past the jargon and make do with a lack of closure, there is a lot that is worth your attention here.

8.25/10