The Fall of Hyperion

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is best enjoyed when you accept that the central figure of the Shrike will remain ambiguous. And not in a Gene Wolfe sense where some hidden coherence can be unearthed if you study the text hard enough. Simmons uses the Shrike as the catalyst for plot and tension, and its actions are not consistent with the motivations of any one faction. It is there to look cool, be menacing and to make things happen around it.

Everything else in the book fits together quite neatly. The final stretch is impressive in piling on revelation upon revelation. There is a lot of set up to get to that point, however, and the beginning of the book is rather tedious. The pilgrims arrive at the Tombs with not much to do, and there’s a lot of random wandering around which dissipates the momentum built up at the end of the first book. The structural device, of one person at the heart of government dreaming the actions of the pilgrims, is also weaker than the Canterbury Tales-derived storytelling competition in the first book. It’s telling that the first person narrative is abandoned at the end.

Basically, this is an overly ambitious series that doesn’t quite live up to the expectations it sets up. But it’s still worth reading, not least because of the baroque and fantastical world-building Simmons is so good at (doing the opera part of space opera very well). And its concerns about treacherous AIs nods to a very 90s cyberpunk attitude that would feed into bigger pop cultural events like the Matrix films.

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