Hyperion

Paperback, 512 pages

Published Feb. 22, 1991 by Headline Book Publishing Ltd.

ISBN:
9780747234821

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5 stars (4 reviews)

Hyperion is a 1989 science fiction novel by American author Dan Simmons. The first book of his Hyperion Cantos, it won the Hugo Award for best novel.The plot of the novel features multiple time-lines and characters. It follows a similar structure to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The next book in the series was The Fall of Hyperion, published in 1990.

15 editions

reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Monumental space opera

5 stars

Since my teenage years this has been one of my favourite books. I haven't revisited it in a very long time, and since the author seemed to develop less than pleasant views in later years I had been uncertain as to how well it holds up.

Certainly, it could do better on representation of diversity and gender, though it's not entirely wretched on either. I could get caught up in the details of unpacking these issues, but I'll be honest that I think they are not fatal to the book, and that despite its limitations in this regard it remains a classic - a phenomenal read and one of the best examples of space opera, fullstop. To my mind, on a par with Dune, the Culture novels, and the Radch.

Seven pilgrims set out on a voyage to the outback world of Hyperion, with the intention of meeting the mysterious …

reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Far better than I recalled

5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable, and vastly better than I remembered from when I last read it 25 years ago. There were so many details I didn't recall. I somehow callowly missed all the obvious link the Canterbury Tales amidst the other literary allusions.

The world-building was exceptional, even if things like the world web now seem like a product of the era when it was written. To wit: the the writer and academic describe work conditions in several hundred years from now that seem firmly rooted in the past, let alone the present.

From memory the rest of the series declines in quality, but wow, this was good.

reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons

A smashing, gripping story, with prominent elements I'm unable to decode.

4 stars

Content warning Major recapitulation of the first of the book's six interwoven tales, short phrases describing three characters, one of whom only appears late in the book, and some fruitless discussion of the novel's many connections with John Keats.

avatar for wildenstern@bookwyrm.social

rated it

5 stars