Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Bantam (New York, 1996). 1st edition, 1st printing. 468 pages. $22.95.
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. "Extraordinary.". "A magnificently original blend of themes and styles.". "Simmons masterfully employs SF's potential.". HTML: The multiple-award-winning science fiction master returns to the universe that is his greatest triumph--the world of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion --with a novel even more magnificent than its predecessors. Dan Simmons's Hyperion was an immediate sensation on its first publication in 1989. This staggering multifaceted tale of the far future heralded the conquest of the science fiction field by a man who had already won the World Fantasy Award for his first novel (Song of Kali) and had also published one of the most well-received horror novels in the field, Carrion Comfort. Hyperion went on to win the Hugo Award as Best Novel, and it and its companion volume, The Fall of Hyperion, took their rightful places in the science fiction pantheon of new classics. Now, six years later, Simmons returns to this richly imagined world of technological achievement, excitement, wonder and fear. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror--an instant candidate for the field's highest honors. From the Paperback edition..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member RobertDay
It must be 25 years or so since I read Simmons' 'Hyperion' novels, and this is a sequel which has languished on my shelves for far too long. I was a little intimidated by the passage of time and was concerned that my memory of the first two novels would be insufficient to see me through this novel.
The Time Tombs on Hyperion have opened again, and Aenea, daughter of two of the characters from the first books, has emerged. And so has the Shrike, the inimical God of Pain - and it seems to be protecting Aenea. Raul Endymion, an ordinary man from Hyperion, has been engaged to protect Aenea by Martin Silenus, the aged poet from the earlier books. Meanwhile, after the fall of the TechnoCore, the AI that ran the farcasters, the network of matter transmitters that made Galactic society possible, the Catholic Church has re-established and greatly increased its power and influence. The Vatican sends Father Captain Federico de Soya on a mission to retrieve Aenea, because the Pope - also a character from the first novels, resurrected by the cruciform parasites that confer immortality - believes Aenea to be connected to the TechnoCore, and considers her to be a threat. Much space operatic whizzing about in various forms of transport ensues.
Just dismissing this book as an interstellar chase story does it no justice, though. The first two 'Hyperion' books were notable for their extreme Baroque settings, their well-realised world-building, and strong characterisation. This book carries that on. The settings are exotic but realistically drawn, and there is a good sense of the passage of time since our own day, though the characters do seem better informed about the Twentieth Century than we are about, say, the Tenth (representing an equivalent passage of time).Endymion is Everyman; Aenea is a bit more of a problem, as Endymion is telling the story in retrospect, and we are led to understand that Aenea - who is supposedly 11 at the time of the events in this novel - will later become Raul Endymion's lover. This makes for some slightly difficult situations as Endymion and Aenea are thrown together in various situations. Simmons writes about Endymion's feelings for Aenea in a sensual way, but never erotically; though it has to be said that he writes Aenea as displaying more maturity than any 11-year-old I've ever encountered. (Whether this may be due to her parentage, or her sojourn in the Time Tombs, is never mentioned and is one of the things I'd want to look out for if I re-read the earlier novels.)
Their pursuer, Father Captain de Soya, is more clearly drawn. Allocated a platoon of Swiss Guards, de Soya and his three comrades build an effective relationship and we come to know them well. As Vatican politics turns into conspiracy, de Soya begins to question his motivations and actions, but never his faith. I find it no coincidence that early on during de Soya's briefing, he fleetingly meets a priest by the name of Father Brown; and certainly, de Soya combines the humanity and the calculating mind of Chesterton's detective priest.
There is a range of supporting characters who are sympathetically drawn; we find ourselves caring for them. There is also action, some of it gruesome; and humour. The final book in the quartet, 'The Rise of Endymion', is not too far down the To Be Read pile; I shall look foward to it.
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I needn't have worried: although things would have been better if I'd not long read 'Hyperion'/'The Fall of Hyperion', Simmons painlessly fills in the details the returning reader needs. In this, he is helped by setting this story nearly 300 years after the action of the first two books.The Time Tombs on Hyperion have opened again, and Aenea, daughter of two of the characters from the first books, has emerged. And so has the Shrike, the inimical God of Pain - and it seems to be protecting Aenea. Raul Endymion, an ordinary man from Hyperion, has been engaged to protect Aenea by Martin Silenus, the aged poet from the earlier books. Meanwhile, after the fall of the TechnoCore, the AI that ran the farcasters, the network of matter transmitters that made Galactic society possible, the Catholic Church has re-established and greatly increased its power and influence. The Vatican sends Father Captain Federico de Soya on a mission to retrieve Aenea, because the Pope - also a character from the first novels, resurrected by the cruciform parasites that confer immortality - believes Aenea to be connected to the TechnoCore, and considers her to be a threat. Much space operatic whizzing about in various forms of transport ensues.
Just dismissing this book as an interstellar chase story does it no justice, though. The first two 'Hyperion' books were notable for their extreme Baroque settings, their well-realised world-building, and strong characterisation. This book carries that on. The settings are exotic but realistically drawn, and there is a good sense of the passage of time since our own day, though the characters do seem better informed about the Twentieth Century than we are about, say, the Tenth (representing an equivalent passage of time).Endymion is Everyman; Aenea is a bit more of a problem, as Endymion is telling the story in retrospect, and we are led to understand that Aenea - who is supposedly 11 at the time of the events in this novel - will later become Raul Endymion's lover. This makes for some slightly difficult situations as Endymion and Aenea are thrown together in various situations. Simmons writes about Endymion's feelings for Aenea in a sensual way, but never erotically; though it has to be said that he writes Aenea as displaying more maturity than any 11-year-old I've ever encountered. (Whether this may be due to her parentage, or her sojourn in the Time Tombs, is never mentioned and is one of the things I'd want to look out for if I re-read the earlier novels.)
Their pursuer, Father Captain de Soya, is more clearly drawn. Allocated a platoon of Swiss Guards, de Soya and his three comrades build an effective relationship and we come to know them well. As Vatican politics turns into conspiracy, de Soya begins to question his motivations and actions, but never his faith. I find it no coincidence that early on during de Soya's briefing, he fleetingly meets a priest by the name of Father Brown; and certainly, de Soya combines the humanity and the calculating mind of Chesterton's detective priest.
There is a range of supporting characters who are sympathetically drawn; we find ourselves caring for them. There is also action, some of it gruesome; and humour. The final book in the quartet, 'The Rise of Endymion', is not too far down the To Be Read pile; I shall look foward to it.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
I’d heard that the latter books in Simmons’ Cantos series weren’t as good as the first two (the excelllent Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion) so I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself thoroughly drawn into this book, reading huge stretches at a time and finishing it in a few
Endymion takes place 274 years after The Fall of Hyperion. Following Gladstone’s destruction of the farcaster (teleporter) network, the hundreds of planets of the Hegemony were cut off from each other and plunged into a new Dark Age. Only recently has the “Pax,” a Catholic Church theocracy, begun to once again unite the scattered worlds. The story begins with Raul Endymion, a 27-year old hunting guide on the familiar world of Hyperion, killing a man in self-defence and being sentenced to death for it. Mysteriously rescued and taken to a different continent, he is charged by his benefactor (a returning character from the previous books) with rescuing Aenea, a foreshadowed messiah who will be emerging from the Time Tombs in two days.
The thing about the Cantos is that it has a very complex higher plot, involving AIs and time travel and fate and destiny and all that jazz. Which I never really grasped – like the climax of Neuromancer, I didn’t quite wrap my head around what happened at the end of The Fall of Hyperion. But, again like Neuromancer, I didn’t really care, because the “lower” plot is very enjoyable and comprises the vast majority of the book. Endymion has a few sections talking about the “Godhead” and the Machine God and the role of love and belief and the nature of the universe, etc, but for the most part it’s a fantastic science fiction adventure tale. The bulk of the story involves Raul, Aenea and their android companion A. Bettik (almost a Jim the Negro analog) escaping from their Pax pursuers by rafting down the River Tethys, a river that once ran through two hundred worlds thanks to the farcaster portals (which Aenea can somehow reactivate). Since the Hegemony is one of the most awesome science fiction universes ever written, in my opinion, I was more than happy with this story of high adventure on a dozen different worlds. Half the book is told from Raul’s perspective, and the other half from Father de Soya, a Pax warrior-priest charged with capturing them, who has his own companions in the form of a few surviving spec ops troops from the failed capture attempt on Hyperion. Simmons writes de Soya not as a heartless antagonist, or a demonised religious caricature, but a believable and sympathetic character – in fact, while reading the Raul sections I was rooting for him to escape, and while reading de Soya’s sections I was rooting for him to capture them. If you can make a reader do that, you’re doing something right.
My favourite book, on the whole, is still The Fall of Hyperion – a brilliantly conceived and executed brink-of-war, end-of-the-world, high stakes space opera. And if I had to pick, I’d probably say Hyperion is slightly better than Endymion. But it’s still a great addition to a great series, and I look forward to reading the final book.
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days.Endymion takes place 274 years after The Fall of Hyperion. Following Gladstone’s destruction of the farcaster (teleporter) network, the hundreds of planets of the Hegemony were cut off from each other and plunged into a new Dark Age. Only recently has the “Pax,” a Catholic Church theocracy, begun to once again unite the scattered worlds. The story begins with Raul Endymion, a 27-year old hunting guide on the familiar world of Hyperion, killing a man in self-defence and being sentenced to death for it. Mysteriously rescued and taken to a different continent, he is charged by his benefactor (a returning character from the previous books) with rescuing Aenea, a foreshadowed messiah who will be emerging from the Time Tombs in two days.
The thing about the Cantos is that it has a very complex higher plot, involving AIs and time travel and fate and destiny and all that jazz. Which I never really grasped – like the climax of Neuromancer, I didn’t quite wrap my head around what happened at the end of The Fall of Hyperion. But, again like Neuromancer, I didn’t really care, because the “lower” plot is very enjoyable and comprises the vast majority of the book. Endymion has a few sections talking about the “Godhead” and the Machine God and the role of love and belief and the nature of the universe, etc, but for the most part it’s a fantastic science fiction adventure tale. The bulk of the story involves Raul, Aenea and their android companion A. Bettik (almost a Jim the Negro analog) escaping from their Pax pursuers by rafting down the River Tethys, a river that once ran through two hundred worlds thanks to the farcaster portals (which Aenea can somehow reactivate). Since the Hegemony is one of the most awesome science fiction universes ever written, in my opinion, I was more than happy with this story of high adventure on a dozen different worlds. Half the book is told from Raul’s perspective, and the other half from Father de Soya, a Pax warrior-priest charged with capturing them, who has his own companions in the form of a few surviving spec ops troops from the failed capture attempt on Hyperion. Simmons writes de Soya not as a heartless antagonist, or a demonised religious caricature, but a believable and sympathetic character – in fact, while reading the Raul sections I was rooting for him to escape, and while reading de Soya’s sections I was rooting for him to capture them. If you can make a reader do that, you’re doing something right.
My favourite book, on the whole, is still The Fall of Hyperion – a brilliantly conceived and executed brink-of-war, end-of-the-world, high stakes space opera. And if I had to pick, I’d probably say Hyperion is slightly better than Endymion. But it’s still a great addition to a great series, and I look forward to reading the final book.
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LibraryThing member Phrim
Set several hundred years after The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion relates the tale of Aenea, Raul, and A. Bettik as they journey through the much-changed worlds of the old Hegemony. The readers are surprised to discover that, after the fall of the Core and the AI overlords, things only became more
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dystopic, with the Catholic Church-led Pax taking over using the incredibly disturbing "cruciform" parasites introduced in the original book to allow its citizens to be "resurrected". Of course, the incredibly militaristic Pax has determined that Aenea, the daughter of one of the original Hyperion pilgrims who has time traveled to this era, is a deadly threat to their regime. Thus begins the chase. However, what I really enjoyed about this book was re-discovering the worlds we knew from the previous books, and how the downfall of the farcasters and the introduction of the Pax and its cruciform have changed them. Everything is steeped in mystery. Additionally, many of the characters are very relatable and likable, even the Pax captain sent to hunt down the fugitives. While the ending was certainly not the conclusion of the story, I felt that this book ended at a good turning-point place where the reader could feel some optimism. This book was a welcome change from the scattered action of the previous book. Show Less
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
Endymion takes place 274 years after The Fall of Hyperion and yet Martin Silenus is still alive, thanks to life extension treatments called Poulsens. In truth, I was kind of glad to see the old bastard. As soon as the nameless character started using profanity I knew the old poet was back! But, let
At the same time Raul is attempting to complete his honeydew list, the resurrection of Father Captain de Soya is also playing out. His story isn't half as interesting as Raul's, but he's also after the future One Who Teaches so their stories run parallel to one another and intersect from time to time. A real cat and mouse thriller, only it's hard to determine who is the real mouse and who is the cat. And, if I thought all the dying and resurrection in Fall of Hyperion was crazy, that's nothing compared to how many times Father Captain de Soya is "reborn." Don't worry. You get used to it.
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me start from the beginning. Raul Endymion is the first character we meet in Endymion. He is a hunting guide framed for, and convicted of, the murder of a wealthy client. After a ridiculous trial he is ultimately sentenced (read: framed) to die. Only he does not die. He has been "saved" from execution in order to do Martin Silenus a favor. Well, more than a few favors:- Save this one child, Aenea, from the Swiss Guard and the Pax
- Keep Aenea safe until she becomes old enough to be The One Who Teaches
- Find Earth and bring it back (back from where, I don't know)
- Stop the TechnoCore from its activities
- Convince the Ousters to give Martin real immortality and not this life support crap
- Destroy the Pax and put an end to the Church's power
- Stop the Shrike...ah, the Shrike is back!
At the same time Raul is attempting to complete his honeydew list, the resurrection of Father Captain de Soya is also playing out. His story isn't half as interesting as Raul's, but he's also after the future One Who Teaches so their stories run parallel to one another and intersect from time to time. A real cat and mouse thriller, only it's hard to determine who is the real mouse and who is the cat. And, if I thought all the dying and resurrection in Fall of Hyperion was crazy, that's nothing compared to how many times Father Captain de Soya is "reborn." Don't worry. You get used to it.
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LibraryThing member thefamousmoe
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not as good as Hyperion, better than Fall of Hyperion. Looking forward to the last book in the series.
LibraryThing member ub1707
Like many, I was let down by this continuation of the Hyperion universe. They are still a good read, but it's hard to make up for the fact that they can't stand alongside the first two books.
LibraryThing member frozenyoghurt
This is an excellent book. I liked it a lot.
LibraryThing member thatpirategirl
I don't like abandoning a book halfway through -- I'd rather just finish it so nobody can reply to my criticisms with "the ending was amazing, you don't even know". But for me this was one of those books that I put down for a minute and all my interest in the plot completely vanished. The central
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character, Aenea, doesn't talk like any 12 year old girl I've ever heard, and the story doesn't have the same sense of mystery or building tension that made the first two so good. I'd rather have the interesting mysteries of this universe remain unsolved than learn their answers through a story I don't even care about. Show Less
LibraryThing member KarenHerndon
Again a reread and a great read- my kind of SciFi.
LibraryThing member Toast.x2
For anyone who has NOT read the first two books of the Hyperion “Cantos”, self referencing Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, STOP HERE.
It’s not that i will give spoilers here, instead that you are doing yourself an injustice by continuing. Go pick up the first book and read it. This is one
you will start thinking about its congruence with reality: start seeing the tech it describes in modern life (albeit in nearly unrecognizable forms). you will scan the news and see articles that will remind you of the story. Some people start spreading the viral thought of tattoos… thanks a lot Mongo..
For the genre, it has a lack of balance, spanning horror, sci-fi, fantasy, tech, erotica, and religious theory. This lack of balance makes it ACCESSIBLE, something nearly all sci-fi authors wish for. They want the ability to reach more than the core crowd of fan boys/girls and aficionados. Simmons does this with a silver tongue.
The remainder of this will not make sense to the n00b reader.
Endymion takes place nearly 300 years after The Fall.
The Shrike pilgrims of the first two novels are the stuff of legends, the legacy they left behind equally so. The newly formed PAX, a militaristic extension of the rekindled Catholic church, has taken up the reins of the galaxy. The Ousters are fighting for ground (or space as it were). The Farcaster network is dead, remnants of the highest pinnacle of human existence.
As with the original half of the series, this story is also told in a retrospective form. While circling a planet in a egg shaped prison cell, Endymion is logging his tale into a journal. No room for movement, any moment death could take him as his own breathing may be misconstrued as an “escape attempt” filling his 6 meter by 3 meter prison with cyanide.
Endymion, named after the Hyperion city of his ancestors, is given a list of achievements he must complete. Beginning with the nigh impossible collection of Brawn Lamia’s (as of yet unknown to us readers) daughter. Her 14 year old (yes, i did say 300 years later) daughter is referenced in The Fall by the second Keats cybrid as the “One who Teaches”. Endymion must endgame this (long and not written out here) laundry list of tasks with the saving of humanity by assisting this child, half human,the other half human with an essence of AI soul (do Artificial Intelligences have souls?).
Like anything in a Dan Simmons book is ever that easy :)
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
It’s not that i will give spoilers here, instead that you are doing yourself an injustice by continuing. Go pick up the first book and read it. This is one
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of those thought changing sci-fi series.you will start thinking about its congruence with reality: start seeing the tech it describes in modern life (albeit in nearly unrecognizable forms). you will scan the news and see articles that will remind you of the story. Some people start spreading the viral thought of tattoos… thanks a lot Mongo..
For the genre, it has a lack of balance, spanning horror, sci-fi, fantasy, tech, erotica, and religious theory. This lack of balance makes it ACCESSIBLE, something nearly all sci-fi authors wish for. They want the ability to reach more than the core crowd of fan boys/girls and aficionados. Simmons does this with a silver tongue.
The remainder of this will not make sense to the n00b reader.
Endymion takes place nearly 300 years after The Fall.
The Shrike pilgrims of the first two novels are the stuff of legends, the legacy they left behind equally so. The newly formed PAX, a militaristic extension of the rekindled Catholic church, has taken up the reins of the galaxy. The Ousters are fighting for ground (or space as it were). The Farcaster network is dead, remnants of the highest pinnacle of human existence.
As with the original half of the series, this story is also told in a retrospective form. While circling a planet in a egg shaped prison cell, Endymion is logging his tale into a journal. No room for movement, any moment death could take him as his own breathing may be misconstrued as an “escape attempt” filling his 6 meter by 3 meter prison with cyanide.
Endymion, named after the Hyperion city of his ancestors, is given a list of achievements he must complete. Beginning with the nigh impossible collection of Brawn Lamia’s (as of yet unknown to us readers) daughter. Her 14 year old (yes, i did say 300 years later) daughter is referenced in The Fall by the second Keats cybrid as the “One who Teaches”. Endymion must endgame this (long and not written out here) laundry list of tasks with the saving of humanity by assisting this child, half human,the other half human with an essence of AI soul (do Artificial Intelligences have souls?).
Like anything in a Dan Simmons book is ever that easy :)
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
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LibraryThing member texascheeseman
Endymion
By Dan Simmons
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published In: New York City, NY, USA
Date: 1995
Pgs: 468
Summary:
The Fall of Hyperions and the World Web is 274 years in the past. A shepherd, jack of all trades finds himself with a death sentence for crossing one of the favored rich of the Church. Raul
Genre:
fiction, science fiction, militaria, space opera
Why this book:
My love of the previous two books in this series.
This Story is About:
facing destiny and duty
Favorite Character:
Raul Endymion is an everyman hero.
It’s wrong that the Shrike is a favorite of mine in this series. It’s a remorseless killing machine, hopscotch teleporting through time and space killing at will...and it’s just one of the best villain/anti-villain/doomsday machines in books, ever.
Father Captain DeSoya grew on me over the course of the book. He’s just a wonderful, fully imagined character.
Least Favorite Character:
M. Heurig...the thrice damned MFer. He’s every fatcat who ever thought that his money, power, and position made him more important than everyone else around him. Course, he is just a precursor to the corruption that DeSoya finds as he explores further on his mission.
And every one of the slimy politicians hiding in clerical robes that populate this book. Politicians might be the wrong term, shills for a power of beyond fits as well.
Character I Most Identified With:
Raul Endymion. Dog lovers will identify with him...severely as regards his “first” death sentence. Swept along by events, doing what he must, doing what’s right, he’s a great character.
The Feel:
As much as I loved Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, the first few pages of Endymion breaks my heart.
Favorite Scene:
The aftermath of the swimming in space scene. Sure the ship whose AI housed the girl’s father’s persona, who you were just skinny dipping with, didn’t intentionally turn the gravity back on while you were standing under the huge antigravity pool. Sure he/it didn’t.
The too short interlude with Father Glaucus on Sol Draconi Septem. Really wanted to have one of the adult wraiths appear on page/screen.
Settings:
Hyperion, space, starships in transit and in battle, battlefields, the fog of war, the worlds of the old Web, The River Tethys
Pacing:
The pacing on this story is excellent.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Corporal Nemes inclusion toward the end of the book feels rather deus ex machina. She should have appeared sooner. Maybe not included with Father Captain Federico DeSoya team right away, but more background on who and what she is would have been appreciated.
Last Page Sound:
Damn. It stands up to Hyperion’s Oz march denouement and to the Fall and the Opening of the Tombs in the second book.
Author Assessment:
I will give Dan Simmons my money and my time again. I have only been disappointed once by his storytelling, Drood. And I think that was more a function of the time period he was having to represent and my vile mood and relationship with Great Expectations than a reflection on his writing style or ability.
Editorial Assessment:
100%
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library, Irving, TX
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
The Hyperion Cantos and the Endymion Cycle, or whatever it is called, could absolutely be a movie. I stand corrected. The entire cycle of novels are labelled as the Hyperion Cantos: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion.
Casting call:
5 or 10 years ago, Ryan Reynolds would have made an excellent Raul Endymion. Now, I’m not sure who should be in the role. Although, it seems like every time he shows up in a movie critics pan it. I believe they don’t like him. Shrug.
Chloe Moretz as Aenea.
Michael Nouri as Cardinal Lourdusmay.
Would recommend to:
genre fans, Wars, Gate, Battlestar, browncoats, and Trek fans, militaria fans
By Dan Simmons
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published In: New York City, NY, USA
Date: 1995
Pgs: 468
Summary:
The Fall of Hyperions and the World Web is 274 years in the past. A shepherd, jack of all trades finds himself with a death sentence for crossing one of the favored rich of the Church. Raul
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Endymion awakens from his death sentence in a hidden place under the care of an android and a poet out of myth and legend. Charged with a quest by the old poet, he sets out to rescue a messiah, travel the collapsed web, and find Old Earth. Father Captain DeSoya follows them, his mission to capture the girl and return her to the Holy See of the Church on Pacem. And the Shrike stalks them all.Genre:
fiction, science fiction, militaria, space opera
Why this book:
My love of the previous two books in this series.
This Story is About:
facing destiny and duty
Favorite Character:
Raul Endymion is an everyman hero.
It’s wrong that the Shrike is a favorite of mine in this series. It’s a remorseless killing machine, hopscotch teleporting through time and space killing at will...and it’s just one of the best villain/anti-villain/doomsday machines in books, ever.
Father Captain DeSoya grew on me over the course of the book. He’s just a wonderful, fully imagined character.
Least Favorite Character:
M. Heurig...the thrice damned MFer. He’s every fatcat who ever thought that his money, power, and position made him more important than everyone else around him. Course, he is just a precursor to the corruption that DeSoya finds as he explores further on his mission.
And every one of the slimy politicians hiding in clerical robes that populate this book. Politicians might be the wrong term, shills for a power of beyond fits as well.
Character I Most Identified With:
Raul Endymion. Dog lovers will identify with him...severely as regards his “first” death sentence. Swept along by events, doing what he must, doing what’s right, he’s a great character.
The Feel:
As much as I loved Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, the first few pages of Endymion breaks my heart.
Favorite Scene:
The aftermath of the swimming in space scene. Sure the ship whose AI housed the girl’s father’s persona, who you were just skinny dipping with, didn’t intentionally turn the gravity back on while you were standing under the huge antigravity pool. Sure he/it didn’t.
The too short interlude with Father Glaucus on Sol Draconi Septem. Really wanted to have one of the adult wraiths appear on page/screen.
Settings:
Hyperion, space, starships in transit and in battle, battlefields, the fog of war, the worlds of the old Web, The River Tethys
Pacing:
The pacing on this story is excellent.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Corporal Nemes inclusion toward the end of the book feels rather deus ex machina. She should have appeared sooner. Maybe not included with Father Captain Federico DeSoya team right away, but more background on who and what she is would have been appreciated.
Last Page Sound:
Damn. It stands up to Hyperion’s Oz march denouement and to the Fall and the Opening of the Tombs in the second book.
Author Assessment:
I will give Dan Simmons my money and my time again. I have only been disappointed once by his storytelling, Drood. And I think that was more a function of the time period he was having to represent and my vile mood and relationship with Great Expectations than a reflection on his writing style or ability.
Editorial Assessment:
100%
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library, Irving, TX
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
The Hyperion Cantos and the Endymion Cycle, or whatever it is called, could absolutely be a movie. I stand corrected. The entire cycle of novels are labelled as the Hyperion Cantos: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion.
Casting call:
5 or 10 years ago, Ryan Reynolds would have made an excellent Raul Endymion. Now, I’m not sure who should be in the role. Although, it seems like every time he shows up in a movie critics pan it. I believe they don’t like him. Shrug.
Chloe Moretz as Aenea.
Michael Nouri as Cardinal Lourdusmay.
Would recommend to:
genre fans, Wars, Gate, Battlestar, browncoats, and Trek fans, militaria fans
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LibraryThing member odinblindeye
I absolutely love this series. Mixing Sci-fi with literary ideas is fantastic (though Simmons has always done this in his works). 3rd in the series, but still at the same level (if not better than) when it started.
LibraryThing member mrtall
Wow, what a drop-off! After a highly enjoyable tour through Dan Simmons's universe in Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, this third installment in the four-volume series is an enormous disappointment. I found the going hard right from the outset, lost interest completely about a third of the way in,
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and decided my reading time could be better used elsewhere. I've heard that the final book of the series is better, but this plodding cosmic car chase of a tale has proved too daunting a barrier for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member Skribe
Dan Simmons' classic Hyperion Cantos takes a new direction in this third book. Adopting a stripped-down narrative structure that feels more like a thriller than a science fiction novel, it gains in emotional involvement what is loses in mind-blowing conceptualization. The first two novels felt like
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mental fireworks, the galaxy-spanning ideas bursting fast and furious. This plot, those concepts set firmly in place, concerns a chase and two perspectives, shifting back and forth between pursuers and pursued. Characters have a chance to become well-liked or loved, and even funny. There are extended cinematic action scenes that had me on the edge of my earbuds. I liked it a lot, and look forward to the conclusion in Rise of Endymion. Show Less
LibraryThing member stpnwlf
Dan Simmons series - very good SF and well written.
LibraryThing member Karlstar
The third book in the Hyperion saga. It is quite a bit in the future, after the Fall, and the loss of the transport portals.
There's a lot going on in this book, some of it science fiction, some more resembling mysticism. It is still vast, very imaginative, and well written. I did not get a sense
There's a lot going on in this book, some of it science fiction, some more resembling mysticism. It is still vast, very imaginative, and well written. I did not get a sense
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that the series was winding down, or should. Show Less
LibraryThing member Clueless
The past few years have been one improbability after another, each more marvelous and seemingly inevitable than the last.
How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?
“Meaning no disrespect, sir,” says the other man, “but there’s no way in the Good Lord’s
Why am I seeking logic or sanity here? I’d asked myself at the moment. There hasn’t been any so far.
Sounds like and IPhone to me;
All were capable of being used as communicators, of storing massive amounts of data, of tapping into the local datasphere, and – especially with the older ones – of actually hooking into planetary fatline relays via remote so that the megasphere could be accessed.
"..What he wanted -- what he wanted his shepherd to learn -- was how exalted these things could be -- poetry, nature, wisdom, the voices of friends, brave deeds, the glory of strange places, the charm of the opposite sex. But he stopped before he got to the real essence."
"What real essence?" I asked. Our raft rose and fell on the sea's breathing.
"The meanings of all motions, shapes and sounds," whispered the girl. "...all forms and substances/ Straight homeward to their symbol-essences..."
The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggles through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just doesn’t give a sh*t.
On the debate on whether Artificial Intelligence has a soul;
“And what was our DNA designed to do for the first few hundred million years, my son?” Eat? Kill? Procreate? Were we any less ignoble in our beginnings that the pre-Hegira silicon and DNA-based AI? As Teilhard would have it, it is consciousness which God has created to accelerate the universe’s self-awareness as a means to understanding his will.”
How Artificial Intelligence fits into evolution;
Father Glaucus turned his blind eyes in her direction. “Precisely, my dear. But we are not the only avatars of humanity. Once our computing machines achieved self-consciousness, they became part of this design. They may resist it. They may try to undo it for their own complex purposes. But the universe continues to weave it’s own design.”
“I attribute no definitive and absolute value to the various constructs of man. I believe that they will disappear, recast in a new whole that we cannot yet conceive. At the same time I admit that they have an essential provisional role – that they are necessary, inevitable phases which we (we or the race) must pass through in the course of our metamorphosis. What I love in them is not their particular form, but their function, which is to build up, in some mysterious way, first something divinizable – and then through the grace of Christ alighting on our effort, something divine.”
Connectedness;
“In the Cantos,” I said, “the scholar character seems to discover that the thing the AI Core had called the Void Which Binds is love. That love is a basic force of the universe, like gravity and electromagnetism, like strong and weak nuclear force. In the poem Sol sees that the Core Ultimate Intelligence will never be capable of understanding that empathy is inseparable from the source…from love. The old poet described love as ‘the subquantum impossibility that carried information from photon to photon…’”
“So you’re saying that there needs to be another Isaac Newton to explain the physics of love?” I said. “To give us its laws of thermodynamics, its rules of entropy? To show us the calculus of love?”
I was really disappointed when I finished this book. It was just like a chapter in a saga. I wanted to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! But when I reread the passages where I had turned down the page corners. I could see that it was a whole book on it's own. And a good one at that. Writing like this makes me think that Dan Simmons is really cool.
How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?
“Meaning no disrespect, sir,” says the other man, “but there’s no way in the Good Lord’s
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******* universe that anyone can bar accidents or the unexpected.”Why am I seeking logic or sanity here? I’d asked myself at the moment. There hasn’t been any so far.
Sounds like and IPhone to me;
All were capable of being used as communicators, of storing massive amounts of data, of tapping into the local datasphere, and – especially with the older ones – of actually hooking into planetary fatline relays via remote so that the megasphere could be accessed.
"..What he wanted -- what he wanted his shepherd to learn -- was how exalted these things could be -- poetry, nature, wisdom, the voices of friends, brave deeds, the glory of strange places, the charm of the opposite sex. But he stopped before he got to the real essence."
"What real essence?" I asked. Our raft rose and fell on the sea's breathing.
"The meanings of all motions, shapes and sounds," whispered the girl. "...all forms and substances/ Straight homeward to their symbol-essences..."
The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggles through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just doesn’t give a sh*t.
On the debate on whether Artificial Intelligence has a soul;
“And what was our DNA designed to do for the first few hundred million years, my son?” Eat? Kill? Procreate? Were we any less ignoble in our beginnings that the pre-Hegira silicon and DNA-based AI? As Teilhard would have it, it is consciousness which God has created to accelerate the universe’s self-awareness as a means to understanding his will.”
How Artificial Intelligence fits into evolution;
Father Glaucus turned his blind eyes in her direction. “Precisely, my dear. But we are not the only avatars of humanity. Once our computing machines achieved self-consciousness, they became part of this design. They may resist it. They may try to undo it for their own complex purposes. But the universe continues to weave it’s own design.”
“I attribute no definitive and absolute value to the various constructs of man. I believe that they will disappear, recast in a new whole that we cannot yet conceive. At the same time I admit that they have an essential provisional role – that they are necessary, inevitable phases which we (we or the race) must pass through in the course of our metamorphosis. What I love in them is not their particular form, but their function, which is to build up, in some mysterious way, first something divinizable – and then through the grace of Christ alighting on our effort, something divine.”
Connectedness;
“In the Cantos,” I said, “the scholar character seems to discover that the thing the AI Core had called the Void Which Binds is love. That love is a basic force of the universe, like gravity and electromagnetism, like strong and weak nuclear force. In the poem Sol sees that the Core Ultimate Intelligence will never be capable of understanding that empathy is inseparable from the source…from love. The old poet described love as ‘the subquantum impossibility that carried information from photon to photon…’”
“So you’re saying that there needs to be another Isaac Newton to explain the physics of love?” I said. “To give us its laws of thermodynamics, its rules of entropy? To show us the calculus of love?”
I was really disappointed when I finished this book. It was just like a chapter in a saga. I wanted to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! But when I reread the passages where I had turned down the page corners. I could see that it was a whole book on it's own. And a good one at that. Writing like this makes me think that Dan Simmons is really cool.
Show Less
LibraryThing member brakketh
Preferred the first two books but still good science fiction and an amazing universe.
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
This follow-up to the Hyperion novels is strange: a travelogue that almost completely lacks any kind of narrative urgency. Raul Endymion, the child prophet Aenea (daughter of two characters from the original books), and A. Bettik (a minor character from the original books) travel via raft through
I was far more interested in the Jesuit priest pursuing them, a military commander conflicted between his duty and his morality, as he stumbles upon a conspiracy in the church. Simmons does such a good job with him that you want him to capture Aenea and company, and his plotline also has characters with actual personalities and more tension and complication. It's a weird imbalance.
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portals taking them from world to world. The book starts well, but once the journey begins, the story quickly becomes dull and repetitive because there is no story, nothing at stake for these characters.I was far more interested in the Jesuit priest pursuing them, a military commander conflicted between his duty and his morality, as he stumbles upon a conspiracy in the church. Simmons does such a good job with him that you want him to capture Aenea and company, and his plotline also has characters with actual personalities and more tension and complication. It's a weird imbalance.
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LibraryThing member elahrairah
A fine action-space opera book. Lacking the serious headfuckery of the earlier books that made you feel in the presence of genius, but well worth a read nonetheless.
LibraryThing member burritapal
Getting ready to read the 4th and last book of Hyperion cantos, and I'm already feeling sad it will be the last one.
This book is righteous, amazing and imaginative beyond imagining. I fall in love with the characters--especially A. Bettik, the Android, Father Glaucus, and especially Aenea. I began
Dan Simmons is something else--certainly an incredibly talented writer. I wish I didn't know that he likes to hunt. Non-human animals.
This book is righteous, amazing and imaginative beyond imagining. I fall in love with the characters--especially A. Bettik, the Android, Father Glaucus, and especially Aenea. I began
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to suspect the Catholic Church before it was admitted in the book--probably because I used to be a Catholic, and I know how that pseudo-holy mumbo jumbo works. The ones spouting the most God-stuff are often the very ones that sold their souls, and are trying hard to convince everyone how holy they are.Dan Simmons is something else--certainly an incredibly talented writer. I wish I didn't know that he likes to hunt. Non-human animals.
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LibraryThing member JudyGibson
I'm really enjoying this set (not exactly a series but 2 2 books). Fitting that I've finished this one on the 200th anniversary of the death of John Keats at age 25, since his poetry is the framework for these works. Great adventure, gorgeous writing, admirable characters, wonderful imagination.
LibraryThing member infjsarah
The popularity of this series seems to fall off as it goes on. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a more straightforward plot than the first two.
Aenea is overly mature for a 12 year old but she's not meant to be fully human - she has knowledge and experience beyond a "normal" 12 year old.
Am hoping
Aenea is overly mature for a 12 year old but she's not meant to be fully human - she has knowledge and experience beyond a "normal" 12 year old.
Am hoping
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for a satisfying conclusion. Show Less
LibraryThing member JHemlock
It seems that Dan Simmons decided to take a break, exhale and allow the reader to collect themselves. In this third volume to the HYPERION series we find ourselves in more action, adventure and simple SCI FI…that is compared to the first two novels which utterly melted our brains. By scaling down
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the brain drain ENDYMION allows the reader to relax and just enjoy the happenings. The story takes place a considerable time after the first two books. Now. With that being said it is to take nothing away from the book itself. It is well written, a little comical and our characters are allowed to show themselves to the reader regarding their development. Good addition to the series Show Less
LibraryThing member ReoDon
Excellent!
Subjects
Awards
Chesley Award (Nominee — 2015)
Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire (Winner — 1997)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1996-01
Physical description
468 p.; 6.75 x 1.5 inches
ISBN
0553100203 / 9780553100204
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