Hyperion (SF Masterworks) - Dan Simmons

It´s been about a week since I finished Hyperion and since I cannot stop thinking about this book I´m changing my initial star rating from 4 stars to 4,5 stars. Because who am I kidding, I absolutely loved this book and it might become a five star read upon a reread (which will happen at some point).

 

Hyperion tells the story of seven people, who are on a pilgrimage to the planet Hyperion in order to seek out the mysterious time tombs, where the mystical called the Shrike resides. Every pigrim has a wish that he is asking of the Shrike to get fulfilled. But only one wish gets fulfilled, while the other six pilgrims have to die. In order to prepare for the encounter with the Shrike, each pilgrim tell the stories of their lives, not knowing that the fate of humanity might lie in their hands.

 

The reader basically gets seven different stories wrapped up in one book, six of the pilgrims story and the overall story arc of the pilgrimage and the impending intergalatic war, which is looming on the horizon and probably is the main premise of the second book in the series. And everyone of these stories were really good, some of them were even breathtakingly beautiful, haunting or sad and some of them will stick with me for a very long time. There were only two stories that fell a little bit short for me, but they were by no means bad, they weren´t just as good as the other ones. My personal ranking of the pilgrims stories is:

 

1. The Priest´s tale

2. The Scholar´s Tale

3. The Detective´s tale

4. The Consul´s tale

5. The Poet´s tale

6. The Soldier´s tale

(show spoiler)

 

The thing that strucks me most is how Dan Simmons manages to give every story it´s distinctive style and how he uses the stories to slowly reveal the worldbuildung to the reader. At the beginning you don´t know exactly what going on, but as the story progresses you slowly realise what is happening in the universe of the Hegemony and that there is so much more at stake than the personal grievances of the characters. 

 

It´s my second book by Dan Simmons (I read The Terror years ago) and there is something about his beautiful, haunting and engaging writing style that makes his books compulsively readable.

I cannot wait to read the second book in the series, simply because I want to spend more time with these characters and the fascinating world Simmons has created.

 

I´ve read this book for the Tomorrowland 33 space and it is tagged as science fiction on GR.

 

Page count: 473 pages

Money earned: $5.00