Hyperion - Dan Simmons

I rather enjoyed the series, especially the second book. Almost every chapter had its own cliffhanger that kept you on edge until the book returned to that character's storyline.
 
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Loved all four of the Hyperion books, enjoyed the Ilium ones, was terrified by Carrion Comfort, if it had been on TV I'd have been watching it from behind the sofa, so was too much of a wimp to read the other horror books, but the others he's written since Ilium I've not been able to finish (I'm at that stage in life where there isn't enough time left to persevere with books I'm not enjoying)
 
I think there's a story in Hyperion for everyone, personally I loved all of the characters stories, but for me the one that really moved me was the one about sol weintrub (sp.?) and his daughter. Maybe it was because I had just had a daughter of my own but it's one of the few stories that actually moved me to tears.
 
I've read the Hyperion sequence of books: "Hyperion", "Fall of Hyperion", "Endymion" and "Rise of Endymion". I enjoyed all of them, but especially the Hyperion Cantos, the first two novels which were superb. I think I've read the Hyperion Cantos twice.

I also read Simmon's "Ilium" and "Olympos". I thought "Illium" both started off and ended well but the followup, "Olympos", was a disappointment.

I am definitely looking forward to reading some of his horror, though no idea when I'll get around to it as I already have a backlog of books that I need to read.
 
I deliberately skipped Hyperion for years. I did not look like my kind of stuff. I finally read it a few years ago because of so much talk about it. I think of it more as fantasy-horror than science fiction. I was annoyed at the not-end since I did not intend to read Fall of Hyperion.

I read that too in order to see what happened with the characters.

Still not my kind of stuff.

psik
 
Boreas said:
I am definitely looking forward to reading some of his horror, though no idea when I'll get around to it as I already have a backlog of books that I need to read.
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He doesn't seem to write short ones these days, does he?

My son in Texas convinced me to buy and begin reading The Terror. Some imaginative horror here. At 750 pages, it's a project. I convinced myself to keep going by reading up on the actual events and characters upon which the novel is based: Nasty stuff in the Arctic ice in the late 1840s. As of 2013, it seems nobody is any closer to unraveling the mystery surrounding the demise of the two ships looking for a Northwest Passage, Erebus and Terror. Shoot, they can't even find them. So that leaves Simmons with carte blanche to create his own reality. And he does. Boy, does he.
 
clovis-man said:
He doesn't seem to write short ones these days, does he?

My son in Texas convinced me to buy and begin reading The Terror. Some imaginative horror here. At 750 pages, it's a project. I convinced myself to keep going by reading up on the actual events and characters upon which the novel is based: Nasty stuff in the Arctic ice in the late 1840s. As of 2013, it seems nobody is any closer to unraveling the mystery surrounding the demise of the two ships looking for a Northwest Passage, Erebus and Terror. Shoot, they can't even find them. So that leaves Simmons with carte blanche to create his own reality. And he does. Boy, does he.
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I was initially thinking of trying out "Carrion Comfort". I just checked out a brief synopsis of "The Terror" and that looks good as well, though I've already got the paperback for "Carrion Comfort" somewhere in a box, so that will most likely be first.
 
Boreas said:
I was initially thinking of trying out "Carrion Comfort". I just checked out a brief synopsis of "The Terror" and that looks good as well, though I've already got the paperback for "Carrion Comfort" somewhere in a box, so that will most likely be first.
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By all means. I read that one some years back. Quite good and a lot shorter. :D
 
Going to start reading this, just bought it yesterday.
 
I found Hyperion to be a good read with great character building and plot formation( Cantos, because It is formed from base poetry ). It really dragged me in, However...
I was so let down by the depiction of the Shrike and as I found later on the general descriptions of anything that doesn't exist in our world @ 2016. Essentially great story telling, terrible visionary work.
It felt like I was reading a grown up version of The Iron Man (of which I do appreciate ).
the second and heavier read, Fall of Hyperion, really went nowhere quickly and although Idid feel the characters personal stories were looked after well, I couldn't settle with their integration into the story as a whole. Too slow.
Overall I would rate 7/10 for the pair read in series.
 
I really like the framing device used in the first book. Not perfectly paced books but they have a lot of good ideas and well fleshed out characters.
 
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